Visiting family and going to the beach with friends is a rare opportunity nowadays. Sharing a bottle of wine together and watching the amazing sunsets is not so rare. But why am I downing an entire bottle of cheap wine on the beach in The Hague with Jonas? Okay, I can’t hold it any longer… So I’m just gonna tell you that in a week I’m going to the Canary Islands and then I’m boarding a boat to BRAZIL! 😀 This is terribly exciting stuff. Jonas invited me to come aboard this repositioning cruise ship that will leave Las PalmasContinue reading
hitchhiking
Autumn Canals of Utrecht (The Netherlands)
A frosty morning at the canals of Utrecht after catching a ride with my mother from our hometown to her work. Utrecht is my favorite city in the Netherlands. I have to go to The Hague today to renew my passport for further travels… like… really faraway travels… You’ll see that in my other posts! Did you know many cities in Holland other than Amsterdam also have canals? The Netherlands is more than just coffee shops, Amsterdam’s red-light district, and too many bicycles. I don’t think it’s bad for a country’s advertising to be known for these things. It’s just different.Continue reading
Free Chocolate for Hitchhikers! To the Netherlands…
When you’re hitchhiking home and some nice Italian guy gives you a box of chocolates! As you might have heard, I’m not wild about chocolate. I think it can be okay and the Ferrero Rocher stuff is a nice energy boost. So I told the guy to keep his chocolates, but it seems like he had stacks and stacks of boxes and he insisted. Perhaps it was a benign smuggling business, who knows. Funny thing: in Europe, I receive chocolate from drivers all the time. It’s such a pattern across countries. Like, why do car owners buy too much chocolateContinue reading
Hitchhiking Berlin to Stuttgart in No Time
So I left Berlin for Stuttgart to visit a friend and knocked down a good 670 km hitchhiking away from dreary to slightly less dreary weather. Just four rides and a total waiting time of maybe 20 minutes! There’s a reason why all the distance and speed-hitchhiking records are made in Germany! My previous hitchhiking experiences in/through Germany have always been fast and easy. Fast and easy is how I like my hitchhiking days. Right after taking this photo, I caught my final ride. I didn’t even finish my cigarette. My last driver made lots of jokes about the train constructionContinue reading
Gibraltar: Tech Problems and Blind Hitchhiking
I’m back in the UK! Last night I found a last-minute couchsurfing host in the Spanish border town of La Linea. He was so kind to drop me at the border today. So now I can go hitchhiking Gibraltar and explore the monkey rock. The guy who took this photo is a born and raised Gibraltarian. He organizes some of the concerts for the national week here. Many people in the streets dressed in the national colors in anticipation of this week. It culminates on the 10th of September when it’s their national day. The border crossing to Gibraltar wasn’tContinue reading
Yurt-Surfing in Andalucía, Spain
How life gives you awesome people: what began as a spontaneous one-night freecamping invitation after a bad ride, turned into a three-day yurt-surfing adventure with my new friend from Hungary! Turns out she lives at this awesome place hidden in the woods with alternative housing. Housing such as yurts, caravans, and other ‘outdoor furniture’ (Spanish law is strange). The first night I pitched my tent next to her caravan, from where you could even see the Rock of Gibraltar! After that, we crashed at a yurt (i.e. yurt-surfing) at her neighbor’s place, because the winds were too strong. Yurts areContinue reading
Hitchhiking the Scenic Route in Andalucía
On the move again! I just left Málaga to hitchhike the scenic route towards Granada. Though I might go to Ronda or Gibraltar directly to catch some speed again on my way to Portugal. We’ll see what happens. I’ve no idea where I’m going, but it’s fun to pointlessly hitchhike in some direction just because of a nice mountain pass, though in Spain you can’t be picky. So far the average of 50% rides with foreigners and 50% with locals holds up, which is the highest I’ve ever experienced. I even caught a ride with some Dutch people in thisContinue reading
My Evolution of Packing: A History of My Baggage
I wasn’t always a backpacking traveler. Being from a tiny affluent country in Europe, it’s pretty normal to go on holidays abroad (privilege!) and I personally don’t know any of my fellow same-passport holders who haven’t been abroad. Travel has been a part of my life since birth. Normally, we’d travel by car, giving us plenty of room to bring Stuff™ and sometimes we’d go by airplane. Packing light or efficiently wasn’t a concern for the car trips Only for the plane, we’d have to really think about what to pack as there are limits to how much Stuff you can bring. 0. The Carry-A-Corpse Suitcase Amsterdam Schiphol Airport,Continue reading
A Little Tibet in Spain: Karma Guen Buddhist Center
Oh my, this mountain vista from the stupa of the Karma Guen Buddhist center in Vélez-Málaga is stunning! Yes, I didn’t spontaneously leave Spain for Nepal or Tibet, although I’m hoping to visit in the future. I visited this Buddhist retreat center in Andalucía with my sort of spontaneous Couchsurfing guest from Russia. Lots of the people at Karma Guen are actually Russian, so we received a tour of the place in Russian and English from one of the people that’s involved there. The whole demographics of this center was very international. We got our blessing at the main hallContinue reading