February.

Oman: The year started off with a visit to a country new to us. We only had 8 full days in Oman, yet we managed quite well: We spent a few days in Muscat and then we were off on a 4×4 road trip through Jebel Akhdar. Our travel here made such an impression that we’ll return again in February 2015.

Sabres in Muscat, Oman.

Australia: Australia is my second home. I don’t know how many times I’ve been Down Under, but two hands are definitely not enough to count. Part of our family lives in the most amazing city Sydney, which makes things a lot easier. It’s been almost 5 years since my last visit, so it was long overdue. Plus it was my starting point for my two months time-out.

Sydney, Wellington and Vienna – my three favourite cities (to live in), with Sydney on top.

March.

United Arab Emirates: Due to a personal matter, I had to interrupt my time-out for a few days and fly back home. After only 48 hours in Vienna, my journey started again with a 3 day stop-over in Dubai.

The Dubai Marina is is an artificial canal city, built along a stretch of the Persian Gulf shoreline.

New Zealand: A visit to New Zealand has been a dream of mine since I listened to my uncle’s stories. He travelled through NZ for more than 4 months many years ago. And ever since I saw the first part of the LOTR trilogy, it was clear that I had to see this beautiful country for myself. It only took 12 years for me to finally do so. And it was the most amazing one-month road trip I could ever imagine…

Every single stop on my New Zealand road trip was a highlight, yet Milford Track – with a cruise at Milford Sound at the end – was an adventure I will never forget.

May.

Italy: Trapani in Sicily is an important fishing port and the main gateway to the nearby Aegadian Islands. And it was our travel destination last May.

Much of Trapani’s economy still depends on the sea. Fishing and canning are the main local industries.

June.

Italy: Austria lies in the Central Europe, which is very convenient – especially if you’re a travel addict and have 4 days to spare. South Tyrol (the area around Antholzer Lake to be exact) was on our agenda for a long weekend. This meant that we’d go on a road trip through the Austrian Alps, which was something we’ve wanted to do for a long time as well.

The landscape around Austria’s highest mountain – the Grossglockner – even blew us Austrians away…

July.

Bangladesh: Bangladesh is definitely one of the most intriguing places one could ever visit. And also one of the most adventurous! It was our second trip within three years and we can honestly say that Bangladesh has become one of our favourite travel destinations, with Dhaka as an exciting city as a gateway.

Our human hands are unique. Only we can grasp, hold, move, and manipulate objects with them. Hands are essential for any kind of work. Here you can see the hands of a blind woman begging in the streets of Dhaka. It almost feels like she knows how much money has just been given her…

Thailand: Bangkok was just a stop-over point, but if it’s on the list, then we spend at least a couple of days here. Thailand’s capital city is one of our favourite for exploring markets … and as you know, markets are our favourite shooting place, therefore it was a real paradise.

Khlong Toei Market is Bangkok’s biggest fresh market and you will find almost anything you need here.

August.

China: Good old China is a must at least once every year. Visiting the Honghe Hani rice terraces in Yunnan and the Guoliang Tunnel Road in Henan were two travel highlights of the year.

A local Chinese smoking a pipe in the old town of Xinjie, Henan Province.

The Netherlands: Travelling to Amsterdam for the Canal Pride was something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. And therefore, it was yet another first in 2014. The spirit and energy you could feel in the city – not only during Pride week – is something I’ll think about for many years to come.

The Prinsengracht in Amsterdam is one of the most well-known Gracht’s and the heart of the Canal Pride Parade.

October.

Hong Kong: Futuristic architecture, a breathtaking skyline, amazing cuisine combined with traditional Chinese culture is what describes Hong Kong best. To name just a few of the things we did here: By accident stepping into the centre of the Umbrella Movement, drinking a few cocktails at one of Hong Kong’s most well-known rooftop bars, exploring the several wet markets around the city and finding the balance between tradition and modernity. Loved it!

Hong Kong is a colourful city full of culture, tradition and trendiness.

China: Three days in Guangzhou are definitely not enough, since we’re talking about the third largest city in China, yet time was limited and therefore we made the most out of it.

Chinese men playing a game of Mahjong in the streets of Guangzhou.

December.

France: It was yet again a long weekend that brought us to Paris at the beginning of December. One might think that 36 hours is not a long time, but if you’re on a mission and know where to go, you’ll see more than you thought you could.

Paris is a city for every season. Here with its landmark the Eiffel Tower.

Back in the Old Days.

So, this first trip through lots of African countries happened without a single guide book, and my friends and I managed to find restaurants, petrol stations, hotels and directions all by ourselves. We even didn’t miss the villages on our way through the Sahara desert. And you have to keep in mind: Those days, modern electronics, like GPS, were also not invented; we simply relied on a compass and the only available map we had, the “Michelin Map” (nowadays still good for travelling through Africa).

Soon after we finished our trip, the travel guide book hype started … with Lonely Planet on the forefront. On one of our next trips, the LP book “Africa on a shoestring” was in our possession. It was all a lot easier now. Sure, we would have found restaurants and hotels, but why bother with the extra time when you had a reliable guide book at hand?

So on it went for a couple of trips and we (and many others) totally confided in these bibles. Until we met a person somewhere on the road without such books. “No, I don’t need any travel guide book” he said. At first we thought that he might have been travelling on such a low budget, that he couldn’t even buy a guide book, but he had absolutely no intentions looking at our copy…

Lost Edge.

After years of travelling by car/truck, we planned a trip by plane – of course with a guide book in tow. On the plane, it was useful as reading material and with the description of the place we were flying to, we already knew everything beforehand. But this was wrong… The desired hotel turned out to be a very noisy place with the nearby mosque as a wake up call at 3 am. Didn’t the author of the book stay there? Was he deaf? This should have been mentioned, or the hotel should have been skipped at all… But never mind. We checked out the next morning and found another place to stay at – better, nicer and quiet, and not even mentioned in the book!

And this is the thing with these guide books nowadays. Things change so fast; places close down, new ones open and therefore, keeping a guide book up to date can be very tricky. Especially when the author, who should update a new edition, is a bit of a bored fella, who’s rather up for drinking holes then checking on the changes. The guide book won’t be accurate any more, and with every new edition it will only get worse…

When we decided to drop (most) guide books.

The encounter that really made us realize that (most) guide books couldn’t be ‘trusted’ any more, was during a trip to North-East India. When travelling East beyond Kolkata, it seemed that the Lonely Planet India guide book hasn’t been updated since the colonial era. Except the maps with the cities and villages marked, almost nothing was up to date. We really had the impression that the authors didn’t visit the area at all since the first edition. The LP India guide book is pretty heavy, and as there was no valuable information in it, we disposed it at a train station on the way to Darjeeling.

And then we were ‘on our own’, without a guide book, and had to find a place for the night. Miraculously, after driving around for a bit with a tuk tuk driver, he brought us to a very nice hotel which had just opened a year ago. And even without 20 outdated restaurant suggestions, we didn’t starve because we found some really great local street vendors who sold nice and decent food. And we didn’t miss the bus station for our next destination either… Finding it the day before our intended departure, we bought the tickets, asked for the departure time and were on our way the next morning.

The point of this post is simple: if you’re a smart person, you better gather some general information via the internet before you start your trip or in the local community at sight. Ask around, get in touch with the people around you, buy a local newspaper and look for other travellers. Rather than sticking your face in an outdated guidebook, communicate.

When reading the local newspaper in India last year, I came across this article below. After this, I thought to myself that I’ll send Lonely Planet an e-mail asking them, why their guide books have become more and more inaccurate. Until today, I never even got a reply. Mistakes can happen and times are getting tougher and tougher – also in the guide book business -, but when one is altered by loyal readers, a statement shouldn’t be too hard…

Lonely Planet gives Assam a ‘makeover’ – Just a ‘minor’ mistake…

Of course, there are exceptions, because there are well researched guide books out there. It’s not all about quantity but much rather quality. Rather than having a bunch of unreliable guide books from every country on the planet, stick to a few accurate ones and start expanding slowly… but that’s just my opinion.

What about you? Any bad/good experiences when it comes to travel guide books?

Me and my mum.

I have been travelling all my life. As you might already know, my first years were spent on the African continent and ever since then, the travel-fever struck me. Today I’m 25 years old and still trying to get around as much as possible. I have visited over 70 countries and I’m planning to see many more. In 1995 my mum decided to take me out of elementary school for a year to travel to Indonesia. She has always wanted to go there and decided that this was a good (and easy) time to take me out of school (since I was only in 3rd grade).

Getting ready to board the plane.

Our travels took us to Flores, Komodo & Timor before we decided to visit Sulawesi. My mum loved (and still does) travelling off the beaten path, so the Togian Islands where the right destination for us. Togian is situated right in the middle of the Sulawesi “mouth” and getting there was far from easy: First we had to fly to Mandao, then down to Gorontalo and from there we went on a 6-7 hours boat ride.

But it was all worth it! Togian is paradise as you know it: White sandy beaches, palm trees, crystal clean blue water and no tourist in sight. It’s also a real diver’s delight with some of the most amazing reefs. We’ve been to Togian three times, last in 1998 so I don’t know if this is still the case today. Anyway, we stayed for about three weeks and not only did I make friends for life but I also started my acting career ;) Some Indonesian movie was being filmed there and I guess the director quickly made a chance in the script … Quite an experience. But this was not my most memorable moment after all. It actually happened when we left the island.

Getting ready for the big moment…

It was so much fun being a part of the movie.

I made a couple of really good friends during our stay.

There was no regular ferry to and from the Togian Islands, so we decided to set sail with a local fisherman. His medium-size boat looked sea-worthy and therefore nothing could stop us (yet). Turns out, the boat was fine but the captain seemed to have his first day on the job. As I said earlier, the trip usually takes about 6-7 hours. After the 9th hour, we started wondering and soon realized that we were lost at sea … After about 11 hours, land finally was in sight.

We steered into a cove and right after we did, a giant whale surfaced in front of our boat (and I really mean in front of our boat: maybe 2-4 meters at the max).  I’ve never seen a whale before, so you can imagine how exited this 9 year old girl must have been ;) Later we found out that it was a humpback whale … No, still not the most memorable moment.

After the excitement with the whale, land in sight and the obvious relief of the captain and crew, we came closer to the shore. A little (at least it looked little from the boat) village called “Tilamuta” was going to be out “docking station”. At first, all we could see were these huts made out of cardboard, wood and corrugated iron, when all over sudden heaps of canoes started coming our way (there must have been 50 – 60 of them). We had no clue what in the world was going on and were just told to get our belongings – and we did. One of the crew members (who spoke a bit of English) told us that we had to get onto the canoes, since the boat couldn’t go any further because the water was too shallow. Ulli wanted me to  go on land with one boat and she would take another (I think she didn’t trust the tiny little canoes to hold us both). I did as she said.

When arriving at the beach, I could already see hundreds of people waiting there. As soon as I lay a foot on land, everyone started touching me and my hair. I was used to people touching me and especially my blond hair but never ever like this … It seemed like there were a millions. Ulli came up behind me, took my hand and we started walking … with the entire village in tow, still touching us on every single body part. Later we found out, that we were the first white people to ever set foot here.

We walked for about 10 minutes until we arrived at the chief’s house. He invited us onto his patio, brought us tee and offered me the only white plastic chair there was. While Ulli was chatting with some of the guys, I sat down and started zapping through the Indonesian TV channels (If you have travelled to remote places you’ll know that there is one thing that cannot be missing: a TV and a gigantic satellite dish). So I was sitting in this white chair, with the only remote control in the entire village and hundreds of kids watching me. It all must sound really decadent but they actually wanted to me to do so.

Little Nisa watching TV.

Anyway, we would have liked Tilamuta to be our home for the next couple of days because we wanted to explore the area and watch the whales. But, we knew that there would be no such thing as a hotel … As soon as the chief realized that we were planning on staying, he offered us his house. Of course we couldn’t accept but he insisted. Before we could say anymore, his wife was already preparing dinner. So we accepted his generous offer and stayed for the next week or so…

The days in Tilamuta were so much much fun!

This experience was the most memorable of all my travel moments until today. Thinking about it, makes me a little nostalgic because we never managed to go back there again…

What about you? I’d really love to hear about your memorable travel moments…

I would now like to show you a couple of photos of these Africa-adventures. I think it’s really fascinating to see the difference to our travels today…even though we’re still as adventurous & crazy.

Travelling through the Congo was a real adventure (Baby Nisa in tow).

Fishermen pulling in the catch near Lome in Togo.

An approaching sand storm in the Sahara desert, Niger.

Pygmees in the Ituri Forest in the Congo.

Working conditions at Apapa harbour in Laos, Nigeria.

A bunch of kids in Rwanda.

Little Nisa & and an African boy in the Sudan.

Black & white kids kissing in the Sudan – this is our most viewed picture by the way…

This crowd in Morocco wanted to be photographed really badly :)

That’s what I call “being stuck in the mud” at Lake Magadi in Kenya.

Camping in the middle of the Sahara desert in the Sudan (again with baby Nisa in the picture).

Our companion while travelling through Africa was an Unimog truck.

Wild animals in Kenya, Africa.

Masai boys posing for us in Kenya, Africa.

On our first journey through Africa, we went with an old Graef & Stift truck.

Travelling through the Serengeti in Africa.

The Unimog was a great car for travelling Africa back in the days. Here we are in the Kalahari desert.

Summer, sun, sunscreen and struggle.

If two people go on vacation together it can end badly. The more people travel together, the more problems they have in their suitcases. Leading the way are all the expectations. One should really think about whom to bring and whom to leave at home. The more the merrier? I don’t think so. Here are a few travel types, with I personally have had the pleasure of sharing a trip with.

The orderly person.

This person likes travelling in a group but at the same time visualizes everyone going the “crocodile style”. Rules and perfect time management are a high priority. There is no such thing as “meaning” or “understanding” for individualists. As warden he represents cultivated boredom. If travelling by bus, be sure to sit on your same seat for the rest of the trip. On the contrary – you will always be on time for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The success-oriented person.

Life is a competition all the time. He knows what’s going on in his job and this is also the case when he’s on vacation.  Unable to disconnect for even a minute, he also always needs a new challenge. In between climbing a higher mountain he’ll ring the office to check if everything is ok. Relaxing? No way!

The sightseeing person.

Rome. How many churches are there? Definitely not enough for this traveller; running from one landmark to the next without a single break. Bring good shoes because this one is a runner. If you’re travelling with this fella’ you really ought to think about your friendship before. Be sure that you’re on the same level; otherwise the trip can end just before it started.

The conflict avoidance person.

Peace and fellowship. We all love & care for each other. This one doesn’t like to say no, unless someone wants to start an argument. He tries to avoid any kind of conflict, even though he might throw himself off a cliff. He’s in a boat with everyone – also if it sinks because of this. His only concern is that he doesn’t want to burden anyone.

My tip.

Well, by now you should know that travelling with other people isn’t always easy. As I said, make sure you’re on the same level before you board the plane. This can save everyone a lot of time, money and nerves!

Now tell me, what kind of traveller are you?