guides

I heard many volunteer stories from other travelers on my trips. However, not until quite recently I had looked into doing it myself. I signed up for 2-weeks of volunteering on a truffle farm in Asturias, Spain. Doing volunteer work abroad opened up a whole new dimension of travel. It didn’t feel like work, but…

What comes to mind when you think about Scotland? Whisky, Loch Ness, Haggis? YES, Scotland is all that. But there is so much more to discover! When you can live with some of the country’s worst enemies — the midges (pesky little flies) and the changeable weather all year long — you will have a whale…

It’s funny how distances are perceived in The Netherlands. If I speak to someone from the USA for instance, a 5-hour train ride gets you into another city. In The Netherlands however, you would be in Germany, Belgium or even France. Still, we moan when we have to take a train for 45 minutes to see…

It’s hard to find perfection in this world, as often the most beautiful places are spoilt by tourism. Tanna island, however, located between Australia and Fiji, has everything that you could wish for without having to deal with the downsides. It has breathtaking scenery, palm trees, exotic fruit, pristine waterfalls, flowers, hills, local tribes, white…

On one of my many searches for cheap flights I came across the option to have a layover in Qatar’s capital city: Doha. I have to admit that I didn’t know a single thing about this city (full disclosure: I didn’t even know it was the capital of Qatar) and as I would have a…

Antarctica is the world’s coldest, driest and windiest continent. Although you can get to Antarctica on a tourist expedition, working in Antarctica is a whole different story. There are only about 4.000 people working in Antarctica during the summer and around 1.000 during winter. There are no permanent residents, meaning that researchers and other personnel fly in and…

Many people ask me what my favorite destination was of all my travels. I always tell them the same: Antarctica. “How did you get to Antarctica?!” is the obvious follow-up question. When I explain to them that it wasn’t that challenging, cold, or exclusive, they usually add Antarctica to their (usually long list of) bucket list…

While arranging my Trans Siberian Train ticket with a Dutch agency, I was told most people take breaks from the epic train journey in two places: Ulaanbataar in Mongolia and Irkutsk in Russia. A friend had told me that I should definitely visit Olkhon Island, an island in the middle of the magnificent Lake Baikal and…

Where do the locals eat in Amsterdam? It’s not the McDonald’s or Burger King unless they have had one too many of course. There is a great choice of places to eat in Amsterdam, but few of them are in the central touristy areas. So who can help you find the best places to eat in Amsterdam?…

A Portuguese man with a big smile greets me as I exit the airport. It’s one of the few times I get picked up from an airport with a sign. This trip is off to a good start already, and it doesn’t even matter that my name on the sign is spelled with a k. The man’s…

It’s easy to lose your head with all the things to do in Dubrovnik, the famous Croatian seaside town boasting a medieval walled-in ‘old city’. Busloads, or should I say cruise-loads, of tourists make a day-or-two stop here, causing it to be flooded with people for a big portion of the year. My girlfriend Claire and I…

I was one of those kids that planted his face on every model train shop he passed and who would only leave when dragged away by his mother. In my teens, my head would turn in an owl-like fashion whenever a train would pass which I hadn’t seen before. During my college years we were…