The Unfair Traveller - Symptoms and Treatment - Travel Etiquette

Travelling is what I love to do, in recent months alone I visited seven different countries, and you can well imagine that I spend a lot of time in, on and around public transport, like train stations, bus stops, airports, planes, boats and trains. I always expect the very worst things that can happen to me on my travels. I’m fully aware that I’m at risk of experiencing profoundly disturbing or utterly bothersome things, as soon as I leave my home. I love that with my expectation comes a feeling of being prepared (up to a certain extent).

The Unfair Traveller - Symptoms

Looking at the state of things when travelling I have serious doubts that we will ever achieve world peace.

Travel and Feel the Vibe. Street Art explains places

Imagine a life full of blue or red balloons, dogs that wear golden crowns, flying hearts, little black men in street signs, sunglasses-wearing elephants, cheeky video game characters, cherubs who carry devil horns... When travelling to a location, one wants to see the hotspots – the Tour Eiffel in Paris, the Colosseum in Rome, the Tower of London, the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and the list goes on. But what about all the street art that is out there? Some call it vandalism. Vandalism according to the Oxford dictionary is: Action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property. When I travel I hunt for street art and I see it as art. Next time when you see street art as vandalism, think again. Please, it tells you so much about a place. 

Travel: Fact-checking populist tales - This is the truth and nothing else

Squirrel in South Africa

Is the world safe, is Europe in trouble, is Europe on the brink of collapse? These are probably the questions everybody asks right now or has been pondering about for a while. I saw a clip of a local newspaper where a fellow Berliner in his 70s stated that he is so upset because security measurements on Munich Christmas markets are so much better than the ones in Berlin. This guy obviously never travels, or at least he hasn’t been to Munich’s Christmas markets recently. I visited many of them this year and also a few in Berlin, there is no difference in security whatsoever, at least for the untrained eye, I mean I’m no double agent, no idea what goes on behind the scenes. It is all pretty much the same. I wonder where people take these statements from. Who puts these ideas in their heads? Why do they spread information about things they haven’t even experienced themselves? I have to admit, chances are that guy is in the know because he is a double agent.

Travelling is so exciting. The people, the food, the passion, the fun. Nothing is ever only black and white. It pays off to talk to locals and try to understand their point of view, try to understand their way of life, and with understanding them comes empathy. This year I visited South Africa, the Czech Republic, Greece, France, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, Hungary, UK and Denmark. I will tell you about the experiences I had this year on my travels. Wherever I go I ask people about the situation in their country, how they feel about it, and about their opinion about populism and the rise of right-wing parties. I do things like this a lot and people usually don't mind to have a chat.

Follow me around, to learn where I felt threatened and unsafe.

Top questions to find out whether sustainable travel is still en vogue

There are endless moments when I realize that it isn’t easy to do everything right for everybody. On a sunny morning, I was at a delicious café, meeting a friend for breakfast. After a few moments three grown-ups, dressed a bit earthy, as in Birkenstock and slightly wrinkled shirts came along and sat down at the table closest to ours. It seemed as if they were on a visit to Berlin, probably staying at one of the nearby hotels. They were the sort of people searching for breakfast at a place where all the locals hang out. Soon the waiter served the group three coffees and three croissants. They looked at it

Visit Mostar the Street Art Capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina

Sometimes you meet super nice people when travelling. I love to listen and learn from others, a great insight how the rest of the world ticks. Very often people tell me about their bucket list, and one place I hear repeatedly, is the bridge in Mostar. The other day I meet this absolutely lovely couple, and at one point the guy tells me “The Bridge in Mostar is impressive, the rest is, how to best put it, there is nothing to see really, it is all very run down and neglected.”  

The war ended only in 1995. People make a living somehow, they probably, most certainly love their home country. They didn’t just rebuild that bridge in 2004 to make tourists come and visit. Mostar is a place where real people live, they are not actors employed to entertain day visitors. The victims of the war still work their way through the consequences of it, and there are many bombed out buildings still.

Travel Bosnia-Herzegovina. Mostar. Bridge the Gap

There was a war in this part of the world in Southeastern Europe, it ended fairly recently in 1995, the war is over and the situation is best described as complex. Bosnia-Herzegovina today is surrounded by Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro, there is also a coastline of 20 kilometres. Imagine that the country is sort of a few in one, a Bosniak-Croat Federation and the Bosnian Serb-led Republika Srpska. The mountain river Neretva is 225 km long, and 203 kilometres are in Bosnia and Herzegovina and 22 kilometres are in Croatia. The river runs right through Mostar and divides it in half.

Nationalism is wrong; add religion to it and the disaster is complete. Mostar is an excellent place to understand that once more. "Don't forget" is what someone sprayed on a rather small-ish stone exactly opposite a popular lookout point. Everybody is so engaged in taking photos and selfies in front of that infamous bridge. Do they remember? The Stari Most, in English Old Bridge, sits in the most incredible setting, 21 metres above the fast flowing and blue-green river Neretva. It connects two totally different parts of town. On one side there are mosques and minarets, and the high pitched but soothing sound of the calls for prayer are driven over by the wind to the other side with its churches and crosses.