About Me
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| Soussusvlei, Namibia |
Welcome to my travel blog!
I am a middle-aged nomad, who retired early and is trying to visit as much of the world as possible. I am very glad that you found your way here, so I can bring you along on my journeys. I hope to inspire others to go out there and explore the world, by sharing my photos, trip reports and useful information about all the amazing places I have visited.
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| Iguazu Falls, Brazil |
My brief biography:
I was born over half a century ago in Munich, Germany, and spent the first 24 years of my life there. My first experience of living abroad began in the early nineties, when I moved to Cambridge, England, as a student, and I ended up living the next nine years in the UK. After completing my degree at Cambridge, I had a fairly short and unremarkable career in academia doing research in mathematical physics, most of which at the University of Durham. In 1999 I joined the world of finance and moved to London, where I started as a quantitative analyst in the risk department of an international investment bank. Two years later I was transferred to New York City, which became my home for the next eight years, while working at a number of different financial institutions there.
During the financial crisis of 2008, I quit my job and took off on my first solo trip around the world. I had the time of my life traveling through New Zealand, Australia and East Asia and would have loved to continue travelling, but after a few months my bank account demanded that I return to gainful employment. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to start a new job in Hong Kong in 2009. I instantly fell in love with the city and with Asia in general, and I ended up spending the next 8 years in Hong Kong and then 2 more years in Singapore, working in the risk department at Credit Suisse.
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| Teotihuacan, Mexico |
In 2019 after an almost 20 year career in banking, during which I had the fortune to be able to live and work in four of the greatest cities on earth (London, New York, Hong Kong and Singapore), I decided to call it a day, leave the corporate world and dedicate most of my time to my true passion in life - travelling and exploring the world. Later that year, I also cancelled my apartment lease in Singapore, gave away most of my possessions and headed out into the world with two bags to become a nomad.
My life as a traveler:
My interests as a traveler range widely from natural wonders, exotic cultures to ancient ruins, gothic cathedrals and modern architecture. I feel equally at home climbing volcanoes on remote islands, stalking gorillas in deep jungles, as well as exploring museums in the great cities of the world.
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I do have a lifelong ambition to visit every country in the world, but I don't consider myself just a country collector. I do want to fully experience and learn about the places I visit. Since I have a particular passion for history, archeology and architecture, I am also trying to visit as many of the UNESCO World Heritage sites in the world as possible.
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About my travel blog:
I started writing travel journals more than 25 years ago, just as a way to preserve my own memories about the amazing things I saw. It was in 2008, during my first long solo trip, when I began putting my experiences and pictures online. The initial reason for writing these travel blogs was just to share my photos and travel stories with friends and family. But I soon realized that it is also a way to inspire other people to travel more, and to travel to unusual, remote and strange places in the world. I would like my blog to be part entertainment, part lesson on history, politics and culture, part travel advice and part adventure story.
But most importantly, keeping a travel blog not only helps me remember things better, it also makes me a better traveler. It does not allow me to be a lazy tourist, but forces me to learn about the places I go to and interact with the people and cultures. Taking and editing pictures and writing about the destinations I visit, does help me to experience them more deeply.
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I was once asked by a friend if I worried about running out of places to visit, and my answer was ‘Quite the opposite’. In fact my travel bucket list keeps growing the more I travel and my curiosity about the world increases the more I see of it. I worry about discovering more and more places I want to visit and running out of time to see them all. In most countries I've been, I learned there is so much more to see than I had anticipated, and I almost always feel the need to go back and experience it more fully.
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| With the eagle hunters in Ulgii Province, Mongolia |
I consider it an incredible privilege to be able to travel the world, a privilege that almost no one in previous generations in human history ever had, and most people in the world still do not have today. Traveling and responsible tourism have numerous benefits for the countries being visited, as many poor countries crucially depend on the income from tourism. But even more importantly, traveling has huge benefits for the one who travels. No one has ever put it better than Mark Twain when he said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow mindedness.”
Thank you so much for visiting my travel blog. I am very grateful to be able to share my adventures around the world. You can also follow me on Instagram, YouTube and Twitter here:
Happy traveling everyone!
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