When I was little my fam­ily always went trav­el­ling. Most of my school friends went for two weeks to Italy, France or Greece dur­ing the sum­mer hol­i­days. My fam­ily rather chose to spend all of our school hol­i­days away in Poland, Hun­gary or the Balt­ics, which was a lot cheaper as well.

I was twelve when we went on hol­i­day to the baltic states. My dad spon­tan­eously prom­ised my uncle that he could visit the house he was born in a few years before World War II. The only prob­lem was that the house was now offi­cially on rus­sian ter­rit­ory and we could not get a visa. So my dad bribed a bor­der guard to let my uncle, me and him­self on our bicycles across for the day. We spent a couple hours driv­ing around the bor­der town, but in the end my uncle found the right street and shortly after that the house. It made his day. By then we were quite lost though. So after ped­alling around for a bit and not really get­ting any­where, my dad stopped at a police sta­tion and asked for the way back to the border.

I still remem­ber this story and so many oth­ers. And they are prob­ably part of the reason why I feel the need to visit other coun­tries. It wasn’t always like this. In my late teens I hardly went trav­el­ling. I didn’t really miss it. I was in love for the first time and that was enough for me to stay back home. My life seemed to be set. Fin­ish school, go to uni­ver­sity, marry my high­school sweet­heart, get a job, a dog and a few kids. Then she left me and I had no clue what to do. I just wanted to get away, so I decided to just save up some money and go travelling.

As soon as I stepped out of the air­port in Bangkok on that first big trip and got envel­oped in that hot and humid air I felt at home. Being there just felt right. The uncer­tainty of what was to come, the sense of adven­ture in the air, the sim­pli­city of the trav­el­ling life, the fas­cin­a­tion of the unknown cul­tures, the free­dom to do whatever I wanted. All the things I knew from my child­hood hol­i­days and the reas­ons why I con­tinue to travel now. The split up was soon for­got­ten. There are of course neg­at­ive aspects to a life mostly spent trav­el­ling as well, but for me the pos­it­ives out­weigh the neg­at­ives and I am kind of addicted, so I need to get my reg­u­lar fix… Why do you travel?