sebbo on tour - around the world

Since I had played with the thought of cycling alongside Rhine river for a while already, the bank holiday last week and the arrival of spring lead to a four day bike trip, just by myself: Destination was Cologne where my youngest sister is living, about 230km from Frankfurt if you always follow the turns of first Main and then Rhine river. I packed my bags (borrowed saddlebags from a colleague), a tent and sleeping bag and hopped on my bike. I was happy to have four days on my own with no plans made except for the final destination. I could decide everything free and spontaneously: where to go and when, where to take breaks and where to camp.  The first day I rode the first 30km next to the Main river to Mainz. Lots of green fields, trees and gravel ways, at least after I had passed the industrial areas West of Frankfurt. It took some time to get used to riding a bike with the bags, I rode much slower than I expected. After Mainz I hit the Rhine, my buddy for the next 200km ...

It is being said that travelling educates. They say travel widens your horizon and knowledge, it broadens your mind.  But not all experiences during travels are necessarily pleasant; some might be just unpleasant, some even frightening and some very bad. On the other hand side, (especially) those experiences will also have the aforementioned effect(s). And the least you will end up with is always a (good) story and a unique perspective. This post is about those stories.  The more I travelled the more I became aware that things do not always go quite as you planned or as you wished for - as is valid for life in general ;) And I am not only talking about regularl rip-offs (for transportation, tours, food or accommodation) or loosing something here and there. Those are to be expected, annoying but not much more. I am talking about nasty accidents, sicknesses, robberies, etc. Let me share a few of mine... Food poisoning in Thailand Rumour has it that 70% of tourists t...

Have you decided upon where to go next? And how do you prepare the trip once you found a destination? At an early stage, I learned that the more you travel the longer your list of places you want to see becomes. You'd think your bucket list would become shorter, but in the contrary - it grows longer with every trip you take ;) If you're looking for ideas and inspiration on google for instance, you usually find lists and recommendations from Lonely Planet , Tripadvisor or National Geographic . Usually when I travel, I talk to other travellers to be inspired by them, their travels, experiences and stories. Following a fellow traveller's personal reference is never disappointing, more often than not rewarding. Of course I also get inspired by places and things I see on TV, in documentaries or in blogs and forums, but in my opinion nothing beats the advise of a fellow traveller who has already been there. What do you think? How do you pick your destination(s)? When...

Last year's March holiday to Portugal was not warm and sunny enough for us; so we decided to go further south this time: A good flight offer from Urlaubspiraten brought us to Zanzibar. And as a sweet surprise we got a free last-minute upgrade to business class for the first leg of the flight... After the first temperature shock - almost 30°C and humidity over 90% at 5 AM in the morning - we got our visa on arrival (50$ each, credit card only) at the tiny airport, took an estimated amount of cash for ten days (there are only ATMs at the airport and in Stonetown) and found our transfer. First stop was Nungwi, in the North of Zanzibar. Due to low season it was pretty quiet, especially where we stayed. We even had the beach for us alone on the first day :) In the evening we realized already that our sunscreen was not strong enough. So close to the equator you might want to bring something higher than 30SPF. We spent the next days relaxing at the beach, one day scuba diving (gr...

Since I am not travelling so much abroad recently, at least I wanted to share some impressions from our short road trip in Portugal over Easter. It's been a long while that I've flown with Ryanair, but it was the most feasible price and times for this trip; even though we needed to go to Frankfurt Hahn first - like 120km away from Frankfurt. But the rest was fine: No check of our so carefully packed baggage, not much of a line for the check-in and for a short flight not too uncomfortable. Anyways, if you don't check in on-line, it is 45€ per person, so for the return flight we needed to find a place to print the tickets in Portugal. After arriving in Porto, we picked up our rental car, drove to our AirBnb and dropped our stuff to go for a walk in the city. We found Porto very cute and lovely with all its unstructured streets and colourful houses. Especially the area Ribeira down at the Douro river is particulary stunning. On the way we walked through narrow passage...

Since I haven't travelled around much in 2015, I wanted to seize the opportunity of a few off-days between christmas and New Years at least. Egypt or Canaryan Islands were too expensive and inconvenient to get too, so I decided against flying into warmer weather. By chance I found a cheap train ticket to Budapest, figured out that lay-overs are possible and booked a night in Prague on the way. A bit of city sightseeing, history and Eastern Europe which I haven't been to yet :) Christmas spent with the family was obligatory but I left on 26th of December by night train already. I imagined the train somewhat empty on this date but turned out I just got a seat on the IC train to Prague. Thus sleeping became uncomfortable, additionally it was quite cold in the train. Anyways, after the sunrise the last part of the ride became truly scenic alongside the Elbe river. I sat next to the window and just relaxed myself listening to music and reviewing a long and eventful year.  I arrive...