Peru – The Salkantay Trek – Day Two
Today the hardest part of the whole trek lay ahead of me. The wake-up call was set for 5:30, and after a hearty breakfast we headed up towards the pass. The su…
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Stories from 20 countries · 65 stories
Peru - The Salkantay Trek - Day One
The time frame for my trip around Peru was fairly tight, so on my first day in Cusco I needed to find a suitable agency to undertake a trek towards Machu Picch…
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Peru - Cusco
I arrived in the city of Cusco after a roughly seven-hour bus transfer from Puno by Lake Titicaca. I was a little worried about what I'd do in the middle of th…
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Lake Titicaca - part two
From the highest point on the island, where I had been taking in the surroundings for quite a while, I began making my way back down, because the sun was alrea…
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Lake Titicaca - part one
I set out for Lake Titicaca from the mountain town of Cabanaconde. It's a journey of several hours by bus, so to save a little time I boarded the bus practical…
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Colca Canyon - Days 2 and 3
Llahuar was an interesting place, but the morning rays and the roaring river lured me out of bed early, and so on the second day I set off on my way through Co…
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Colca Canyon - Day 1
I travelled to Colca Canyon by bus from the city of Arequipa. I didn't want to take some overpriced tourist coach or go with an organised group, so I bought an…
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Arequipa - the start of my Peruvian journey
It was February 2020 and the coronavirus pandemic was already knocking on our door. As every winter, I was planning where to head off on a longer trip to short…
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Sri Paadaya - the climb up the sacred mountain
Sri Paadaya is a sacred mountain, which in guidebooks you'll more often find under the name Adam's Peak. This place is a literal link between a whole range of …
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The Sekumpul Waterfalls in Bali
I happened to be in the northern part of the island, planning what I might see and what I would love to experience here. The local "agencies" immediately tried…
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Ella Rock
After two days spent in Ella, the fickle weather had me wondering whether to set off on the next leg of the journey the very next morning. But I was woken by s…
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Ella - Little Adam's Peak and the Nine Arch Bridge
I wanted to visit the mountain town of Ella above all for its beautiful surroundings, the tea plantations and a handful of places that draw crowds of tourists.…
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The Dambulla Cave Temples
I'll admit that after the enormous monuments in Anuradhapura, I didn't expect much of a surprise from the cave temples in the town of Dambulla. I wasn't even t…
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George Town
On my trip through Asia in 2018 I didn't have much time left for Malaysia. In fact, I needed to make my way to Kuala Lumpur, from where I had a return flight h…
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Anuradhapura - the Overlooked Wonder of the World
Unbelievable clatter, constant swaying from side to side, open windows and doors with passengers leaning out and noisy snack vendors — that was certainl…
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Castelmezzano and Pietrapertosa
Whenever I'm getting ready to go abroad somewhere I'll have a rental car and the freedom to move around, I sit down for at least a little while with Google Map…
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Matera
If you ever head to southern Italy, the town of Matera is one you should by no means miss. It's one of the most photogenic places I've ever seen in Italy. It l…
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YANGON
The name Yangon meant nothing to me at first; only its English variant, Rangoon, was more familiar. This city, like much of Burma, was occupied for a long time…
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Inle Lake - Day 2
On my second day at Inle Lake I again arranged a boat, because I wanted to travel all the way to the village of Inthein. It doesn't lie directly on the lake, b…
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Inle Lake - Day 1
The trek from the town of Kalaw to Inle Lake took three days. I've written about this trek before, and you can read the article "here." At the lake I immediate…
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Bagan
After eight hours on a bus along Myanmar's poorly maintained roads, I arrived in the town of Bagan at around three in the morning. I took a taxi and we drove a…
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Trek from Kalaw to Inle Lake
I walked through a poor village that consisted of nothing but small bamboo houses and shelters for livestock. At an altitude of around 1,400 metres above sea l…
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Myanmar 2019 video teaser
To give you a little taste of the series of articles coming soon, I've put together a short "trailer" for you. The video hopefully captures at least a fraction…
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Tromsø and the Beautiful Fjords
I'd never been to Norway before, and I'd generally been neglecting the far north. That's a real shame, though, because the 4 days I spent above the Arctic Circ…
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Through the Jungle on Cát Bà Island
In my last post I described how I got to Cát Bà Island and how I sailed by boat into Ha Long Bay. Today I'd like to reveal the beauty of the island itself, bec…
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Chasing the Northern Lights
With winter approaching I usually think about where I could escape to somewhere warm, but this year was different. In mid-October I decided to set off 400 kilo…
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Cát Bà Island and Ha Long Bay
My next stop in Vietnam was Cát Bà Island. It's one of the gateways tourists use when they want to visit the famous Ha Long Bay. This bay is known above all fo…
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Procida - Peace and Quiet Just Outside Naples
Besides well-known islands like Capri and Ischia, the little island of Procida also lies near Naples. It's only about 2 km long and around a kilometer wide. Ab…
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Hanoi - the ideal Vietnamese start
Hanoi was the first place I reached on my journey around Vietnam. The arrival was pure style. At the airport, taxi drivers chased after me, as everywhere, to t…
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Xiamen - a taste of China
Few of us can claim to know China well. Given its vast size, I could just as well write that I was never even there, because those few days were, compared to i…
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The Alhambra - the jewel of Andalusia
Granada is a city I didn't want to miss on my journey through Andalusia. And because it's adorned with a jewel called the Alhambra, visiting it was simply a mu…
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The incredible San Gimignano
I've travelled through Tuscany twice so far. It's surely impossible not to fall in love with this gorgeous landscape, full of medieval towns. Yes, some areas a…
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Ancient Segesta
Sicily is, at least for me, the ideal combination of sea, mountains and monuments. The ancient ones, for instance, are set in such places here that they impres…
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Lonely Tokyo
Tokyo is the largest city in the world, currently home to more than 9 million people (some figures go as high as 38 million when you count the immediate surrou…
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Malá Fatra - a two-day ridge trek
I'd only been to the Malá Fatra once, as a small boy, and back then I "got lost" here and gave my parents a real fright. Well, not that I got completely lost, …
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Lipton's Tea Plantations and the Sunrise
I'd been to Asia several times already, but I never had the luck to reach the tea plantation regions. This time, though, I planned to play it safe, because to …
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Ko Lipe
From the island of Koh Yao Noi I'd worked out a route farther south, because within about a week I needed to get to Kuala Lumpur, where my return flight was le…
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A Little Desert on Gran Canaria
The island of Gran Canaria was the first of the Canary Islands I visited. I flew out in February, mainly wanting to get up into the mountains, to hike as much …
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Koh Yao Noi
When I was planning my trip to Thailand, I naturally wanted to enjoy a bit of the sea too. But choosing an island in Thailand that isn't besieged by tourists i…
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Hong Kong - a city of two faces
Hong Kong, home to nearly 7 million people, spreads across a mainland part and an island part. This fact clearly shapes the city's character, because the mainl…
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Three Days in the Dolomites
I'd talked about the Dolomites for a long time, but I was never able to sacrifice a whole week to go there. For a long weekend it felt too far, because by car …
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Mihintale - a stunning sunset
On a journey around Sri Lanka you simply can't miss Anuradhapura, an area of magnificent Buddhist monuments. I'll write about that area in a separate article, …
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Amalfi and a Thousand Steps
It was one of those longer Italian trips, on which I visited Rome, Naples, Pompeii, Capri, and saved the gorgeous Amalfi Coast for last. To avoid the crowds of…
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A Trek Through the Czech Canada
So that I don't only write about exotic far-flung places and European trips, today I'll tell you how my friends and I set off on foot, along roads and off them…
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ERICE - A SICILIAN VANTAGE POINT
I arrived in Erice just before noon. The weather was changeable, which meant very sudden, violent downpours and strong wind. For a while I was photographing a …
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MARKETS IN SIEM REAP
Siem Reap is the city you'll most likely fly into if you want to head to the magnificent temples of the Angkor area in Cambodia. The city has around 300,000 in…
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PIDURANGALA ROCK
As you wander around Sri Lanka discovering its beauty, the name Sigiriya is bound to leap out at you from some guidebook or promotional brochure. It's a rock t…
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THE FABLED MEGALITHS OF PORTUGAL
Portugal was a huge surprise for me. I don't know why, but I'd essentially expected some standard European holiday from it, and instead it turned out to be an …
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Fish Markets in Negombo
I land in Sri Lanka on Sunday afternoon. Tired from the time difference and, above all, a little thrown by having taken off in a wind-chill of -10 degrees Cels…
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PORTO - THE DOM LUÍS I BRIDGE
I'm standing high above the river, and for about an hour now a strong wind has been beating against me while the cold slowly creeps under my fingernails. The s…
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A STONE IGLOO ON THE MOUNTAINTOPS
The Madeira archipelago is often called the island of eternal spring. And I can only agree with that claim completely. Something is always in bloom here, and i…
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CASTIGLIONE DI SICILIA
I have to admit that the whole of Italy has grown dear to my heart. I've visited it many times and never left disappointed. Sicily is a chapter all of its own …
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THE ENCHANTING DOURO RIVER VALLEY
I knew that the grapes used to make the famous port are grown in the Douro river valley, but just how beautiful this region is, I only discovered once I arrive…
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MAGICAL VEJER DE LA FRONTERA
It was just a little stopover on my journey through Andalusia; essentially I only came to this town to spend the night, because it simply happened to be on the…
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BRUNO ON ELLA ROCK
While I was travelling around the island of Sri Lanka, fate would have it that during my climb up Ella Rock (the hill above the town of Ella) I came across an …
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CRUISING THE MEKONG
This tenth-longest river in the world flows through China, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. It forms a natural border between Laos, Myanmar and Thailand. Its length…
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THE BAYON TEMPLE
The Bayon temple is one of the most famous temples in Cambodia to have survived from the era of the Angkorian Empire. It was built at the turn of the 12th and …
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ROOSEVELT ISLAND
The first days I spent in New York felt unbelievably long and hectic. Thanks to the time difference I would wake up around five in the morning, and the moment …
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GILI MENO
Gili Meno is one of three tiny islands lying between Bali and Lombok. The island really is miniature, so no motor vehicles run on it and the only ride you can …
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RIOMAGGIORE
Riomaggiore is one of the five little towns in the so-called Cinque Terre, a small region on the Ligurian Sea that is so mountainous from the coast inland that…
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A NIGHT WITH THE BLACK HMONG
I set off for Vietnam in 2015. I'd fallen in love with Vietnamese cuisine years earlier, and so it was only a matter of time before I decided to travel to this…
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CALDERA BLANCA
I have to admit that the Canary Islands are a place I've truly come to love. Of the seven islands in total, I've so far had the chance to visit five. Each one …
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TOKYO'S SECRET VIEWPOINT
As I wrote in my article about the Skytree, Tokyo has plenty of places where you can climb up to some kind of observation deck. Some charge admission, others a…
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ANGKOR WAT
Angkor Wat is an ancient temple located in the Angkor region of Cambodia. For a long time this country was torn apart by the dictatorship of the Khmer Rouge (f…
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TOKYO SKYTREE
Tokyo Skytree is a broadcasting tower that opened on 29 February 2012. It reaches an impressive height of 634 metres, which makes it the tallest broadcasting t…
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