The Social Travel Experiment

When I arrived in Oxford on a sunny afternoon at the beginning of August my Servas host, Deirdre sat down with me and explained Oxford to me using a little paper tourist map of all the Oxford colleges. She explained to me that Oxford is basically a crossroads from which the city grew and that […]

Are you planning a trip to Scotland and don’t know where to start? Don’t worry, when it was time to plan my one week Scotland road trip I was also a little bit lost. No wonder, there is so much to see and do in Scotland and one week will never be enough time to […]

Of all destinations in England, I think I liked Bath most (closely followed by Oxford maybe). One of the reasons is probably the hospitality of our Servas host, but the city itself has a lot to offer. All in all, we spent a little bit more than 24 hours in Bath, but if you only […]

Over the last week, I have been traveling through the most scenic regions in England, including Bath, Oxford, and the Cotswolds. Of course, I have taken lots of beautiful pictures, especially because the weather was fantastic for the whole time I was there. And the best of these pictures are going to find their way […]

Are you using Couchsurfing to get to know locals (or travelers from all over the world) and to share cultural experiences with them? Do you want to further intercultural understanding by providing an authentic place to stay for people interested in you and your country, and not just your couch? But you are getting tired […]

Our first stop on our trip around the world was Hong Kong. Why? Because it was the cheapest destination from Nagoya, and because we both had never been there. In 5 days we explored quite a bit of this fascinating country/city, and in this post, I would like to share with you the things to […]

Hi, future world explores, My own gap year is now only days away, and I finally started packing my new backpack the Osprey Sirrus 50 liter for real. A couple of weeks ago I did a packing trial run, to see if everything fits and whether the designated gap year backpack is too heavy or […]

Our first stop on our trip around the world was Hong Kong. I had never been there even though it is only a 4-hour flight away from Japan and it can be reached quite cheaply using LCCs like Hong Kong Express. And the first thing I wanted to do in Hong Kong was a walking […]

The wait is almost over. I am going to start my gap year around the world in only a couple of weeks. In a little more than a year, I went from an idea all the way to the actual start of my trip around the world. In between, there was much to consider, decide, […]

My first and only day trip to Nikko was 3 years ago. It was my first day trip with Taka and the first time I got out of Tokyo after arriving there 2 months earlier to work at a Japanese IT consulting company. The trip has been a fond memory ever since, and I feel […]