zschachwitz's VirtualTourist Home Page

My 2008 New Year resolution was to tidy up my Home Page, so here is the slightly neater and less disjointed edition, (and because I'd deleted, rather than revised, the original, I managed set the "page views" indicator back to zero. D'oh). Er, now on Facebook, and Twitter.

But first, thank you to all those who have provided me with enough ratings so as to give me a VT Ranking, and second, thank you to those friends I have made during my five years of membership. I have only met three of you, Leipzig, German_Eagle, and Wordlyone, but hope that, one day, and sooner rather than later, I will meet more of you.

My picture here was taken while meeting Ingo (German_Eagle) in Dresden a little while ago.

Since I retired from full-time work in 2005, I have spread my wings and travelled further afield, which leads me neatly to my second New Year’s resolution: I must finish my USA travel blog, start, (and hopefully) finish my Asian blog, and post more photos on here to share them with you. Well, it got all the way round to the 30th December before attacking my blog, but instead of finishing off the USA, I've started "Asia 2008", and there are even a couple of photos. I promise I'll try to be more active in 2009. And some of my pictures from those three trips are on my site at flickr, where I am member Keith 838: if you are already a member, your settings should be set to "safe". The pictures appear in sets named, not surprisingly, "USA Road trip 2006", "Philippines 2007" and "Philippines 2008", and some of them are replicated in other sets in my account.

I do like going to places that are off the beaten track, and I have been to some which make me think that I really am a trail-blazing VT member, but I'm certain that there must be plenty of you who have already been there.

Up to 2005 I had only travelled in Europe, and was not, admittedly, over keen on flying. However, 2006 saw me undertake an ambition I’d held for nearly 50 years, and that was to travel along part of Route 66 in the USA. Yes, that meant getting into a plane and flying. So I did – and haven’t looked back

2007 saw me off to Asia, where I spent three happy weeks in the Philippines, and as I sat in the Departure Lounge at Tacloban, en route for Manila, Hong Kong and home, I realised that not only was I looking forward to the flight(s), but that I was like a child eagerly and anxiously waiting for Santa. I am now hooked on flying, and am now wondering where to go next.

2008 and the Airbus A380 is flying; when I saw it land at Heathrow and cast a giant shadow over West London, I just knew I had to try it. So, the 1st November saw me off to Singapore on said plane, en route for a repeat visit to the Philippines. An excellent journey and I'm really glad I've flown that. Awesome!

Another long-held ambition is to visit South Africa as I have some photos of Cape Town that my grandfather took in about 1910. I hope to add to them; I wish to return to the US: California again, but also to Lightning Alley in Florida. My daughter tells me that the storms really are awesome. And, of course, more of the Philippines, please.

I had intended to use my GPS, to add co-ordinates to each of the places I visit, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and I admit that I'm not doing that well at present!

My favourite cities and places? In alphabetical order: Dresden, London, Metz, Nancy, Prague. Two more added in 2004, Leipzig and Potsdam, added in 2006: Philadelphia, Oklahoma City, and the West Coast of California from San Francisco to Carmel. 2007 – please add Bohol and Southern Leyte.

Smaller places: again, in alphabetical order - Annecy, Contrexeville, Guthrie (Oklahoma), Pont-a-Mousson, Roscommon, and Selestat,

I'm very fond of Alsace, Lorraine and the Vosges; am basically a “Mountains and Lakes” person, and don’t care all that much for places that are aimed at tourists, especially those places where the visitors are not interested in local culture or customs.