Pieter11's VirtualTourist Home Page
| Page Views: 17,136 | Travel with six senses... by Pieter11 - last update: Jun 26, 2009 |
| Visiting a football-match in Berlin |
WELCOME TO MY HOMEPAGE Welcome to my homepage on this wonderful medium called Virtual Tourist. A place where you can meet the most wonderful people, a place where you can dream about your future trips, a place where you can express your feelings about your past trips and to me it´s a very good reason to learn more about my destinations then just the random ´Oh, that looks nice`. VT keeps you dreaming, keeps you active and keeps you curious. As probably most of the VT-members, travelling really is my passion. Although I´m only travelling for a few weeks a year, it´s an important part in my life. I love the proces of searching for information before you leave. Pick out the right hotel, reading about the destinations, thinking about the routes to follow and just dream and dream and dream... And after returning from a trip another great part of the travelling rhythm follows: developing the pictures, sticking them into an album, read even more about the places you´ve been to, and of course: update your VT-page. But of course the very best part of travelling is the feeling of being inside the books you´ve read, the movies you´ve seen and the dreams you´ve had. And the most wonderful is: in 3D everything is just even better then you could imagine. In 3D it´s not only about seeing things, but about feeling, hearing, smelling and tasting the atmosphere.
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SEEING... Of course a very important part of travelling is the seeing part. Seeing the major attractions of a city, or seeing the wide nature of a quiet piece of land. But the most wonderful thing of all is to see the different things: details of a big sculpture, a lonely Zambian boy at the streets of Livingstone, a brave flower in a concrete jungle, or the ugliness of one single seat in a beautiful football stadium. I can really enjoy that: that makes me enjoy every single destination you can think of. |
HEARING... But there is so much more then seeing a destination alone. Sounds are an important part of the atmosphere you get pulled into when you visit a place. The sound of two Italians arguing passionately, of crickets at the lakeside, the sound of souvenirs tinkling in a crowded shopping street, of soundsystems in the streets of Accra, Ghana, or the sound or hearing nothing at all on top of Acros Corinth in Greece. Sounds can give you the wonderful feeling of rather being quiet and enjoy the atmosphere silently. |
TASTING... Taste is one of the most important aspects of most cultures. It is a must and a delight to get to know these aspects of the destinations you visit. Coming from the boring mashed-potatoes-eating-culture of Holland, almost every other ´cuisine` is like heaven to me. Weither it is the Hungarian Gulash, the Spanish Tapas, the Belgian beer- and the French wine-culture, weither it is the Greek Dolmadakia or the Italian icecream, trying foreign food is the best thing there is. |
SMELLING... A great thing about visiting nature is experiencing the smell. There is no better smell then the smell of real nature: flowers flourishing in spring, a fresh rain shower after a dry period at the island of Grinda in Sweden, the smell of fresh fish at an Asian market, or even the smell of exhaust gasses produced by an old tractor in a little mountain village on Crete in Greece. These are things that can make you remember that wonderful trip you´ve made years ago, with your eyes closed. |
FEELING... Of course the feeling part is essential too when visiting a destination. It´s great to feel external feelings like a sunbeam in your face when you´re inside a beautiful church, or the wind through your hair on top of a mountain. But the best feelings are the internal feelings of kind locals. Having the feeling of being welcome in someone´s hometown, making friends with people from totally different cultures and becoming part of this culture little by little. Meeting up with the locals is the best thing you can do. |
DREAMING... But the best thing of travelling, the sixth sence, is the dreaming part. Inspired by all the other sences: looking at a picture, hearing a certain sound, eating a foreign meal in your homecountry, the smell of a certain flower or the feeling of friendship you´ve developed, can bring you back to your destination in a second. By only using your imagination you can travel 365 days a year. Dreaming at night and daydreaming are the reason why travelling is so worth the money and the effort you put into it. Due to the dreaming part every single trip you make stays in your life forever. Travelling in this way isn´t something for a couple of weeks a years: it´s a 24/7, 365 days a year thing. A passion of six sences. |
| Celebrating Carnaval with my brother |
LATEST TRIPS 2006: - July: Zambia, Botswana, Namibia- August: South Africa- September: Paris- October - December: Ghana 2007: - January: Ireland- April: Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland - September: Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama- December: France 2008: - February: England (Dover, Canterbury, London) - March/April: Morocco and Western Sahara- April: France (Cannes) - April/May: Italy ( Florence and Pisa) - June: Poland and Slovakia - July: Hungary ( Budapest), Serbia (Belgrade, Nis), Bulgaria (Sofia, Koprivshtitsa, Rila) and Turkey (Istanbul, Saray, Kiyiköy) - October - December: Guadeloupe- November: Dominica - December: Saint-Martin, Saba, Saint Kitts and Nevis 2009: - February: Berlin - April: France UPCOMING TRIPS 2009: - July: Norway (Bergen) - August: Portugal (Lisbon) - September: Switzerland (Zürich) 2010: - February: Amsterdam-Dakar Challenge (???)
WASSUP? My travelyear 2008 was an extremely busy year: a lot of travelling! Out of the 365 days of the year, I spent 172 days abroad, in a total of 19 countries: - The Netherlands: 193 - Guadeloupe: 67 - Belgium: 45 - Morocco: 10 - Italy: 6 - Turkey: 6 - Netherlands Antilles: 5 - France: 4 - Serbia: 4 - Dominica: 4 - Saint-Kitts & Nevis: 3 - United Kingdom: 3 - Western Sahara: 3 - Poland: 3 - Bulgaria: 3 - Germany: 2 - Hungary: 2 - Slovakia: 1 - Austria: 1 Just before X-mas I came back from three months in the Caribbean, where I lived on Guadeloupe for a while. I've finished my "Gwada-page", the biggest one here on VT, so have a look and get inspired: check it out! I also just finished my page on the Western Sahara where I've been last year. I'm also pretty proud about this page: gives you a good view of this interesting piece of land. My next project was updating my Paris-page. It was already a big one, but new info has been added to make is more complete! Now I'm planning on building some pages on the other Caribbean islands I visited last year. I found out that there is not too much info about a lot of these islands yet on VT, so time to change that! The first one that I'm gonna start is Saint Kitts and Nevis. About my travelyear 2009: I had a short trip to Berlin and to France already. Up next are short ones to Portugal, Switzerland and Norway. And somewhere next year I hope to be participating in the Amsterdam Dakar Challenge: a trip by car from Holland all the way to Senegal, through the desert!
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 Comments for Pieter11 | | | | |
pavleo Mon Jun 22, 2009 23:26 UTC
tnx 4 an excellent report of west sahara. i'm planing a trip to laayoun 'vgot a very very helpful stuff from yours. tnx 1 more | jumpingnorman Sun Jun 21, 2009 15:15 UTC
Hey Pieter --- not sure if you are a Father already (maybe you are in the Caribbean, hehehe..sometimes we don't know these things...) --- so Happy Fathers Day my friend! Norman :) | AikoAnjo Fri Jun 19, 2009 10:08 UTC
cool i have a friend in Netherland i wnt to go there also hmmm... ur interesting hehehe ..you teaches student orly? i wnt to experience tat too n_n im planning to egypt one time yessum egypt ill try hope u visit japan too | marielexoteria Fri Jun 19, 2009 08:58 UTC
Not much, long weekend and some pampering and house chores with some friends (from music bands from the 80's hehehe). |
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