Karu tuleb, karu läheb
Last night, I ended up in a bar in Athens after speaking at a conference with a Swede, an English lady, and two Estonians. It could have been the starting…
Stories
16 posts
A chance encounter on a bridge
My wife Marieke and I were spending New Year’s Eve in Maastricht, a beautiful city in the Southern part of The Netherlands. We hadn’t made any plans for the night,…
My all-time favorite stories
Life isn’t about the stuff you buy and gather, it is about the memories you make (and remember). I try to document some of these travel memories on this blog.…
How I ended up bar crawling with strangers in Tokyo
I was in my last few days of my trip to Japan. I had been to Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, hiked the Kumano Kodo trail, had my first true omakase experience…
The night I knew I wanted to marry her.
It was a special night in Siena a few years ago. Proof that saying yes is the gateway to adventures. The first part of the evening made that I became…
How I ended up as a karaoke DJ at an Italian graduation party
It was our first real holiday together. My then girlfriend, current wife Marieke and I. We had spent some time in Florence and Rome and were about to travel to…
The story of my strange friendship with a Bedouin
She looked at me with a strange look: “so, you befriended a Bedouin?!”. She was an employee at a company where I just gave a presentation. We were having drinks…
Cairns – a tribute
I have a love-hate relationship with cairns. Cairns -mostly: not knowing what cairns were- were one of the key reasons my brother and I got lost on the Pennine Way trail. It…
Jordan Trail Dana to Petra solo hike
It is 3h00 when my alarm goes off in my hotel in Amman. I must have gone over it in my had more than a thousand times. The last couple…
How I ended up doing the haka in New Zealand
Having an open mind will bring you places. When you leave your expectations at home, you’ll explore more. That is pretty much the idea behind omakase, this blog. It helped…
Fimmvörðuháls trail solo hike (Iceland)
The Fimmvörðuháls trail probably is one of the toughest days of hiking I ever did. Not that the hike is super tough per se, but I grossly underestimated the trail, the…