Lagos, Slavery And A Lovely Lost City In The Hills — Nigeria Part 1
At the point I’m writing this, I just have four more countries left to travel to until I’ve reached my goal of visiting every country in the world. 🌍 My last four countries will be Eritrea, Turkmenistan, Mauritius, and Japan. I’ll knock Mauritius off my list in early November, and I have an invitation to…
Onshoring And Offshoring A Surprising African Country — Equatorial Guinea Part 2
You’ve already gotten a taste of volcanic island life in Equatorial Guinea, but you’ve yet to get the full lush green volcano jungle experience. That is coming up at the end of this Equatoguinean adventure. But first we’ve got to onshore and then offshore this journey while exploring more nature and mixed Spanish culture and also getting a…
Volcanic Island Life Without Permit — Equatorial Guinea Part 1
You’ve probably never been to Equatorial Guinea. So you might not be aware that its capital is located, not on the African continental mainland, but on a volcanic island situated off the coast of Cameroon. It’s actually much closer to Cameroon than to mainland Equatorial Guinea. To say the least, Equatorial Guinea has some interesting…
On Safari South Of The Sahara In Chad
One might not know that just south of the Sahara Desert in a remote location of Chad you can find the Big 5 and all kinds of amazing untouched wildlife. But this truly is a remote location, and as you will see, it is not easy to get to and from it. So is this…
Staatenlos Meet Up in Bali
I arrived in Bali absolutely hungry! I was fasting for 30h after my trip in South Korea. And of course whenever you are hungry, everything seems like to take longer 🤯 When I arrived in Bali, there was a huge queue for the immigration at the airport. I was already choosing my order at the…
Seeing Benin — From Voodoo Serpents To Lake Living
Do you know what’s the birthplace of voodoo? Let’s pay a visit to Benin (😉) to check out everything from the serpent temple, where we’ll get to hang with pythons, to the Venice of West Africa, where we’ll get to experience life on the water in Africa’s largest lake village. Let’s do it… Getting to Benin…
On Safari With An Army-For-Hire In Niger
You’ve heard all about my safari successes and trials and tribulations. It’s time to step it up a notch… from spotting big game like a capable Maasai man to dodging Boko Haram while mixing and mingling with giant giraffes. For this I’ll need to hire my own army. Welcome to Niger! Getting to Know Niger…
Getting To Know Burkina Faso
Are you ready for mud mosques, crocs, rock outcrops and waterfalls? And odd, more so than awe-inspiring, monuments? That might not be what comes to mind (if anything does) when you think of Burkina Faso. But that’s on our itinerary as we get to know this little-visited, landlocked West African country — and do so…
Mud Mastery And Surviving The Elements — Mali Part 2
Mali has much more to see than merely Mopti and Timbuktu. But again it doesn’t come without danger. So let’s get ready to hide in the backseat of a blacked out car (not all the time) and continue our travels around this West African nation, where we’ll get to see the largest mud building in…
Executing A Visit To Timbuktu — Mali Part 1
Have you ever wondered where Timbuktu is? Of if you’re a more adventurous type like me, have have you wanted to visit? Well, Timbuktu is long past its golden age when it was a center for learning and culture in in the Mali (😉) Empire. And in its present state, it is surrounded by danger…
Cruising Cameroon And Going On Safari In The CAR
Let’s take a step up in West African wildlife watching from monkeying around in Ghana to hanging with habituated gorillas and buffaloes in the Baï of the war-torn Central African Republic. Also, get ready to canoe in and out of the CAR and check out city life in neighboring Cameroon. Plus, you want to see…
Freetown And Freedom In Sierra Leone
Ready to go road tripping, canoeing and even sailing on a catamaran (not SY Staatenlos) through a country founded for freed slaves to return to Africa? Let’s go! On this West African adventure, we left off heading south overland to Sierra Leone after a great three days of traveling through Guinea. I was permitted to enter…
Quaint Island Life In A Narco State – Guinea-Bissau Part 2
Join us as we continue our travels through Guinea-Bissau, a country that just weeks ago experienced a deadly coup attempt that aimed to kill the president, prime minister, cabinet, and army officials, and succeeded in killing almost a dozen people before it was stopped. The president describes the coup attempt as an attack on democracy,…
Seeing Bissau & Bouncing Around The Bissagos Archipelago — Guinea-Bissau Part 1
Think there’s nothing to see in a poor West African country that you’ve hardly, if ever, heard of? Think again. It’s time to go sightseeing, island hopping, hippo watching and more in Guinea-Bissau. And keeping reading until the end as we will travel to a previously renowned matriarchy to meet a soon-to-be-king. 👑 From Mauritania…
Me And My Desert Rose In Mauritania
I dreamt of rain. I dreamt of gardens in the desert sand. And unlike Sting, I did not wake in vain. That’s because I made it to Mauritania. What is there in Mauritania, you might ask. 🤷 Well, there’s the infamous Eye of the Sahara, which some people believe is the ruins of the lost city…
Nanga Parbat’s Breathtaking Beauty And Danger – Pakistan Part 5
After spending a few good days in Passu, we had a long journey ahead to get to the mountain, Nanga Parbat, where we would spend the next three days. We left early in the morning and began our long drive all the way back down the same road that had previously taken us through the…
Finding The Fountain Of Youth And Bridge Of Death – Pakistan Part 4
Want to live to eternity, or at least to 120? Well you may want to move to Pakistan’s Hunza Valley, where the local people have metaphorically found the Fountain of Youth. On this leg of our grand Pakistani excursion, we’ll see if we can boost our longevity in, of course, the Hunza Valley… Then we’ll…
Cruising The Roof Of The World – Pakistan Part 3
As a German tourist, you don’t want to be dropped off or left behind in the middle of nowhere on Nuku Hiva, which is part of the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia. While a remote area of Pakistan’s Hindu Kush Mountains, located close to the “Roof of the World,” is not a place where German-eating…
French Guiana: Not the Shit-Hole I Expected
This post picks up right after my layover in Paris. I’d made my way to French Guyana and made my way to the boat, which was waiting in the waters near Kourou. Back with my crew in Kourou The crew received me with a nice welcome dinner, and I woke up early the next day,…
Getting Cultured In The Kalash Valleys – Pakistan Part 2
Trekking Pakistan’s renowned mountainous terrain involves more than just skillful driving, sightseeing and getting acquainted with the topography. This type of travel is also about getting cultured. We left off in the last post still at the beginning of my journey to and through Pakistan. After a disastrous time trying to exit Libya, we traveled…
Ups And Downs Of Journeying To The Hindu Kush – Pakistan Part 1
While traveling to Afghanistan was a major accomplishment of mine, I was surely not going to overlook neighboring Pakistan, a country that is the fifth largest in the world by population and that is famous for its rich culture, mountainous terrain and turbulent political history. After an amazing yet challenging trip to Libya, I planned…
La Digue and Praslin: Seychelles pt. 2
This story picks up right at the end of my time on the main island of Seychelles. I had just spent a few days road tripping through Mahé, and I was ready for new horizons. So, I gave back the car rental shop and walked onto a ferry to La Digue. La Digue 101 La…
My lonesome honeymoon in the Seychelles pt. 1
After three weeks of roughing it in Afghanistan and Iraq, I decided to reward myself with a lonelymoon in Seychelles with me, myself, and I. I’d never been to the Seychelles before, meaning it was still on my list. So when I found a direct, three-hour flight from Dubai, it was a pretty obvious choice.…
Crossing borders to the Casamance Region of Senegal
By now, our time in West Africa was coming to an end. As you know, we’d spend our time learning about things like the West African Slave trade and Islamic Polygamy. We also visited the smallest country on the African mainland. Lastly, it wouldn’t be a proper trip to West Africa without having our fair share of wildlife…
Reminiscing The Valley Of Resistance – Afghanistan Part 3
I’ve already told you about my pre-Taliban takeover entry into Afghanistan and my encounters with this troubled land’s beauty and blown-up Buddha statues. Now it’s fittingly time to drive directly into what was and always had been — up until very recently — the valley of resistance. There we’ll visit a couple assassination destinations before…
A two-day pitstop in the smallest country of Mainland Africa
This post is a continuation of the time I spent visiting my first two West African countries. Senegal and the Gambia. After a few days of exploration through Senegal, we were finally due to cross borders into the Gambia. The morning of, we woke up early and hit the road right away. It was only…
Breathtaking Beauty And Blown-Up Buddha Statues – Afghanistan Part 2
You’ve already heard about my just-in-time arrival in Afghanistan. And I know you’re presuming I got out in time as well. But before we get to my Afghan exit, we still have a lot of ground to cover in this crucial and complex country — home to everyone from Pashtuns to Uzbeks to Tajiks to…
Islamic Polygamy and the Holy City of Touba
During my time in Senegal with Alana, we had quite a bit planned. Since you already know about our sightseeing day in Dakar and Goree Island; on this post I’ll tell you about the other parts of the country we visited before crossing borders to The Gambia. The plan was to head to The Gambia…
Vacationing in Senegal: Slave trade tourism in Dakar and Goree Island
After a long hiatus, from this blog – it feels really good to be sharing my adventures with you once again. Africa is the theme for this comeback season. I’ve already begun telling you about Libya and my troublesome trip to Tripoli. For this post, I wanted to change gears a bit. Keep it light-hearted…
Hopping Along the Canary Islands pt. 3: Lobos Island and Fuerteventura
As you may know from my previous post, I had somewhat spontaneously decided to embark on a solo escapade, and my first solo stop was Fuerteventura. Well, it wasn’t completely solo since I traveled to the island by ferry with two girlfriends who had just come to visit me in Lanzarote. The evening I arrived…