I was nominated for the Liebster Award by Daphne from the Dutch site Food & Flipflops! She thought of 11 awesome and creative questions for me to answer so you can find out a bit more about me:) The Liebster traveltag was created to get to know the persons behind the blog and promote and support other bloggers by expressing appreciation through a nomination, so here goes!
Get to know me through Daphne’s 11 questions:
1. Where did your passion for traveling originate?
I must have inherited it from my father as he is half Indonesian, born on Bali, lived in many countries throughout his life and loves Asia. I am also curious and adventurous by nature and I just love to wander and explore, so this combines perfectly with traveling. There is so much beauty to find in the world and I always try to capture as much of it as possible!
Also I have many quotes which I love and live by, such as ‘’to travel is to live’’ and ‘’traveling is the only thing you can spend money on which will make your richer’’, but my favourite ones which characterize me best are: ‘’traveling enriches the mind and feeds the soul’’ and ‘’collect moments instead of things’’!
2. What do you do when you’re not blogging?
I have a passion for social media, fashion, photography and painting. Next to blogging and writing travel articles for several sites I have been working in fashion for over 17 years and till last year I had a part-time day job working for a fashion brand. Now next to full time travel blogger I am a free-lance social media manager for several companies. I love coordinating things, initiate and think of new marketing initiatives and run social media accounts and campaigns for different brands and concepts, to make them grow internationally. Besides that I try to take as many pictures as possible of everything around me for inspiration and of course for my own website and social media accounts.
I also love to surround myself with nature as often as possible! It always feels so good to be outside, and I just love the pureness of nature’s colours in different seasons, so we go hiking and cycling anytime the weather is good enough. Also I love animals and especially my 2 beautiful cats, which I cuddle as much as possible!
3. What is your favourite country and why?
This is such a difficult question!! I really love Portugal and Thailand and have been in both already 3 times in different parts, as they are both very diverse countries. This is unique for me as I try not to visit the same country more than once or twice because I strive to see as many different countries as possible. What I like most about Thailand is the laidback atmosphere, the kind people, the beauty of the nature and especially the islands, as you can read in my 2 Thailand blogposts: Reunited with Thailand and What to do and where to go around Phuket and the Phi Phis
Portugal however also has beautiful cities, lots of history, culture and pristine high cliffed beaches, find out more about my love for Portugal here: Portugals top 5 sights in the Lisbon region
Can I choose 2, or 3 and add Australia as well? Cause don’t get me started about Australia….:) Read my 2 Australia blogposts to find out why: Aussie East coast roundtrip in only 3 weeks and Australia outback adventure
4. Which one of your habits irritates you the most?
My perfectionism and drive. Of course these are useful habits and characteristics as well, but they always keep me so busy and critical about everything I do.
5. What can you truly enjoy, next to traveling?
I really like online marketing, cooking and reading good books, but I love painting even more. It so nice how it calms down my mind and helps me to express myself in a very pure and experimental way!
I like to be creative in different ways though, so I experiment with different art forms such as sculpting stones and working with clay as well, I just love to work with my hands! Next to that I love to find inspiration for my art in museums and expositions.
6. What is your favourite hotspot, why this one and where can we find it?
Currently hotel-restaurant Morgan & Mees in Amsterdam, this is such a chique but still laidback place. I love how the atmosphere is trendy but still casual at the same time and the interior and food is great! My hotspots vary a lot though and depend also on my mood and surroundings. I always try to find new hotspots in every country and city I visit.
7. What was your biggest mishap, something people are still talking about?
Getting my car towed in Amsterdam twice!! Amsterdam is a beautiful city and as I work in the city centre in the beautiful but crowded neighborhood ‘’de Jordaan’’it is always difficult to find a parking space next to the small canals and narrow streets. When in a hurry and finally having found a parking space I sometimes forget to look closely at all the signs and unfortunately parked wrong twice! Not something I am proud of and definitely not a nice experience to find out your car is gone after a long working day and having to figure out where it’s gone…Let this be a warning for all travelers visiting Amsterdam by car…
8. Tell us something about yourself nobody knows yet?
Sometimes I am still a big child….I am 36 years old now and quite serious in everything I do. I have a responsible job and am very focused on my life goals, but I am also still a child at heart. Especially when it comes to traveling, having fun, looking for beautiful things and animals I just can’t keep it together:)
9. What is the strangest thing you ever ate?
Iguana in the Dominican Republic. Very strange meat with a lot of small bones in it, therefor not very easy to eat and next to that it just tastes like a very thin chicken…
10. If you could live somewhere else, which country would you choose and why that country?
Either Australia or Portugal. Again a very difficult choice, as they are both a very stylish countries and have a great offering of nature combined with good weather, nice people, beautiful architecture, cities with grandeur, good facilities and a lots of space and variation in surroundings. But I think in the end I would choose Portugal, somewhere in the Algarve or around Lisbon, because it’s still in Europe and not so far away from my friends and family.
11. What does your favourite weekend in the Netherlands look like?
A nice stay in a comfortable location, either a hotel, house or apartment, with a bit of luxury but most importantly combined with beautiful surroundings in the middle of nature or in the center of an awesome city! Next to that there should be enough room for exploring and of course nice drinks and good food! In the Netherlands I love beautiful cities such as The Hague, Amsterdam, Groningen or Maastricht, but I love nature locations and islands even more. Because of that I prefer to go to the ‘’de Veluwe’’, a beautiful nature area in the east part of my country. But I love the pureness and beaches of the islands in the north and south of Holland as well, called ‘’de Wadden Eilanden’’ and ‘’Zeeland’’.
