Hi, fellow explorer!
< This is me. Erika.
I have about three photos of myself that I can tolerate, so you won’t see my face everywhere on this site. But I will make up for that by adding more than enough photos of places I’ve been to.
I grew up in the middle of South Africa with my amazing parents and two brothers. We went on family trips at least four times a year, and never to the same place twice in a row. I got to see every part of our magnificent country whilst road tripping with my gang. We played I Spy and wordgames, nagged our parents’ ears off to make the road shorter and watched endless hours of Disney movies on portable DVD players.
A special part of the trip was the planning – quite often we’d decide on the travel dates about three or four weeks earlier. That Saturday morning, my dad and I would grab the phone and computer and contact every accommodation provider in the area we’re heading to. We got so many “you should have asked much earlier” responses (imagine that in a sarcastic tone of voice), but we laugh in the face of danger. We always got a place.
I learnt to love travel and exploring new places, but also that the whole experience started with the planning already.
As an eleven-year-old I used to lie down on the trampoline in our backyard and watch the planes fly over our house. I remember thinking “I will one day be on that plane”. At that time, I imagined that journey to be the one from Johannesburg to Durban. Just in case you don’t know: this is an hour long domestic flight in South Africa. At the time I was playing the PC game “Zeus”, where you build an entire ancient civilisation. By the time I was 16, I have planned a detailed 3-week roadtrip through Greece – just in case.
My dream of flying to Durban finally came true when I was 20. My parents picked me up from my summer job and we drove to OR Tambo International in Johannesburg, ready for our first family flying-trip to Durban. I was as excited as a kid at Christmas (well, it was actually almost Christmas). However, the moment those engines started up and the crew strapped in, my stomach moved to my throat. I grabbed the arm rests and held on for dear life. My brother sat next to me holding my hand quietly. Fortunately, he has not to this day brought up that lovely embarrasment for this aspiring globe trotter. The return flight went smoother.
In the next five years I flew to Durban and Cape Town a couple of times. I learnt not to choke the arm rests every time we took off and even got through the landing without showing how nervous I felt as the ground came closer. By 2015 I was ready to see more of the world. A friend and I planned an extensive trip to Italy and spent almost four weeks travelling from Rome to Milan (via Venice of course).
At 27 I got the chance to study my Master’s degree. In Sweden. Within 8 months I applied for the studies, quit my job, packed my life into 3 bags and got on a plane. With my mom, of course! No way I wanted to go on that journey on my own and thankfully she could join. And so one of my biggest adventures started – the photo on the left was my first view of Sweden. I have since continued with my doctoral studies and life has thrown several curve balls in the past couple of years, but one constant is my passion for travel.
I spent about three months backpacking through Europe in 2018 – the trip included about 60 cities and 90 train trips. In the past six years I’ve been to Germany, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, England, Hungary, Australia, Singapore and Ireland. Well, I have been in each of these countries. However, I still don’t feel like I can erase all of them from my scratch-map. In some cases I have only been to one city. And have you ever really seen a country if you just travel through it?
Well, I suppose that is why I am here. I love travel and exploring the world around me. And sometimes that means that I need to explore it remotely. Thank goodness I live in the age of the internet!! So I will share some of my trips, but also my wishlists, travel ideas and destination guides based on research. And hopefully someday soon I will finally go on that trip to Greece!
Until then, happy travels!
Erika
PS. You can also look at my personal Instagram at some of my travel memories.