Mission:
“Learn, share & teach…” I’m going to meet inspiring people and good friends, and will be diving headfirst into far-away cultures to experience the different ways in which we humans choose to live our lives.

I’m trying for the ideal balance between spontaneous travel and planned activities. There definitely are some great activities taking place all around the world, while in the meantime I also enjoy living the moment at whatever place I currently find myself. So, nothing is a hundred percent definite, but this list surely gives a global impression of where you can find me…

Approximate travel schedule :

2009, and beyond? (Middle-East & Asia)
After two years of moving around in Europe and a quarter century of living in The Netherlands I finally feel it’s time to leave this continent where I’ve met so many kind people. On my visit to Asia I’ll be going on in a slower pace of movement: some time on the road, and some time living in different places. Places where I would love to live some months include the south coast of Turkey, Jerusalem and Laos.

It’s the right time, I doubt that I can expect what will happen and how I’ll change because of the experience, but I’m absolutely convinced it’s the right move at this time! Like usually I’m just following my heart….

…and trusting that everything will figure itself out, as always.

I might be preparing with saving some money and sizing down my equipment. The most important preperation though will be to get a new photocamera. I’d love to document my next big trip!

June 2007 – … (Living in Germany and some visits Holland, Denmark, Poland & Czech)
I went to Berlin from Spain for a big meeting where lots of my friends would be showing up. After getting there I realized I needed to settle down for real, and so I did – in a colorful old house near Alexanderplatz, a community with about 15 people. Now I’m taking a break from traveling, from this continuous movement. Sleeping in 5 different places in one week is nothing which troubles me, but the continuous cycle of meeting amazing people and quickly saying goodbye again became a tiredness which settled deep inside..

Here in Berlin I’m meeting friends and meeting them again, working on many different projects which I can’t work on on the road, earning some money, practising German, getting connected to the local community and so much more :-)

Inbetween there’s of course still the occasional short trip – like meeting friends and family in The Netherlands (just 600 km away), and a short visit to Denmark for the midsummer celebrations.

April/May 2007(Spain)
Living in a hippie community in the Sierra Nevada in the south of Spain.

March 2007(Spain)
Still some more Vipassana before going back to Andalucia – where I live some time on the beach participating in a rainbow healing retreat.

February 2007 (Spain & England)
A short visit of an old friend in London, who’s about to leave for an indefinite amount of time to Australia. (Again by plane.) The rest of the month I use for still more dhamma practise at Dhamma Neru!

January 2007 (Spain)
Some more time spent in Granada, and more Vipassana meditation practise (at Dhamma Neru near Barcelona).

December 2006 (Palestine, Spain)
Some more Israel (Death Sea, desert, Palestine), etc. and taking (for once) a plane to Spain and settling down in beautiful Granada.

November 2006 (North-Cyprus, South-Cyprus, Israel)
Making some random travels through Turkey and North- and South-Cyprus, with the final goal of Israel, where I join a rainbow gathering.

October 2006 (Bulgaria, Turkey)
Seeing the dream of old friends in Sofia! And hitchhiking along the Turkish coast.

September 2006 (Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia)
Hiking in beautiful south-east Poland and visiting Warsaw & Rseszow. Meeting some people on a hospitalityclub camp in Kiev (Ukraine) and doing a Vipassana meditation course in Serbia.

August 2006 (Slovakia, Hungary)
early August: Visiting Budapest.
early-late August: Joining an ecological camp in Slovakia and living in a remote farm community in the Slovakian Tatra’s.

July 2006 (Belgium, Germany, Austria)
Early July I’ll be leaving Holland again – just in time for the best of summer!

01-03: Antwerp!
03-09: visiting friends in remote villages in Bayern (Deutschland)
10-17: Camping with hippies in the forest near Liege/Luik
21-30: Eisenstadt, Austria; CS collective workrally
30-31: a couple of days in Vienna

By the time I’m well on the road again I find out that I got a 5 out of 10 on my last exam. While 5,5 was actually needed. Well, I realise that’s probably what you get for being ambivalent; I don’t believe in getting a diploma just because of the diploma, but still I wanted to get the diploma because, perhaps, it would be good to finish what I once started. Wanting something and not wanting something, of course it never gets you anything you’re satisfied with.

Either way, I’m one hundred percent back on the road, I *am* happy to be back, and there’s no looking back now.

June 2006 (The Netherlands)
My real last examination, this one is about Fouriertransformations and other more advanced signal analysis tools.

Most of June will be spent with friends in Groningen and Leeuwarden (in my lovely hammock in the garden), while meanwhile finding the time to play the occasional game of frisbee..

Jan 2006 – June 2006 (The Netherlands, some Germany, Belgium and France)
I’m finishing my last three subjects at university – which means I’ve got a lot of free time because they exams are very far inbetween. I’m still living nomadically, and might find myself at the begin of a week in Berlin, in the middle following college in Holland, and at the end of the week visiting some friends Normandy (France) together. Crazy times!

The first two exams I pass easily, with excellent grades. Still it’s strange, because I feel very disconnected from the university system. When I look around me I see many friends stuck in this system, feeling they need the paper, but not enjoying being here. Personally the whole paper seems a farce to me, I pretend I know something by passing an exam, paper or test in whatever way possible, and then get a paper which actually just tells you I know how to pass exams, but fails to point out I hardly learned anything at all.

I feel confident that I will manage quite fine in this world without this paper. Why should I obtain this university diploma in a way which I don’t enjoy, and then expecting I can use it to get jobs I will enjoy? Something feels wrong here. Still I don’t feel confident enough to leave university *again*, and I go on.

December 2005 (Spain/The Netherlands)
My money is running out. Being down to my last two twenty euro bills I’m torn in two – find work right here in Granada, or listen to this nagging voice in the back of my brain which says: “Go finish your bachelor studies Artificial Intelligence in Holland. It’s just three more subjects, you won’t feel free until you’ve done this.” I really feel like staying in Spain, but still – I can’t ignore the voice, so I take no real action, I stay in Spain, but don’t look for a job and thus get down to my last 4 euros before I really make a choice: hitching back to Holland it is.

November 2005 (Spain)
I planned to hitchhike to Gibraltar from Paris, but instead got to Granada, a city in the south of Spain. It’s not a city I was even aware of it existed, but when I got there I fell instantly in love with it! I spent nearly one month in and around the city, making new friends, camping at the hot springs at Santa Fe, meeting people living in caves, etc.

October 2005 (France)
Working in a beautiful, colourful, sunny Autumn on an old farm in Bourgogne belonging to an emigrated Dutch family.

September 2005 (England)
Leaving The Netherlands, and hitchhiking a boat to visit a good friend on the other side of the North Sea. Hiking around the coast near the Scottish border, and joining my first coaching workshop in London.