Internet, though still relatively young, has been with us in a commercial sense since the mid 1990′s. Since then Internet evolved rapidly. At first whiz kids and early adopters were the only ones interested, but over the next couple of years “regular” people also created their first email address (remember that one;  maybe you’re still using it?) and started changing their communication styles.

At first, the Net became just another shopping street, with many virtual store fronts. Displaying goods and services to the public and benefiting from the growing reach of this globally spun network some businesses boomed. Marketeers started to take notice  and slowly started to think about how to adapt their marketing strategies.Some just didn’t, can you believe that?!

As with all change, it wasn’t all good. Virtual stores not only offered goods and services, they also offered “entertainment” in the form of pornography. This turned out to be a well sought after kind of entertainment, looking at the percentage of empty-sex related sites on the Web today (12%, or 420 million pages). On the popular tv series “Scrubs”, Dr Cox said, “If they took all the porn off the internet, there would be only one site left and it would be called bringbacktheporn.com“. That site would probably receive more hits than Facebook.

As much as the Internet connected people and was useful in a positive way, it also provided fertile soil for the negative in our world. Child pornography networks boomed and new ones came into existence to share the material needed to sooth the desires of pedophiles. Spamming became a regular pest epidemic, identity theft started to appear.

Nowadays the Internet has secured a central spot in the existence of many. With the “socialization” of the Internet through various online social communities where people create an online clone of themselves people around the globe tied themselves to the Internet even more, because their social lives became, at least in part, virtual. Following the lives of friends, co-workers and  loved ones on sites like Facebook has become a very real pass time for many.

But all these “advantages” (can we really call these time consuming, de-mobilizing “activities” that?) are starting to be outweighed by the disadvantages. What part of our lives do we keep private? Are the “settings” option available on the Net fail safe? In most cases they aren’t. Facebook isn’t a “https”, where you see a small lock in your browser indicating you are on a secure connection, as you are with your bank. This means all your data are available to anyone interested.

Did you know that Canadian customs (and most likely many other countries too) actually use Google Search to learn about visitors entering the country upon entry, so while you stand at the desk of an officer at the airport? There’s little more confronting than a customs officer reading a part of your own blog to you, trust me.

This leaves us with a dilemma, two decades after all this started. What do we show of ourselves online? I am not comfortable sharing all my thoughts and actions in the electronic environment we have created. I never know who’s going to read what. Applying for a job? Your future employer will look you up on the Internet before even inviting you to an interview. Going on a vacation? Burglars are selecting the properties to break into via the web nowadays, so they can go about their criminal activities undisturbed. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera…

The dilemma I mentioned is this (and you, reader of my blog, should also ask yourself this question): Do I create and maintain an online existence for myself? When you answer this question with “yes”, you should also answer the questions “Why?” and “To what extent?”

Should you answer with “No”, you will have to ask yourself to what extent you will extract yourself from the Internet.

Whichever choice I make, I know that it will not go without consequences.
Staying online pollutes the planet (do you know how much energy is used for a single Google Search?) and leaves you vulnerable to people who are upto no good or are just too curious about you and your life.
Going offline will result in a detox-like behavior, forcing you to partially re-invent your life. Even if you do not cut back 100%, but only 50%, you will be confronted with the following. What will you do with all this spare time you created? How did you job hunt in the past? And how on earth were you able to maintain friendships with the people around you?

This struggle of consciousness continues, and it probably will for some time. Good luck with your choice!

It’s been a long time since I blogged a last post on this blog. The reason for this is simple. I got tired of  spending time in front of a keyboard, looking at a screen, sitting on my butt.

There’s only one way to get rid of that feeling, and that is by not spending time this way anymore. So this is what I did, and will continue to do. There’s nothing wrong with using computers for your job, but in my spare time I have better things to do. The planet we live on is a beautiful place and I want to experience it not via said screen, but in real life, moving through and in it.

This is why it will probably take quite some time before you’ll meet me here again. I decided to not deactivate this blog (yet), because it still may serve a purpose for some people out there. It no longer serves me at this point in time.

Bringing down server traffic and server energy usage will be a result from people extracting themselves from the online life we’ve created for ourselves and interacting in real life with real individuals and groups again will benefit the strong social conections that make up our societies.

Thanks for reading, signing off…

Is traveling a virus, a disease? Once you get exposed to it it seems to nestle itself in your body and there seems to be no cure. Never tried it? Not infected yet? Maybe you should never do it, as to not get “sick”?

Nah! All I can say is, you’d be nuts not to get out there and do what people have done for millions of years; explore your surroundings, i.e. your planet (and beyond if you can afford it, like Guy Laliberte from Cirque de Soleil, exploring space for a lot of cash.) There’s simply nothing like it. It develops your personality, it creates a bigger and better understanding of other people and their backgrounds and could eventually lead to world peace… Ok, that may be stretching it a little, but hey, it could happen.

In any case, I can highly recommend you get up and go. I traveled the globe quite a bit, and did so in sustainable, green ways and less green ways. Unfortunately it is not always possible to travel green, since the bright minds of technology are obstructed by (less bright) minds of the oil industry. But I have seen my share of our wonderful planet, and I am far from done seeing it.

To give you an idea of my travels in random order:

• extensive rock climbing and mountaineering (Alpinism) in the Swiss and Austrian Alps over the years,
• One year sabbatical by bicycle  (7 months) and other means of transportation around the Globe, visiting Netherland (no -s please), Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal, the USA, New Zealand (N&S), Thailand and Laos,
• A three week  visit to the tropical island of Aruba,
• Separate trips to Thailand and Laos of at least a month each,
• Six month of cycling in France, Switzerland , Germany, Greece and Netherland, studying cycle tourism’s best practices (Report available at request,
• Train ride from Denver Colorado to San Francisco, camper vanning ( is that even a verb) to Los Angeles and back,
• Mountaineering expedition to Nepal for 8 weeks, climbing Yalong Ri and Parchamo, two unknown mountains in the Everest Region of 5900 and 6300 meters none the less. (That is 19,357  and 20.670 feet for the non-metrics),
• Exploring Death Valley and winter camping at altitude over night,
• Ice climbing frozen water falls in Austria with my good friend, exploring not just the terrain but myself  in the process,
• Wild camping in the south of Portugal and Spain while exploring the inner most secrets (oh, and don’t forget about the tapas) of these two amazing European countries,
• After having been invited by the Colombian government I spent 10 days (way too short!) in beautiful Colombia, visiting Carthagena, Bogota, San Andres and Providencia Islands,
• Skiing Switzerland, but I can’t wait to skip the crowded pistes and start tour skiing,
• West Canada (British Colombia, yes, where the Olympic Winter Games are happening right now) and USA by old school bus, connecting with locals and professional travelers,
• and the list goes on and on, cheez, I must be getting old…;-

If this list did not inspire you, don’t worry, I am a very outdoorsy kind of person who doesn’t mind breaking a sweat. But there is something for everybody out there. Don’t just watch it from your sofa on Discovery Channel, Animal Planet or YouTube. Participate! Go out there and evoke change by asking questions, meeting people, having fun, sharing parts of your life with others who do the same. And make sure to let me know what you did and how you liked it. But remember, don’t say I did not warn you about that travel bug! Happy travels.

My dear friend Zied Brini directed my attention to Thomas Jonckeau,  a 20 year old French history student. His story is a great example of what Dream Travel can be like and that is why I am sharing this with you.

Thomas decided to turn history into an every day reality again. Together with his trusted donkey Phebus he took of on his Dream Travel Project with its finish in Berlin, Germany. He started in Trieste, Northern Italy, following the borders that once formed the Iron Curtain, the division between East and West in Europe before the fall of The Wall in Berlin, November 9th, 1989.

Thomas: “This adventure is symbolic. I have never known the Iron Curtain personally and I have only learned about it through my studies. Besides that, I love to travel, so that is why I decided to undertake this travel.” Thomas has traveled with his donkey before, and is already planning a next trip to Santiago de Compostella. This is the pilgrimage destination in Northern Spain I visited myself by bike, cycling there from the Netherlands a few years ago.

Thomas started organizing his trip  in April 2009, which wasn’t as easy as it may seem. He had to convince his parents, find sponsors for support (he didn’t know StayNomad.com at that time) and locate contacts in the countries he was about to visit. He also had to plan his trip considering the donkey, the necessary vaccinations and start to get physically prepared for his trip. But finally, on July 11th 2009 Thomas and Phebus took off in a van to Trieste, Italy, the symbolic and strategic starting point of their trip. The geographic location of Trieste as a meeting point of  the Orient and the Occident makes it a hub where  Slavic and Western cultures meet, symbolic of Thomas’ adventure.

Slovenia, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Germany and Poland have not just shown Thomas a trip through history but have also made him realize and discover many things about the world today. Thomas: “Many people have spontaneously offered me food, coffee or even accommodation without having any hidden agenda to do so. They did not know me and I had nothing to offer them in return. I could not have imagined this in my wildest dreams.”

This a great example of the joy and meaningful connections  traveling can bring to individuals and to the World as a whole.I hope the readers of my blog will find inspiration in Thomas’ eco friendly Dream Travel adventure. Don’t be afraid to discover your world in a creative manner, it can be very rewarding to do so…

Travel & Stay Free!

The Netherlands, like Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Ireland is a Tax Shelter Hotspot for multinationals around the globe. Out of the 20 biggest multinationals in the Netherlands, like Shell, Philips and Unilever, 15 do not even pay one cent in profit tax. Nothing. And we are not just talking multinationals like Coca Cola, Nike, Ikea and Gucci, but also artists and bands like the Rolling Stones and do-gooders like Bono and his U2 with an estimated value of 600+ million euros.

This fact cost the Dutch tax payer 16 billion euros (almost 24 billion US$) in 2008 alone. Who pays for this? Well, the wage slaves (as ussual) and smaller to mid sized companies in the Netherlands, which are bound by stict rules and regulations and are checked intensively by the tax company.  Also, developing countries and the countries where these companies are originally from, in the case of non-Dutch companies, miss out on huge sums of money for their people. Barack Obama said in 2009 that the USA misses billions of dollars in income tax annually due to multinationals evading tax duties in their country of origin due to tax havens elsewhere in the world. But don’t just take his or my word for it, read the NY Times…

The eternal excuse used by the Dutch government that multinationals will leave the Netherlands when taxes are imposed on them is a very weak one, and that’s an understatement. The country has so many highly beneficial tax regulations that it is very unlikely multinationals will pick up their office and move it to the Caymans. They simply would be confronted with a  lack of infrastructure, a bigger distance to the market and other disadvantages in other tax havens. Minister of Finance Wouter Bos and his junior minister Jan Kees de Jager are of course very aware of the above, but refuse to take effective and waterproof meassures to stop the continuation of a reality where 8000 billion euros (almost 12.000 billion US$, getting dizzy yet?) are channeled through the Netherlands annually, of which 2 billion euros (almost 3 billion US$) stays in the country as paid taxes.

For those of you who understand Dutch, here’s an interesting documentary made by Zembla, a critical Dutch TV program. For those of you who don’t, I trust my summary above has awoken your interest in this matter and I ask you to write to the editors of Zembla here asking them for a subtitled version (at least in English) of their stunning documentary. It is very much worth it, you will be flabergasted. I promise.

Make a difference, make it right.

I try. Do you?