Another year has flown by and once again, I’m late with my flashback sort of post on here. I haven’t been photographing much lately. Instead, my focus was on another project-come-business of mine: Drip Roasters. I started a coffee roasting company together with my brother Dennys, which means we pretty much worked day and night to get our coffees to taste the way we wanted them to and to start a company and create a brand from scratch. But this post isn’t about the last few months only, it’s about 2018. And I did a good many other things in this crazy year, too. As anticipated, I did spend (much) more time traveling compared to 2017. A little too much, to be honest. So let’s look back on it…

New York City

The year started in my favorite city of them all, New York City, just like 2017 ended. Despite temperatures far below freezing, it was a nice stopover before departing on our months-long journey through latin America and Hawaii. I didn’t take a single picture.

 

Colombia

Arriving in warm Cartagena from the cold New York winter was lovely. We traveled Colombia for a month and enjoyed every bit of it. Our route was similar to the one I traveled on a few years earlier and we visited many of the same places. Yet, it was completely different from my last trip. There were and still are so many more things to see in those same places. I already feel like going back to Colombia again and I’m sure I will rather sooner than later.

 

Mexico

We’d wanted to travel to Mexico for quite some time and now we finally did. So I guess it was a dream come true. Those four weeks in Mexico were truly great. Beaches, cities, nice people, markets, islands, nature and ancient ruins. As always, one of our main interests was the food – and it didn’t disappoint. We ate tons of tacos and tortas but also discovered many many delicious things new to us.

 

San Francisco

I hadn’t ever been to San Francisco before but it was very high up on my list. One of the main reasons for this was its great restaurant and food culture. I was able to combine the trip, which was pretty much just a «quick» stopover on our way from Mexico to Hawaii, with some work and we extended our stay to a full week. We loved the city, its aesthetics and its vibe, we enjoyed the views and, again, the food was extraordinary.

 

Hawaii

Three islands and about 6 to 7 weeks of Aloha. We started the trip on Maui, which was a little disappointing because we couldn’t rent a car and thus didn’t see much of the island. We saw more of the Big Island, where we stayed for more than a month at my uncle’s farm and did some farm work and, towards the end, some exploring. And finally, a few days on Oahu, back to a big city again – as well as more breathtaking nature.

 

Los Angeles

We literally had just about 20 hours in the City of Angels. But it felt like much more – we really made great use of this time. Just after arriving at the airport and checking into our hotel, we toured some of the most famous spots in the city with our rental and ate at restaurants that had been on our ‘to eat at’ list for quite some time.

 

Japan

We made it back to Japan, too. This time, we had two full weeks and we got to see much much more than just Tokyo (which, itself, would’ve been well worth the trip). We visited some smaller cities and villages and ventured around in the Mount Fuji area. We were afraid that we wouldn’t see the famous mountain as online reviews mentioned bad conditions during this time of the year, but the views were very clear and we got to enjoy looking at that masterpiece of nature almost every day.

 

Sweden

A few years ago, we’d all spent a few months together in Gothenburg, Sweden, as students of the city’s university. Ever since, we’ve been trying to meet up with each other once every year. Not an easy task, given that we’re a group of about eight people (plus partners and now families) who live in five different countries spread across three continents. Yet, we managed to arrange a meeting quite easily last summer in Sweden – right on time for the Swedish midsummer celebration. I’m not quite sure if all of us will be able to meet up this year again, but it’s really nice to be part of a group of good friends who manage to meet regularly despite long distances.

 

Toronto

I didn’t get to take any photos since we were very busy. I traveled to Canada for the first time, spending about ten days in Toronto with my brother Kevin to represent his vegan street food company at a food festival. We had an amazing time and met some great people and, despite a lot of work, got to enjoy the city a little bit, too.

 

New York City

And back once again to the Big Apple. The purpose of the trip was the same as in Toronto, a food festival, where I was supporting my brother representing his company. But we also just spent some time in New York, as it was also my brother’s first visit. We had a really great time and met up with some great old friends of mine and made some new friends, too.

 

Spain

A few days in Barcelona with Seraina eating ourselves through another great culinary city. Close to a week in Torroella de Montgrí for a film photography meetup meeting up with friends from last year and meeting new ones. And a few more days in Valencia for football (and visiting that film lab of my choice).

 

Penang

I was commissioned to shoot for a Swiss company I’ve been working with for a few years now at an event they put together near Georgetown on Penang, Malaysia. I had been to Penang before and I didn’t have much spare time this time, but this was a great way of seeing the place from a complete new and different angle.

 

England

Another trip that was both work and leisure. The leisure part was to see my local football team play against Manchester United in the Champions League. The work part was shooting for Drift Magazine in London.

 

India

This was the last destination that has been our our travel list for a few years now. Same as Mexico, we were able to fulfil that dream and go there in 2018. We found a truly different world and culture. Our past travels have prepared us well for India, I believe, in terms of chaos and mass of people. Food was heaven and we visited some fantastic places. Despite being a vacation, this trip wasn’t very relaxing. But it was a hell of an experience. A separate post with photos from India is coming soon…

 

I visited 10 countries, took off 41 times on a plane I believe, and spent more than half of 2018 abroad. As privileged as I am having been able to travel that much, it was definitely too much. Plus I don’t like flying.