The purpose of the Liebster Award is to give small bloggers more recognition and to get discovered more easily. It only exists online and goes around from blogger to blogger, usually to blogs with less than 200 followers. We are very happy that Cassandra from SimpleWonderer nominated us for this award! This award gives us more energy to keep on going with this blog and shows us that our readers and the blogger community like our stories!
WHO GAVE US THIS LIEBSTER AWARD?
We would like to take some time to thank the person that gave us this award. After all, this person is one of our readers and knowing that our readers appreciate what we do makes us happy!
We are talking about Cassandra of the blog SimpleWonderer. She recently started blogging about her trip to Thailand. Traveling on a budget is also very important for her, she even wrote a blog post about it so go and have a read if you’re interested in some valuable tips! We didn’t know of her blog before this award, so we are glad that we got to know another new blog that shares the same passion and values.
SIMPLEWONDERER’S QUESTIONS
1. What is one interesting fact about you?
Thomas wears almost every day the same shorts, except when it needs to be washed (yes, it gets washed regularly!). It’s actually a zip-off pants. Most of the time he wears it without the leg parts and that’s why the colors don’t match anymore. It’s hilarious, because when he does wear the whole pants in one piece, it looks like it’s made from two different pants. Could this be the next travel fashion trend? He just likes this shorts because it’s lightweight and perfect to walk around with in hot, humid weather.
Myrthe has hypochondria, which makes her quickly think that she’s sick or has some other problem. She tries to work on it during our travels, but it doesn’t always go well. Because of this, we’ve already been to 4 hospitals the last five months, most of the time for nothing severe. Like that time when she thought she had malaria in Hué, Vietnam because she woke up with a fever. In the afternoon, the fever was already gone, and there was luckily no malaria found.
2. Do you have a favourite quote? If yes, which one?
We don’t really have a favourite quote, but we like Jon Krakauer’s “If you want a blank spot on the map, you gotta leave the map behind.”
The movie and book of Krakauer’s “Into The Wild” and the accompanying music of Eddie Vedder, made a lasting impression on the both of us. This has probably been one of the many reasons that made us take the leap and go out there. And we both love to explore more ‘off the beaten path’ places where we’re not just surrounded by tourists.
3. Who, what, and/or where does your blogging inspiration come from?
We started our blog because we wanted to write about our adventures during the Mongol Rally for our friends & family. We liked it so much actually, because it was a whole new thing for us back then, that we chose to do this for the rest of our trip. Now, we’re not only telling our own stories about our journey, but we also want to help other travelers and like-minded people by writing valuable content like destination guides and travel tips.
We get our inspiration from the things that we come across every day and the places that we visit. When we research the places before we visit them and we notice that there isn’t a lot of (accurate) info about it on the web, then we will write about it. We want to give our readers valuable content, so if we have tips or other content that can benefit them, we will try to make a blog post about it. But only if it’s interesting enough!
4. Which destination that you have visited surprised you the most and why?
Can we choose two destinations?
Turkmenistan: Our expectations about Turkmenistan weren’t that high since that it’s the seventh least visited country in the world (less than 10.000 tourists per year). However, the country offers fantastic landscapes, and the region is full of history. And everyone is soooo friendly and helpful! The capital city, Ashgabat, is super weird. A big city, in the middle of the desert, with tall buildings made of white marble and gold. On top of that, we had the most special night of our lives in Turkmenistan; we slept on the edge of “The Gates Of Hell”, a burning gas crater in the middle of the desert. If you want to go off the beaten path and see a country without seeing any other tourists, go to Turkmenistan!
Hong Kong: Our first destination after the Mongol Rally was rather unplanned. In Mongolia, we decided to drive our precious Lada back home and just searched for the cheapest flight from Belgium to Asia. This was a one-way ticket for only $225 each. We landed in Hong Kong without doing any research, and it was awesome! It’s the perfect mix of old and new, east and west, with great street food (we love street food) and beautiful nature just a few km’s from the city center. We fell in love with HK and are even thinking about living there in the future.
5. What is your defining moment that sets you down this path of travel?
We both thought about traveling for quite a time, but when we got to know each other, our ideas became more specific. When one of us cited the idea of traveling long-term, we both just took the leap and started planning and saving money.
6. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?
Iceland is without a doubt on top of our list. We just love nature, and when we see what Iceland has to offer, we just need to go there at least once! We are both adventurous, love to hike and like to explore new places where not a lot of regular tourists already went to. So we think that Iceland is a destination that definitely suits us…
7. What is your worst travel memory?
That time when we went off-road on a height of +4.000m in the Pamir Mountains. It was already getting dark, so we wanted to go back to the main road. Unfortunately, we got stuck in deep sand while going uphill. On top of that, our car battery died so we couldn’t get the car running again or push-start it and there was such a strong wind that it felt like it was freezing. There was no other option than staying in the car and to wait until the next day. We couldn’t make food outside because of the wind so we had to survive on two bananas. It was freaking cold that night and for a moment, we even thought for a second that we would die out there (very dramatic indeed).
8. What is your funniest travel memory?
When we arrived in Hanoi, we didn’t have a place to sleep yet, and it was already late. We just picked the first hotel that had some rooms left. When we got into the room, it had this really bad cigarette smell. We went back down to the receptionist to ask if they couldn’t give us a non-smoking room. She probably didn’t understand us very well because she said ‘yes’, went back in the lift to the same floor and back to our room. We asked again if it would be possible to have a non-smoking room. “No problem.” she said, “Do you like coffee?”. We thought that we just had to wait there so, a cup of coffee wouldn’t hurt of course. She and the cleaning lady began making coffee in the bathroom and brought it into the room so that the aroma of coffee filled the room. All of a sudden, they started pouring some coffee on the floor to clean the floor with it. We didn’t know how to react and just started laughing. The remainders were poured out in the sink and bath. “Have a good night!” the receptionist said, and they left the room. So we didn’t have a cup of coffee, but at least our room got rid of the cigarette smell and now had a nice fragrance of coffee…
9. When you pack your bag to travel, which are the most essential items you pack first?
Finn, from Adventure Time, is our travel companion during all our trips. Besides that, our laptops our also essential items; highly necessary for maintaining a travel blog! We also carry around a frisbee to play with on the beach or when we have some free time while waiting for the bus…
10. Do you have any tips for newbie travellers?
Pack light! A tip that we haven’t fully made use of before we left. We thought a lot about what we should have and what not and eventually, we already shipped a full box of items back home after a week in Hong Kong, which was our first stop. It’s much more fun to walk around with a lighter backpack. Only pack things that you are sure you’ll need a lot, and remember that cheap clothes always can be bought in another country, especially in Asia!
OUR NOMINEES FOR THE LIEBSTER AWARD
Linger Abroad
Ling & Mat travel as much as possible and share their experiences by writing awe-inspiring blog posts which were already very helpful for planning our journey. They have a great looking website too!
Op Reis Met Ome Hein
This blog is written in Dutch but has a lot of great articles about all kinds of different places around the world. Their newest articles, where they let other people write about their adventures, are really interesting!
Let Go, Let’s Go
We came across this blog via Instagram. They shoot excellent photos which make their blog look very professional. The articles about Asia & Europe are great to read too!
Travel With The Allens
They’ve just begun blogging, but their blog posts about Japan makes it come on top of our bucket list! We’re looking forward to read more of them.
He Said – She Said
Ryne & Denise give their own perspectives about their adventures and destinations. This lovely couple gave a whole new concept to travel blogging!
OUR QUESTIONS
- Tell us something about yourself that most of your readers don’t know.
- Which object do you miss the most when you’re traveling and why?
- What travel experience will you remember the most?
- What’s your worst travel experience? Have you ever had a breaking point?
- Is there something in your backpack that you actually never use or don’t really need but don’t want to throw away?
- On which achievement are you the proudest of?
- Do you have future goals?
- Why exactly do you want to travel so much?
- If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
- What’s your next travel destination?
