Hi there,
Since I'm in my first week here on Hive I would like to introduce myself to this community. I still have to learn a lot about it but I'm already very much enjoying it. I love the fact that much effort is put in quality content and in keeping healthy and interesting communities. I made my first posts in the Photography Lovers community. I am a travel, technology and photography enthusiast. I found out about Hive via a YouTube video from @mibreit-photo (Thanks Michael!) who also is a travel, technology and photography enthusiast.
Traveling alone through a by tourist abandoned Iceland in early 2021.
Introduction.
My name is Thijs and I live in the city of Arnhem in the Netherlands, near the border with Germany. I have a broad interest in history, humanity, nature, technology and photography. Traveling has always been my way to satisfy those interest. I've seen 47 countries and visit many of them multiple times. They include almost every country in Europe and quiet some in Africa, the Americas and Asia. Since 2020 that all changed of course.
In my job in IT I was fortunate to travel to India and the USA many times. I always added a day or sometimes a week to those business trips and used the time to explore the country. Although my colleagues at the office thought I was crazy I deeply enjoyed exploring the narrow and super crowded streets of Old Delhi. The sounds, the smell, the people, the temperatures, were so intense that my senses became overloaded in just a few hours walking around in that place. I It is definitely the most energetic place I have ever been to!
streets of Old Delhi, India.
Interests in traveling
I always had an interest in exploring the true essence of countries and cultures and tended to go to places were not many tourist would go. In the late 90's and early 2000 I did a lot of traveling in Eastern-Europe, which was something not many people would spend their holidays on during that period of time. I visited almost every country bordering Russia and found myself many times in densely build areas with grey high-rise housing blocks, which were all build during Soviet time. But I always enjoyed an enormous amount of friendly people who were welcoming you to try local dishes and have drinks with them. Eastern-Europe, is still one of my favorite destinations in Europe.
In 2008 I managed to go the exclusion zone and the abandoned town of Pripyat at Chernobyl in Ukraine. Which was hard to get to, since it was not allowed for tourist at that time. I needed to pull some good old tricks there, but I got in! Now a days there are many tourists and multi-day trips are organized by many agencies in Kiev. In the near future I will make an entire post about that 2008 trip.
Road to Pripyat, exclusion zone Chernobyl 2008.
Nature
During 2018 my interest in photography started to grow and I bought a decent camera. I slowly got some more gear as my enthusiasm for photography grew rapidly. While learning more and more about it, my interest in photography subjects slowly changed to nature and landscape photography. And with that, also my travel goals.
I still love exploring odd places but a big chunk of my travel planning goes into nature nowadays. Early 2021 during lockdown I went to Iceland just by myself and traveled the island for two weeks without seeing more than ten tourist all together. That was an amazing trip and the start of many more nature and photography travels. I will post about my adventures very soon. Update: see post
Thanks for reading, and I'm looking forward to your content in this community and many interesting conversations.
Best Thijs