My 2018 - This is my Hobby: Learning the World by Traveling

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Hello,

as you might have seen, I'm a keen supporter of the contests run on the Steem platform. Today I want to submit an entry, of the challenge as I would like a minnow to win, to the contest made by @anomadsoul, which is rising always the level and the stakes in here. This time is getting even harder as it supposed to be longer than 1000 words, where my posts usually have 400-600 words in them.
Posts will contain random photos related to the subject.

This contest is about our hobbies, what we really like. I had to think about what I like as I have so many that I could write about. In the final selection, I had to choose between cars&racing, poker, and travel. All of them I like and all 3 make me joy. I'm not racing anymore and the needed adrenaline I get from speeding on the Autobahn here in Germany. Poker is the same, I don't play as much as I used to. The one the remains is travel.

I like to travel since when I was very young. My parents are also avid globetrotters and I think I kind of inherited that from them.

So when I really started to realize that I like it and that makes my joy. I was born and raised in a communist country where traveling was discouraged and forbidden. One could travel only with a permit and a report. I'm coming from a family which was not loved by the communist party as my grandparents have been against it. Everyone in the family was doomed to that. So traveling was the forbidden fruit. We could travel to our relatives like my uncle and my grandmother who have been living in some near cities. But the cities in communism looked mostly the same, grey with sad people living in them. The trip between the cities I enjoyed more, all the green and untouched nature. I liked gazing at the passing trees, rivers, and mountains.

In 1990, when I was 6, everything changed, communism fell and we could travel also abroad, without filling tens of documents and reports. We could also travel west, in the free world, which was free that people complain that is to free. Imagine a 6-year-old kid traveling from a country that used to have 2 hours of an electricity a day to Vienna. It was an eye opener, from a world of grey, empty stores and fear to an open world of abundance. This was my impression back then. It was the moment when I asked my parents not to go home but to travel further to see more.

It was also the first time I have seen people of African or Asian descendent. I was surely not polite staring at a massive black guy, but he was the first one I have ever seen. He smiled at me and I smiled back. That was it, my mother told me that I shall not do that ever again, but I was curious.

As I got older I managed to see most of my country, as I think it is important to know your civilization first and then see the other. I like history so with traveling I can learn actively about it. Now I've seen most of Europe and a little of Asia and North America. Sorry guys in the South Hemisphere, I will need to catch up.

I still love travel, it is like a drug, it makes me an addict. I'm lucky that my wife has the same disease. We do day trips, weekend trips or longer holidays. Every time in another place and every time something else. The only thing that is repeating is the question when do we go again and where do we go. That is it.

Before being with my wife I went also to some not that conventional travel places or not the best times to travel there, but let's put it like this, it is sometimes more fun without being flood by other tourists.

When I travel, I like to do some detours to places that are not on my route, just to see what gem I can find. You probably will find some posts where I made such detours. I like to learn the culture and the people of the place where I travel, mingle with them, party with them and just speak to the locals. I'm not a shy type and tend to speak to random people. I recommend anyone to try to do this, just ask a question to a stranger. People are social creatures and most of them are very lonely. One good word can save someone the day and also let you see some different angles of a view.

Now traveling has become part of my job. I'm 4 days a week on the road. Someone might see it as a curse, I see it as luck as I get paid to do my hobby. Of course, I work a lot and spent most of my time in meeting rooms, factories, and hotel rooms. There is always a time in the evening or very early in the morning when most are asleep, where I take my phone and go wander the streets or surroundings where I'm for the night. If I have the chance I try to see also the day and the night, the workday and the weekend. It changes so much on the perceptive.

I'm not specialized in only cities or only hiking on mountains. I'm doing everything. I like everything, from sunny beaches to snowy mountains, from remote villages to big metropoles. Each has its beauty and hidden treasures.

You might ask me where I enjoyed being the most? That would be a tough question where I could not give an answer. Like most in life it is a matter of taste and a dirty hotel for me shall not ruin an experience I had in a country that is not developed.

What did I learn from my travels? To be open, to try new things and not to have fear. Every culture is different and there are some cultures that don't respect the other cultures or try to force their culture on other which I find bad. We have to be open and to learn from the others and also to find out their reasoning. The question Why? can be an eye opener even for a blind one.

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