Anekdotique 2014 Travel Retrospective | Part 3

Here is the last part of my 2014 travel retrospective: the month of September to December brought me to the North Sea Coast, to my unforgettable Digital Detox mountain retreat on South Tyrol mountaintops, to London twice, to the Christkindlesmarkt in Nuremberg… and to hospital. Want to know how that has happend? Read on.

Back in Germany after two great weeks in the US celebrating my sisters wedding and the awesomeness of New York City, Jersey Shore and Chicago, I used the last rays of summer for a trip to the North Sea Coast at Scharbeutz and Timmendorfer Strand. Although it seemed like summer had already left the place, the beaches and esplanades were crowded by tourists and locals alike and I was once again surprised how nice the German coast is.

And when I was back in Hamburg, I suddenly felt a pressure on the chest, went to the doctor, was driven all the way through Hamburg by ambulance with high speed and howling siren (that was actually pretty cool). As a result I had two lung surgeries and had to stay in hospital for over a week (That was not so cool). The doctors told me not to jump on plane for the next six month… oh my! I guess you can imagine how hard that message hit me.

These are the moments when you realize that the most important part of life is staying alive. Dreaming of big adventures is a great thing but being ill sucks. You can do nothing if you loose your health, no trip to Asia, no yoga retreat, no surf adventure, no round-the-world-trip, no nothing. After all, it all ended better than actually proposed and I was able to take a flight to London some weeks later. Yay!

London, that’s right. I went back to London end of September to attend an NFL American Football match in Wembley – just as last year when I watched the American culture “taking over” the English capital with American Beer, American meals and American 80’s Rock music. Once more it has been a great weekend together with friends, fries, burgers and Budweiser. And a great Sunday stroll around Camden Market.

After London came one of my personal highlights of 2014: my Digital Detox self-experiment up on over 2.000 meters in the Italian Dolomites. The reason was that I had been nominated for the South Tyrol Media Award, and thus was invited to spend some days in the land of climbing legends Luis Trenker and Reinhold Messner: South Tyrol.

But instead of blogging, tweeting and posting I spent my days completely offline, without exceptions. And guess what, it was a great experience! And I will do again. Maybe in 2015. Maybe somewhere else. But in any way without a computer, internet or a any mobile device. But with tons of old-fashioned instant cameras. Love it!

On my 2014 travel to South Tyrol I made only analog photos.

November brought me back to London again for another NFL game (insane, isn’t it!?) and for WTM – the World Travel Market, one of the worlds biggest travel fairs. For the first time ever I was in town for over a week and spend it with business meetings, talks, panels and good chats about my most favorite topic: travelling.

It had a really great time over there planning my future travels and I’m just about to fix my travel plans for the first quarter of 2015. So watch out for more Anekdotiques to come from the road soon!

December came early, as every year, and I was invited to Nuremberg in Southern Germany to spend some days in the City of the famous painter Dürer and the world famous Nuremberg Christkindlesmarkt.

What a winter wonderland! With the original Christkind, a ride on the old stagecoach, tons of gingerbread, liters and liters of mulled wine and Feuerzangenbowle and my new favorite: Schäufele, a part of the pork shoulder that tastes like.

My 2014 travel plans also brought be to picturesque Nuremberg in Southern Germany.

That’s it: my 2015 travel year that was packed with adventures. Anekdotique not only had its very first birthday this summer, it actually grew up. With over 25.000 followers on Twitter, with over 4.400 fans on Facebook and over 4.200 on Instagram. What, you are not following me? Do it now or Santa’s little helper will come back!

But there was more, namely tons of stories and anekdotiques about wine in South Iran, a love letter to Innsbruck Airport (hug!) and unbeatable reasons to travel to Australia. There had been travel guides to skiing in Sölden, paradises in Thailand, strolling around Dubrovnik and museum runs in Stockholm that hopefully made you laugh, cry and envious (haha, just kidding!)

I hope that I was able to help one or the other of you with your very own travels and travel plans wherever you are and went in the world. If this is the case, feel free to keep on commenting on this site as much as you did in the past 12 month. I love to get the tons of feedback you give me, to hear your wishes and questions and help you out with advice.

At this point it’s high time to say THANK YOU! Thank you guys for supporting me! Thank you for following my travels around the world! Thank you for being the best readers I can imagine!

The most beautiful sunrise of 2014 travel was in Bulgaria.

Personally, I started to work as a Copywriter on a freelance basis this year, after eight great years in various ad agencies. This way I was able to connect my work as a copywriter with my love for travel, travel writing & social media. And I have big plans for the future!

So what’s for 2015, you ask? Pssst, I tell you a secret… Anekdotique will get a new look with an awesome blog relauch I’m about to plan in the upcoming month. It will be more, nicer and better. Promise! And then there is my next big adventure that is about to start in just a couple of days … more about this on the Anekdotique Facebook page soon.

Stay tuned & travel on!
Clemens

More Articles on 2014 Travel:

• Ocean Grove on the Jersey Shore: The American Dream

• The NFL takes over London: American Football in the UK

• Where life is worth living: Hiking in South Tyrol’s Val Gardena

• How to visit London on a budget

• Christkindlesmarkt in Nuremberg: Loose yourself in Bavaria at Christmas time