Hello world!

I'm Jan, a hitchhiker-ecologist.

I was born somewhere in Germany but I have been more or less continuously on the move for the past 8 years.

In 2016 I left Europe eastwards to reach Indonesia overland. I had a vague idea about my route, carrying only a tent and sleeping bag, little money but plenty of time. I gave up control let myself be travelled by people. My thumb carried me on and on via the Balkans into Turkey, the Caucasus, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan into India. I travelled nearly 20.000 km, met thousands of different people, got hundreds of rides and invitations. My trip ended quite abruptly as a severe sickness I caught in India forced me to return home.

But soon after, in 2018, I was back on the road. I left for Hong Kong and hitched my way back to Germany; some 347 vehicles took me 16.000 km all across the continent.

In the same year I enrolled for an Erasmus Mundus Master program in tropical ecology which gave me the chance to study in French Guiana, Guadeloupe and Brussels.

In 2019 I left for a third intercontinental long-distance hitchhiking trip. I thumbed the famous Paris - Dakar route and carried on down south along the West African coast into Benin.

And now, since October 2021, I am a Brussels-based Ph.D. student, studying tropical rainforests in Central Africa where I happen to do my fieldwork from time to time.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I am here to become able to see the everyday-life of people in other cultures. To see how similar we are around the globe. To share information, experience, thoughts, ideas, philosophy and jokes. And of course to have fun with people from all over the world!

Interests

The world -

huge but so tiny,
a whole but devided,
diverse but indeed equal,
beautiful yet so disgusting,
inspiring but damn frustrating,

a place of hope and destruction...
a place where love and hatred exist side by side,
the place I admire and despise in the same way.

I love to study the world with all my sences, to go and see myself, to confront myself with reality and see beyond stereotypes.

I don't want to listen to warnings. If I would have followed them I would not have gone anywhere.

I love being around people, listen to their stories, hopes and fears, struggles and successes.
These stories make me to what I am.

I love learning languages, love to study their function and how they alter the way I see this world.
Every language is worth to be learned.
While I still struggle with French, Farsi, Turkish and Bahasa Indonesia, I hope to learn Arabic, Russian and Urdu one day. Long way to go though...

• human rights
• running
• ecology
• languages
• forests
• trekking
• religions
• wild camping
• ethnology
• tolerance
• minority treatment

Music, Movies, and Books

Pink Floyd to Tool
Santana to Bonobo
Ott to Sticky Fingers
Sphongle to Gogo Penguin
And King Gizzard!

My favourite book by far is the atlas! Sounds unromantic? Well, I do read novels, too, for sure. One of my most beloved books is "The little prince" by Saint-Exupéry, I always carry him on my trips. He is my reminder.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Being invited by people of so many different cultures around the globe. They open their doors and their hearts for a stranger and treat me as a brother. And often, they gave me more than they could.

Thank you!!

Teach, Learn, Share

Travelling puts you in a heightened state of awareness. It stimulates your brain and makes you call up all your intellectual, spiritual and physical resources. Journeys are necessary for human beings; otherwise we stagnate. Change is essential for everyone, and travelling presents a high rate of change.
[Lynne Shuttleworth]

Travelling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.
[Cesare Pavese]

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." [British historian Lord Acton]

Everybody claims to be a traveller. Everybody is seeking for individualism but gathers around the same places. This is Generation Lonely Planet!

Only those who classify and then overlook the boundaries drawn may grasp this world.
[Unknown source]

The worst of all borders exist in our minds!
Passports are nothing but plastic and paper. But they sadly create a difference between people.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Interest, stories and a beer (or a chay in Iran)

Countries I’ve Visited

Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Benin, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Curaçao, Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominica, Egypt, El Salvador, England, Estonia, France, French Guiana, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Guadeloupe, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mali, Martinique, Mauritania, Moldova, Montenegro, Morocco, Netherlands, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Scotland, Senegal, Slovenia, Spain, Suriname, Tajikistan, Togo, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Western Sahara

Countries I’ve Lived In

Austria, Belgium, Costa Rica, French Guiana, Germany, Guadeloupe, Peru