Laurel Robbins is a freelance travel writer who writes for a variety of publications. She comes from Canada, but now calls Germany home and has also lived in S. Korea, Thailand and the U.S.A She is happiest when traveling, hiking or diving. Her favorite travel adventures include diving with hammerhead sharks in the Galapagos and volunteering on a conservation boat off the coast of Scotland. She is currently busy exploring Germany and writing about her European adventures on her popular travel blog: http://monkeysandmountains.com
As a tourist to Germany it’s not likely that you will find yourself invited into a local’s house. Germans are famously reserved at first, but if you keep your eye out for a broomstick over a door, consider it your personal invitation to enter into the house.
The broomstick represents a besen, the German word for “broomstick” and is a type of wining and dining establishment found only in the wine growing regions of the …
Johnstone Strait, a deep glacier carved passage running between the east coast of Vancouver Island and the west coast of British Columbia mainland, is one of the best places in the world to spot killer whales (also known as orcas). The deep waters of Johnstone Strait are home to the world’s largest resident pod of orcas, numbering around 200, who are attracted to the region by the thousands of salmon who frequent the waters every …
Dear Travel IQ: My husband and I are making our lifelong dream a reality: this summer, we’re going to Italy! And not just Italy – we’ll be making our way through Germany, France, Belgium and England! Unlike my husband, though, I’m pretty worried about “fitting in”: I don’t want someone taking advantage of us because they know we’re tourists. On top of that, I sometimes have social anxieties about standing out in a crowd. …
Germany has hundreds of Christmas markets – Munich alone has twenty four. Contrary to what many visitors believe, the most charming Christmas markets in Germany are not always the well known ones, but the smaller ones that often have a unique theme. These are often the Christmas markets that are most popular with locals as well.
Esslingen Medieval Christmas Market
Visiting Esslingen’s Medieval Christmas Market feels like stepping into a time machine and coming out …
Some of the most charming villages in Germany look like they came straight out of a storybook, with their half timber houses, walled cities, and look out towers. Put on your walking shoes, as they are best explored on foot, and prepare to feel you like you have stepped back in time with these three picturesque villages located the south west state of Baden-Württemberg in Germany:
Maulbronn is most famous for its monastery founded in …
I stood on the edge of the boat peering into the water in full scuba diving gear, hoping to catch a glimpse of what I knew lay below the surface – sharks and lots of them. Sharks were the reason I had made the 36 hour journey to Cocos Islands, located 600 km off the west coast of Costa Rica. But all of a sudden I wasn’t so sure this was a good idea. Before …
I love animals and decided to devote the better part of my summer vacation volunteering with animals, which was how I found myself on a marine conservation voluntourism holiday off the west coast of Scotland through the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust. Its website promised that volunteers would conduct cetacean studies using scientific methods off of a yacht. It sounded good to me so I signed up immediately.
Conduct cetacean studies we did – 8 …
