They say that travel broadens the mind. I’m not sure about that, but I’m absolutely certain that travel flattens the wallet! That said, I have a really bad case of “itchy feet”, Wanderlust, or just plain old restlessness, so I guess I’m going to be traveling one way or another. Thankfully my wife Monika goes along with me on these meandering journeys.
Since we’re both retired, we can travel at a leisurely pace and see things as thoroughly as we want, which is a real pleasure after trying to squeeze in hectic vacations during the work-and-raise-children period of our lives. Our goal is to see things really well and to document what we see in words and pictures. That way, we can always go back and remember what we did and saw in vivid detail.
What we mean by “Wanderung” is a very loosely scheduled visit to some country or area. Altho we have certain things we want to see or do during these journeys, we take things as they come and adapt to the weather, time, or other circumstances as well as we can. We write day-by-day journals that are combined with pictures as well as the occasional movie clip that we select to illustrate certain places or events. We have shared these journals with our family over many years.
After talking with friends and other folks over the years, it became clear to me that many people would like to travel but cannot for one reason or another. Since we are creating these pictorial journals about our travels, we thought we would share them with all the other folks in the world who have a yen to travel. Our journals are in the tradition of Richard Halliburton and Harry S. Franck, who published travel books with pictures that enthralled me as a youth. The Gentle Reader should be forewarned that our journals represent our highly idiosyncratic reactions and impressions of things and other folks might well have a different experience. Still, our journals and pictures represent the world as we experienced it at a certain time and place.
“Wanderung” in German means a hike and we will certainly be doing a lot of hiking and walking on these journeys. In particular, we will be doing a lot of walks called “Volksmarches”. That means “people’s walk” in German, and a Volksmarch is typically a 10-kilomter walk on a path laid out by a local walking club. For more information on Volksmarching check the web site for the American Volkssport Association, which is AVA.org. So the Gentle Reader should also be forewarned that the traveling recorded in these journals will often involve us walking, gawking, talking, and snapping a plethora of pictures.
It’s our world, but you’re welcome to it and we hope you enjoy it. Feel free to cite the journal or use the pictures for any private, non-commercial use, but please reference us and this web page. We reserve the copyright on these journals and pictures so please contact us for permission for any other use of this content. We do hope that other folks will be inspired to also put their travel documents and pictures on the web and would be interested in hearing from people who are doing that.
Who we are:
Bob is a retired research professor and Monika is a retired systems analyst. We have two sons who appear in these journals, Judson and Martin. It is thru the good offices of Judson and his wife Sarah that we are able to share these journals and pictures over the web.