About

Hey, thanks for visiting my blog. I hope you’ll stop by often in the future.

Backpacker’s Guide to the World is a blog for backpackers. In the past, it was mainly about tips and tricks for backpacking, this content is still available. Since late 2021, I added the topic of personal development in general, but also in the context of travel.

Anyone can be a backpacker

Traveling the world with no more than a backpack is by no means complicated. I think it’s everyone can do it and here I would like to show how. In my everyday, people quite often question my ideas and travel stories. Most of them haven’t travelled much themselves or have only been to typical vacation spots. On Backpacker’s Guide to the World I want to show that questioning is very important, but it should not be a reason not to travel.

But.. who am I?

My name is Alise (or rather that’s my travel name, which I got sometime in Panama because nobody could pronounce Karola). Traveling has always been very important to me and I loved to be on the road. Towards the end of my bachelor studies, I really had to get out and discover the world. Because honestly, studying or working can really eat you up. If you want to know how exactly I got into traveling, how it helped me deal with myself and problems differently, you can find out here on the blog.

In 2012-2013, I travelled through 23 countries and lived out of my backpack for nine months. Since then, there is almost always a new travel idea. I like adventure, nature and especially travelling by train. I need travel on the one hand now and then to escape my everyday life and to rearrange myself. On the other hand, I need it because of my deep desire to explore the world. But I don’t have to fly to the other end of the world for that. Even a castle trip can fulfil this goal.

After my world trip, I stayed in Germany for half a year and then moved to Japan for 19 months, from where I was able to travel to many Asian countries. That’s why Japan is one of the main topics on this blog. After that, I returned to Germany and worked towards a job that included travelling and living abroad. In the last years, I stayed a semester abroad in Riga, the Latvian capital, spent another six months in Japan, and currently live in Scotland.

During my world trip, something interesting and exiting happened to me. I was travelling alone and was free, unattached and independent. When I made plans, I didn’t have to coordinate them with anyone. This helped me to get out of deep ingrained routines, because I (still) have the tendency to let others determine who I am. Travelling showed me this trait and gradually “taught” me how to better figure out what I actually want. I think that’s what a lot of people mean when they say “I found myself”, though I wouldn’t claim to have ever lost myself. I was “there” all along, I just wasn’t looking at myself.

Besides experiencing the self, Backpacker’s Guide to the World is meant to show that our world is not as evil as many people view it. I would like to take people on my adventures and show them how they can experience some themselves.

By the way, the name of the blog comes from my favourite book Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In this book there is a book of the same name, which contains info on all sorts of things in the universe.

Don’t panic!