Back then, I had achieved the life I wanted. I was working as a dentist on the German North Sea island Sylt, a breathtaking stretch of vast sandy beaches and dunes right at the border of Denmark. My mum had moved there during my late teens, and by now it felt more like home than the city of 600,000 I had grown up in.

I had just been offered to take over the practice, and around the same time I received the job offer of my dreams from Zurich. A job offer that I hadn’t even dared to dream of, from a professor whose books I had read for years. This was the life I had been working towards and it felt good. My friends from uni were all doing the same. Everyone had moved to other cities, some to other countries, all focusing on our careers. Our calendars were so crammed that we didn’t meet up anymore. But everyone was doing well. Although my best friend noticed that I seemed a lot less bubbly than in uni.

Subscribe now

Only on late night beach walks with my dog, when there was no one else around for miles and the only noise was the crashing of the waves, a strange kind of sadness crept in. I couldn’t explain it, I got this sense of longing, I didn’t even know what for. But I only felt it in those moments of stillness, and naturally those didn’t happen often.

Most of the week I worked ten-hour days, plus weekends if I had to cover emergency care. Every day, every week was mapped out by schedules, meetings and appointments. When I had some time off, I took the ferry to our neighboring island Rømø in Denmark and car-camped on the beach, surfing and grilling shellfish.

Now I needed to make a life-changing decision. Would I give up this life for a career in Switzerland? I kept making lists with pros and cons but it didn’t get me any closer to making a decision. Sylt had been at the centre of all my major life-goals and the thought of leaving scared the shit out of me. At the same time, the idea felt strangely liberating. I couldn’t make sense of it.

It wasn’t until I was sitting on top of a giant dune, watching the sunset above the sea, when a crazy thought crept into my mind. So terrifying that it took my breath away. What if I say no to both?

I had wanted to travel again for a long time. Like I did growing up when I used to tag along on my journalist mom´s assignments all over the world. Someday, when I had passed my state exam. Someday, after the training period of my first job. Someday, when I had finished my residency. There was always another someday. If my next move was either building a career in Switzerland or taking out a massive loan for a practice, the freedom to travel would never come. Not before retirement.

That thought spread like wildfire from a daydream to conversations with my friends and family. The responses were pretty uniform: Everyone was completely horrified and thought I’d gone crazy. How could I throw away everything I’d worked for? Everyone except my mum who told me: “If that´s what you want, do it. You have enough decades of work life ahead of you, no hurt in taking a detour.”

One of my closest friends rang me up in the middle of the night and explained to me how I was killing my career and I could always travel later. How he also wanted to travel, sure, but his wife had another baby on the way and he had just opened his own practice, so it simply had to wait. At this point, my mind was already made up.

Two weeks later, I rejected the Zurich job offer and quit my job. I built a platform in the back of my truck that gave me some space to store my stuff under, packed my dog and some bags and drove north.

That first winter, I froze half to death in Sweden. Temperatures were bouncing between -5 and and −30°C (23 to −22°F) when my Diesel heater gave up. The days were manageable with lots of hiking and a little help from campfires, but the freezing nights were a different story, and they sucked. Nevertheless, I was very happy. Ironically though, it wasn’t about the fact that I was traveling at all. Life on the road didn’t open my eyes to some unknown meaning of life, but it showed me that I don’t have to live my life on autopilot. Maybe I prefer a simpler life where I can’t choose comfort whenever I want. I find the little things matter more than ever. And maybe that´s the best part of it all.

I had planned on returning to dentistry after a year. But here I am, still driving. Don’t get me wrong, I passionately love my profession and I want to practice again. Someday.

Someday is still part of my life. It just doesn’t have to be the silver lining at the horizon anymore.

WHAT I’M READING

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. Even though Murakami is one of my favourite authors, I haven’t managed to finish any of his books yet. I wonder if this will be the one.

WHAT I’M HEARING

The Velvet Underground. I recently dug out my old pair of Ultrasone headphones out of the storage unit and have been listening to the Banana album on repeat.

WHAT’S NEXT

A few days ago, I arrived in Ireland. I plan to explore every single county before I leave. If I leave at all … But more on that in the next issue.

My highly opinionated little Sylt guide

These are all the places where I still find the old Sylt, away from Porsches, Maseratis and polo tournaments.

The island has changed dramatically since around the time of covid, and each year a little more disappears of what I once loved about it. I can’t guarantee that all of my recommendations will still be there next year, since the lovely authentic spots seem to always be the first to go.

But at least for now, here’s my highly opinionated Sylt guide with all my favourite (and least favourite) addresses as a local. For paid subscribers >>>

Read more

About once a year, I return to my storage unit in Germany to repack. But what do you pack for a year when you have no idea where you’ll be in three weeks?

Last year, I packed for a winter in Italy. I started in Sicily and absolutely loved it. Didn’t much love the Italian mainland though. After weeks of walking around crowded streets, camping with little shade in the merciless sun, I started deeply craving the vast forests of the north. A few days later, I was in Norway with 10 litres of Sicilian olive oil and 15 kilos of pasta. So much for making plans.

Subscribe now

I had put so much thought into getting everything right before I started my journey to Italy! And then ninety percent of what I had with me was suddenly useless, while everything I actually needed for the Norwegian winter was sitting in a storage unit back in Germany.

The Defender’s load space is huge, I could probably fit half my belongings in there. But it’s also Roy’s and my living room and my workspace. Every item I bring takes away a little more from the space we live in.

As I’m writing this, I’m parked outside that same storage unit. Basically everything I own is spread out between moving boxes and the car. Tomorrow I leave for Ireland, where I’m planning to stay for an entire year in my Defender. Maybe I‘ll spend the winter getting soaked by Atlantic storms at the West coast. I might buy a rundown stone cottage, renovate it and make Ireland my new home. Or maybe six months from now I‘ve had enough of rain and drive south. I honestly don’t know.

So this time, I´m not really packing for Ireland. I’m packing the camper like my tiny apocalypse vehicle, ready for any weather and any destination. Plus a few somewhat impractical favorites I just don´t want to leave behind for yet another year.

Clothes are the one irrational part of my packing list. I don’t believe that living adventurously means you have to look like you’re permanently on your way to climb a mountain. Yes, I need a waterproof coat and rain boots that keep me dry in Irish winter. But I also want pretty things like all my favorite hand-knitted sweaters and about ten pairs of shoes.

But most importantly there’s the technical part. Traveling with a 13-year-old Land Rover means the car itself becomes part of the packing list. I need tools, fluids, sprays, electrical bits … Everything necessary for regular maintenance. But I don’t bring half a Land Rover in spare parts. Every time I talk about traveling in an old Defender, someone tells me I absolutely need to carry this part or that one. But after thirteen years with mine, I don´t try to prepare for every single thing that could possibly break anymore.

For one thing, the part that breaks is never the one you brought. And getting a specific Land Rover part shipped to wherever I happen to be is usually not that difficult. Yes, one time a package got held by customs in Sicily and was difficult to retreive. But it worked out in the end and was the only time where shipping didn’t go smoothly.

Finding a particular spray or some stupid little tool in a foreign country can be much more annoying. Last year, I paid more than €400 for engine oil and a filter in Lofoten when the same materials would have cost me around €100 in Germany.

So instead, I carry a very good tool kit with pretty much everything I need to work on the Defender.

My medical box is probably the one area where I do prepare for just about anything. I haven’t needed to visit a pharmacy while traveling in years. Roy has his own stuff, too. He stepped onglass in Italy, got a nasty infection from an insect bite and twisted his hip in a Swedish lake but I avoided the vet every time.

And then there’s the kitchen. Eating well is and always has always been one of the top priorities in my life. I cook most of my meals myself and have zero interest in spending a year compromising on food just because I happen to live in a car.

But over the years, I’ve found that too much kitchen gear in the car gets cluttered and takes the fun out of cooking. I’ve downsized mine by about two thirds, which still leaves me with three times as much as most people travel with.

I want proper knives. A proper pan. Dishes that I absolutely love but that also don’t break during off-roading. A good gas cooker. Three, actually. Plus four foldable fire pits. Now, I have a very tested list of things I consider genuinely essential. But I’ve also learned that essential for me doesn’t always equal necessary.

For me it’s essential to be surrounded by items I love. I travel alone for a whole year and I want things that make me happy every time I use them. I want the jumper I knitted myself, the big comfortable Japanese two-way folding chair and my two favorite mugs.

Right now, I’m surrounded by piles of things I keep changing my mind about. I’ve gone through everything several times now, trying to be sensible about what really needs to come.

But then I remember, I am traveling alone and nobody can stop me from packing a vintage Vivienne Westwood dress and fifteen hand-knitted sweaters.

Tomorrow, I leave for Ireland.

So, what am I actually bringing?

First things first. The Defender is my means of transport and also the roof over our heads so this list is the most important one.

While I don’t carry lots of spare parts, I carry almost all tools I´d need in case of any breakdown. Everything is packed in three separate cases which I store underneath a second floor I installed behind the car seats.

Car stuff for repairs and maintenance:

• Nanocom Land Rover-specific diagnostic tool

• lock cylinder lubricant (saved me from having to change the ignition lock more than once)

• Dremel rotary tool + assorted attachments; from cutting discs to grinding and sanding bits. Incredibly useful for all sorts of small repairs.

For paid subscribers: below you’ll find my full tools and maintenance list, medical kit, camp gear, kitchen gear, fire-cooking gear, Roy´s stuff and my clothes list.

Read more

My clothes smell of campfire and dog. I can’t even remember the last time I changed my shirt.

I always look for places that haven’t been levelled out by globalization yet. Where old men still sit outside bars drinking coffee without hearts drawn in the milk foam and cafés serve simple local food instead of whatever happens to be on every menu from Copenhagen to Barcelona that year.

That’s how I end up somewhere in northern Norway, beside a lake so vast that I can’t see another house, car or person anywhere around me. Or up in the mountains in Sicily with no reception, where the nearest drinking water is at a tiny supermarket in the next village.

I love waking up somewhere completely unfamiliar and having no idea yet what the day will look like. But this kind of life means making decisions all the time. Normal parts of daily life start taking real effort.

There’s no apartment waiting for me anywhere, no wardrobe of clean clothes, no home to drive back to when I‘m sick or tired. Everything I own sits in a storage unit. This is home now.

Every once in a while, I like to stay somewhere where nothing needs figuring out.

So when the road brings me through Holland I always stop for two or three days to enjoy the familiar.

I‘ve been coming here since childhood and nothing much has changed since then. Here, I don’t have to explore, I can just relax.

In the mornings I take Roy to the beach where dogs can run free before 9am and after 7pm even during the summer holidays. This early, the beach is almost empty, and he can enjoy a swim in the rough North Sea.

Roy is a Dutch Shepherd, born in the Netherlands, and I raised him on the tiny North Sea island where I used to live, so this is pretty much his idea of heaven.

Once the beaches start filling up, we head back to the campsite. It’s easy here. No dramatic landscapes, no hidden wilderness. There are pretty little houses and long beaches behind the dunes, but that isn’t really why I keep coming back.

Holland used to be the slightly boring destination where I came for a weekend when there wasn’t time or money for something more exciting. Or that’s what I would’ve told you if you’d asked me back then.

I’ve come to realize that a place where I feel this safe, meet genuinely friendly strangers in the streets and have access to dog-friendly beaches is pretty damn special.

It’s been a while since I last visited the campsite where I used to stay but it’s still exactly the same today. Huge hedges separate the camp-spots, I have my own little bathroom which smells slightly of mould and drinking water comes from every tap. It’s the kind of place I probably wouldn’t have given a second thought to years ago but right now, that feels ridiculously luxurious.

And there’s another reason Noord-Holland always feels familiar: I know exactly what I want to eat and where to get it.

The Netherlands are not Spain or France, and I don’t think Dutch food becomes more interesting by pretending it is. But that’s exactly the point. It’s honest, hearty and straightforward, but sometimes with combinations you don’t see coming. Like fries with satay sauce and raw onions.

Dutch people do eat their Gouda. Lots and lots of Gouda.

Very young gouda, soft and creamy, medium-aged, old and crumbly, caramel-like, with those salty crystals that crunch between your teeth. Goat´s milk gouda. Sheep´s milk gouda.

And then there are all the flavorings. Mustard seeds. Cumin. Whatever herbs you can think of. Cloves. Not a discreet little hint but entire handfuls worked through the cheese. I always keep buying more of it than I can reasonably eat. My whole cooler is currently stuffed with gouda and I won’t be eating much else for the next weeks. Roy won’t complain though, he loves getting the rinds.

And Then There Is the Herring. The best I´ve ever had. And I say that coming from the German North Sea. We take our Matjes seriously, too.

I got lucky with the timing. July is still Hollandse Nieuwe season, herring caught before spawning, when the fillets are especially tender, delicate and mild.

The best usually comes from a herring stand somewhere along the road. If there’s a queue of locals in front of one, I stop.

You can eat it exactly as it is with chopped raw onions and pickles. Or as a broodje haring, a fillet tucked into a soft white roll.

I have my own version. I buy a good roll separately, pile four double fillets into it and add as many onions and pickles as will physically stay inside and eat it right there in my car:

At least once on every visit I eat at one of the pannenkoekenhuizen, restaurants that serve only pancakes.

Dutch pannenkoeken are huge and thin, with crisp golden edges, they can be sweet, savoury or somewhere confusingly in between.

You choose from pages of toppings, and twenty minutes later a pancake the size of a steering wheel lands in front of you.

My favorite is bacon, apple and syrup but the choices are endless: Nutella and strawberries, chicken with peanut sauce and crunchy prawn crackers, spiced meat with garlic sauce or sausage with curry ketchup, mayonnaise and chopped onions …

And of course nothing tastes better than a Pommes Spezial, fries topped with raw onions, ketchup and mayo, eaten at the beach with a cold beer.

Where I Eat, Shop & Stay in Noord-Holland

For bread: La Dune, Bergen · Bakkerij Fermento, Alkmaar

For cheese: ’t Kaaswinkeltje, Haarlem · Alkmaarse Notenbranderij, Alkmaar

For herring: Visspecialist Michel Heusy, Bergen

For fries: Friethuis La Petite, Haarlem

For fries at the beach: Snackbar Tijmes, Bergen aan Zee

For pancakes: Pannenkoekenparadijs Haarlem

For coffee: Café van Gunsteren, Haarlem

For staying: Strand49, Sint Maartensvlotbrug

Bergen

La Dune
Ruïnelaan 7
1861 LK Bergen

Visspecialist Michel Heusy
Jan Oldenburglaan 14
1861 JT Bergen

Bergen aan Zee

Snackbar Tijmes
Jacob Kalffweg 3
1865 AR Bergen aan Zee

Haarlem

’t Kaaswinkeltje
Koningstraat 56
2011 TD Haarlem

Friethuis La Petite
Warmoesstraat 3
2011 HN Haarlem

Pannenkoekenparadijs Haarlem
Reinaldapad 10
2033 SX Haarlem

Café van Gunsteren
Breestraat 11
2011 ZX Haarlem

Alkmaar

Alkmaarse Notenbranderij
Magdalenenstraat 8
1811 JR Alkmaar

Bakkerij Fermento
Kennemerstraatweg 6
1815 LA Alkmaar

Sint Maartensvlotbrug

Strand49 Camping & Glamping
Ruigeweg 49
1752 HC Sint Maartensvlotbrug

I skip the Instagram spots. I would rather find the village nobody has heard of, the pub that quietly does the real thing, the place where daily life doesn’t revolve around visitors. That is what I am always after, and it is getting harder to find. Which is exactly why I share it here when I do find it.

This time it led me to Exmoor. Small, quiet, sitting on the Somerset and Devon border, far less on anyone’s radar. It has everything people queue for in the crowded places: wild coastline, old villages, centuries of history. Only here you don’t wait in line for any of it. You can hike for hours and not pass a single person.

Semi-wild ponies and Highland cows roam the moor. One pushed its muzzle through my car window while munching on wildflowers, completely unbothered, as if it wanted to know what I was doing on its road.

My dog Roy held very still and made a diplomatic decision to look the other way. One word of real caution: when they have calves, give them room. They turn protective fast, and those horns are not decorative.

The villages feel like the clock stopped a century ago. You walk into a tearoom by the road and you get a proper cream tea, no booking three weeks out.

Scones, clotted cream, jam, like a scene from Manderley on a still summer afternoon. Little tables with white cloths on the lawn, the sea breeze carrying roses and warm baking, and me with a cup of tea and clotted cream so thick the spoon stands up in it, elegant old ladies chatting under the parasols as though nothing has changed in fifty years.

Recipe Strawberries And Vanilla Cream

1.23MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

The roads are narrow and twisting, with passing places that often aren’t big enough for the Land Rover, let alone a caravan behind it.

For me that is part of the fun: tight bends, reversing the trailer, reading the lane. I have only had to uncouple on hairpin turns that simply would not let the whole rig round in one piece. Even then, every local who passed slowed down to offer a hand. That tells you more about a place than any guidebook.

And it is not one landscape, which is the thing I hadn’t understood before arriving. A wet lane opens into moor. The moor darkens into woodland. Then the land drops hard toward the coast, a harbour, a whole different weather system, and still, somehow, no signal.

You can’t legally wild camp in England without the landowner’s permission, but some of the farm campsites in Exmoor beat wild camping anyway. The best campsites here are not polished. They are half-wild farm fields: a tap, maybe a bin, and a meadow you share with more sheep than campers.

That is probably what keeps the crowds away. Trade a little comfort for something real, and Exmoor gives you the UK the way it used to be.

Some sites are just huge, tucked into the moor, into valleys, into woodland, some right on a river with meadow stretching out around you. I found a few of these scattered around Exmoor, proper hidden spots I know I’ll drive back to.

I’ve spent the last few years travelling all over Europe, and I hadn’t found that feeling of space, of freedom, anywhere in July for a long time. I didn’t think it existed in the middle of peak season anymore.

At my favorite one you can buy Angus beef straight from the farmer and grill it on a fire right by your pitch. Sitting there in the evening with the river flowing past, stars coming out above you … It doesn’t get more romantic than that.

One thing I missed, and it bothered me more than I expected: the Milky Way. Exmoor’s meant to be one of the best places in Europe for it, a properly protected Dark Sky Reserve. Farms, towns and roads all keep the lights low and pointed down. But around midsummer the sky just doesn´t get properly dark. Even late at night, I was standing there waiting for it and it just wasn’t happening. I guess that’s my excuse to come back in autumn.

I wrote everything down for you, all my fav campsites, spots and shops, everything I loved about this trip. And three regionally inspired recipes: 1. English Summer French Toast, 2. Steak & Fried Egg Sandwich, 3. Singin’ Hinnies. If you´d like you can find it all behind the paywall.

WHAT I’M READING
Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor, R. D. Blackmore, 1869. The Exmoor novel, all feuding outlaws, a hard winter and a love story stubborn enough to survive both, set in the same valleys I have been driving through.

Period romance is not something I usually read, I chose it because of the setting. But I very much enjoy reading it here, with the real moor out the window, imagining bygone times.

WHAT I’M WATCHING

Widow’s Bay. My favourite tv genre is anything and everything zombie. So I’ve been waiting a long time for this one to come out and it’s an immediate favourite!

The story is about a New England island where the locals have to deal with the dead returning while the mayor is still cheerfully trying to make the place more appealing to tourists. The mayor is a bit of a coward and completely unequipped for almost everything happening around him, but somehow I can’t help but like him and his chaotic little team.

Being from a rough North Sea island myself makes it even funnier. The weather, the stubborn locals and the general attitude of carrying on as if none of this is particularly unusual feel oddly familiar.

For paid subscribers: Mini guide to Exmoor, all addresses and camp spots and easy camp recipes >>>

Read more