Varanasi - often called the spiritual capital of India, is the Mecca of Hinduism. Pilgrims from all over the world come here to take a bath in the sacred Ganges river in believe that it would wash away their sins and grant redemption.

Ah, Agra. Home to the magnificent Taj Mahal, inspiration for Disney’s Aladdin and much more than that.

Namaste India! It took me while (read here), but I am finally here.

With my good friend Mine in tow, the first stop is New Delhi. After two super comfortable flights with Qatar Airlines (highly recommended btw, they absolutely deserve the awards they recently received), we arrived at Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi in the morning.

Close your eyes and remember the times you went on a trip. The excitement starts with packing your bags…

I moved through London like the wind.

Some time ago I was talking to a friend about my self-portrait project. Much to my surprise, my friend thought that someone else is taking my self-portraits. After assuring that no one else is involved in my self-portraits-making, she was wondering: “How does this work? How do you take your own pictures?”

I have seen it all. Almost all.

Do we really travel or are we mainly posing for “the ‘gram”?

So more and more people travel and that is great. I’m all here for it. Heck, I’m doing it myself for the past two years straight now. Traveling is wonderful. An otherworldly experience in a worldly place. It widens your mental horizon, gives you joy, excitement, new experiences, gives you a break from your regular life, opens new ways, promotes tolerance and destroys prejudices towards other cultures, relaxes or pushes you (depending on where you go and what you do) and so much more.

Yes, technically, I am not a kid any more, but I am fortunate to call myself a kid of curious, often open-minded and generous parents, who decided to go on an adult version family vacation back to my old stomping ground New York. To join them was a no-brainer for me.

The timing was perfect.

After a whirlwind year of traveling around the world, I took some time off, stayed put in Berlin and traveled more within. The winter months were quiet, yet full of insights.

As they say every medallion has two sides and my fantastic year of traveling was no exception: Besides the incredibly beautiful places I’ve seen and the amazing connections I made with new friends, locals and fellow travelers, I also lost some people along the way. Some of these realizations came with my return to Berlin.