Admittedly - before I arrived in South America, I myself had some concerns when I thought more carefully about the idea of sleeping a lot in nature. Hardly any person I met before the beginning of my journey had anything good to say about South America - no matter which country. It appears to be a great need for many people to warn of possible dangers in the countries one is travelling to. That the dicey situations, which are shared with you without asking for it, did not usually happen to the narrator, but to the friend of an acquaintance, doesn't matter. It's hard to not pay too much attention to those drawn pictures. I admit that I don't always succeed in this, but in order to be dissuaded from a project, it takes more than the widespread fear of the unknown, which seems to live in many people.

There is nothing more unpleasant than carrying a heavy backpack from place to place and finding out too late that one or the other thing was really superfluous. Here is a short list of things that have proven to be useless on my travels or that performed too badly in the weight-place-usage ratio.

While travelling I usually found the period unpleasant. While packing, I already counted how many I would need to avoid the uncomfortable situation, to find none if I ran out or had to resort to uncomfortable alternative options, mostly mercilessly overpriced. Some years ago I found the solution for this miserable calculation (and if you are on the road for a long time also wasting space): the menstrual cup.

A smartphone makes travelling a lot more comfortable. You don't get lost on it if you don't intend to, you communicate with friends you left behind or with your worried family, and you can access the endless information on the Internet. Read here which apps and websites I find particularly helpful.

Long before our departure it was clear that sooner or later we wanted to buy a car to travel to South America. We both already owned cars for other long-term journeys and fell in love with the freedom one gets by owning ones own four wheels. But when we arrived in South America, we had to realize that buying a car here is not as easy as in New Zealand and the information you can find on the Internet mostly refers to Chile, which seems to be the country to go to if one wants to buy a car. However, as we were in Ecuador and wanted to head north, a detour to Chile was out of the question. So we started digging ourselves through the Colombian car purchase process with a lot of help from lovely people. Here comes a How-To Car Buying Guide for Colombia.

Oh, beloved coconut oil, what would I do without you? For years it has been a constant part of my travel equipment. Here you can find out what I use it for.

It was the summer of 2014, we were in the lucky position to have a car with a roof tent to travel for a few weeks and decided to go on a road trip to Greece. From the moment we reached the Mediterranean, I went swimming every day, rinsing my hair with tap water in the evening, and only after they were no longer combable thanks to my curls I washed them with the shampoo and conditioner I used at that time (of course without silicones, with plenty of organic certificates plastered on the bottles) and was horrified when they where dry. I had an impressive mob on my head! It was this moment that made me think: How can it be that my hair is so dissatisfied with the neatly selected products I use? Aren't there any other ways to take care of them than taking along two massive bottles of liquid (which also are quite heavy) to travel? I started to read up on the topic on the internet and after a few unfortunate attempts, I have been using hair soap for washing my hair for over a year now and supplement it with an acid rinse made from natural apple vinegar and water. This rinse works like a conditioner, makes the hair shiny and easy to comb.