World Travellers: Antonette from We 12 Travel

In my latest World Travellers interview, I catch up with yet another Dutch traveller – Antonette, adding to Laura and Manouk who featured recently. Antonette makes up half of “we 1 2 travel”, let’s hear her story…

Who are you?
Antonette, or Anto, a thirty-something traveler and outdoor lover. When not traveling or enjoying the outdoors, I work at a tour operator specialized in nature trips as a product manager for the Alaska, Argentina and Chile product.

Where are you from?
Arnhem, a small town in The Netherlands

Where have you been?
Over 40 countries all over the world. Have yet to visit Antarctica and Africa, the other continents are well covered 🙂

Where are you now?
Home. Just returned from a camping trip in Luxemburg. The weather was poor, everything got wet and muddy so decided to come home a little earlier than planned.

What are the top 3 places you’ve visited?
New Zealand, Alaska and Patagonia. All far ends of the world, all different yet so similar for their great outdoors and stunning nature.

What is the best travel experience you’ve had?
A 6 week tramping trip through New Zealand. NZ is hiking paradise and I can’t wait to go back there another time to explore it more. Just walking, nature and incredibly friendly people …

What is the worst travel experience you’ve had?
Getting back to cell phone reception after a 6 day trekking in Chile and getting an sms from my sister: “please call home a.s.a.p.” That’s just not a message you want to receive when traveling, ever! It turned out my dad had been taken to the I.C. of the hospital and one of my cousins sent me a message about that on Facebook. My sister was a afraid I’d read that before getting a chance to talk to her because, as it turned out, it wasn’t as bad as everyone thought and he was home after a week again…

What is the funniest travel experience you’ve had?
So many! One I recall is getting a chocolate cake and champagne on the flight from Christchurch to Singapore. I was sleeping (as was everybody else) and all of a sudden there were two flight attendants next to me to congratulate me with my birthday…

What is the scariest travel experience you’ve had?
Almost getting washed away by a glacial river while attempting a river crossing by foot in Iceland. We’d seen others doing it the day before so thought it would not be a problem. However, during the night it had rained so the waterlevel increased and the river became too high to cross. We attempted it anyway and that was not a smart choice…

What is the most random job you have had on your travels?
I’ve never had to work while traveling. I love the job I have at home because it involves travel, too.

How do you fund your travels?
By working. When backpacking through Australia for 5 months it was just by money I earned by working at a call center the years before. I’ve never been on a trip that long after anymore but travel about 10 times each year to various places, all funded by the money I earn at my office job. I get to travel a bit because of my job, too…

What 3 tips would you give a new traveller before they set off on their adventure?
1. Take your time! Don’t rush so you will always regret not spending more time in a certain place.
2. Enjoy the outdoors! Nature will always change and for example some glaciers may not be there anymore in 50 years time.
3. Splurge every now and then! Money is not all that matters but sometimes it makes up for a memorable experience.

What are your future travel plans?
I’m off to Finland next week, then Vienna, Argentina and Athens for TBEX later this year. Plenty of hiking trips around where I live too and next year it will be a big trip to Tasmania or Japan … still haven’t decided about that 🙂

Biography

Antonette is the female half of we12travel, an outdoor adventure blog. She loves to go on trekkings all over the world and enjoys camping in nature. Her motto is never say never! 

Links (website, twitter, facebook)

http://we12travel.nl
http://facebook.com/martijnenanto
http://twitter.com/We12travel

 

Thanks to Antonette for being the latest in my series of World Travellers! If you travel the world and run a travel blog or are a travel writer, please get in touch, you can be featured (there’s a HUGE waiting list at present), either e-mail jonny (at) dontstopliving (dot) net or head to my contacts page and get connected! You can also subscribe to Don’t Stop Living by filling in the form below! Safe travels!