My Travel Stories

By the end of June 2016, I left Switzerland where I used to live to begin the greatest trip of my life, the one that would change everything: I was about to fly to Australia for one year, alone. On my way, I stopped in Bangkok for a couple of days, for a stopover that turned out to be much more eventful than expected. Here’s the story of these unforgettable 48 hours!

At the end of August 2017, less than eight weeks after coming back from a fabulous year in Australia, I was about to leave my hometown of Saint-Nazaire for nine more months of travelling around the world. The night before I left, I wrote the text below but never published it. In April 2020, in the middle of the first Covid-19 lockdown in France, I eventually came across it. I then decided to share it and to compare my expectations to what actually happened to me. Fasten your seat belts and follow me in my time machine!

In September 2020, as I came to the end of a wonderful two-week trip in Italy, I wrote the following text as an attempt to capture this very special moment that always comes at the end of holidays, trying to put words to describe what this post-trip melancholy felt like for me. This state of mind didn’t leave me when I came back home, so I decided to share it. Perhaps will you find in it an echo of what you also experienced after your last holidays!

I have always been very lucky in my travels. I never had an accident or serious health problems, nor even suffered a last-minute flight cancellation. The most difficult moment I ever had to face was when I lost my luggage at Bangkok’s airport at the very beginning of my first trip to Australia in 2016 (see “ Lost in Bangkok” above). But that was before travelling to South America. Here is the story of a chaotic trip that I will never forget…

During my first days in Australia in 2016, I had the chance of staying with an extremely welcoming Australian couple: Viv & Craig. I never had the occasion to see them again, but this encounter marked me for a long time and it’s with a lot of sadness that I learned of Craig’s passing on May 9 2022. In his tribute, here is the story of this unforgettable encounter.

Driving in the middle of nowhere with kangaroos hopping by the side of the road. Sleeping under a sky full of stars. Waking up with the sound of waves breaking on an unspoiled beach… That dream of liberty came true for me in July 2016, when I bought a van and started travelling around Australia. Here are the stories of the best moments of my nomadic life all around the country, as well as a list of useful tips if you’re thinking of buying your own van!

Is there an image that symbolises Australia better than the Sydney Opera House? This architectural masterpiece is one of these iconic buildings that everyone can identify at first glance. That’s why 50 years after its inauguration, I wanted to pay tribute to this extraordinary building and to the men who designed it, taking my inspiration from the work of the Japanese artist Hokusai: here are 36 views of the Sydney Opera House.

Millions of square kilometers of desert flat as the hand. Red soil as far as the eye can see. A cloudless blue sky, a deadly sun. And right in the middle, a huge ocher monolith: Uluru. I waited until the very last days of my first year in the country to finally make it happen; I had kind of kept the best for last… Because yes, you can believe what all the tourist guides say: Uluru is truly a magical and unique place!

88 days. Every backpacker who ever came to Australia on a Working Holiday Visa knows what this figure means: it is the minimum number of working days on a farm to be eligible for a second visa. I still have very mixed feelings today about this period of my life, but one thing is certain, it marked me deeply and I’ll never forget it. Here’s the story of my first farmwork experience: picking strawberries at Caboolture in Queensland.

Since the day I first set foot there in October 2016, my love for Melbourne has never weakened. I wanted to reveal you some of the unforgettable memories I accumulated there over the years, while taking the opportunity to show you my favourite places in the city. With this article, head to the bustling Chapel Street and the neighbourhoods of Prahran and Windsor!

My trip to Japan during spring 2018 has been the biggest cultural shock of my life so far. Before I got there, I had a lot of very common clichés in mind about the country: mangas, sumo wrestling, or the mythical samurais. But nothing prepared me to such a lifestyle so completely different to what I was used to back home in Europe! I’m certainly not pretending to be an expert about Japan after such a short time there, but I decided to compare what I saw to some preconceived ideas I had before this trip. Here are 10 clichés about Japan seen from my traveller’s point of view!

Released in 2003, the movie Lost in Translation moved me and inspired me a lot, and it contributed to make me want to explore Japan. But it became even more special for me when I re-watched it again after I had travelled around the country. I recognised some places, I saw my own reflection in the characters’ reactions, I almost felt like I was back in Japan. But one specific emotion also came to my mind at that moment: the memory of a last melancholic day in Tokyo… Here’s the story of it!

Released in 1987, The Joshua Tree by U2 is probably my all-time favourite album. I’ve listened to it countless times, and the black & white artwork and the picture of this weird tree which gave its name to the album even became almost iconic for me! So when I visited the Joshua Tree National Park in California during spring 2018, there was only one soundtrack option… An idea then came to my mind: combining both experiences, the music and the landscape. This is the result of this idea!

In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, more than 4,000 kilometers from the west coast of the United States, an archipelago of 137 islands and islets defies the waves: Hawaii. Maui is the second largest island, and this is where I chose to spend my first week in the archipelago, during my trip to this part of the world in the fall of 2017. I had reserved a bed at Banana Bungalow hostel, and the least I can say is that I didn’t regret my choice… Here’s why!