NEW ON SITE: SEPTEMBER 2016

Greetings from Amsterdam! It's been a busy month. Abroad and Beyond.net is growing, expanding, and ready to enter its third year of existence in full force.

September has been all about destinations - future, past, and present. Under the ABOUT tab, you will now find a page about the round-the-world trip that took place between December 2014 and February 2015. This journey is the reason why this blog came to life, so I wanted to tell you a little more about the logistics, planning, and general bits and bobs behind it. For example, you will find out how I put together the itinerary and booked the flights. Also under that tab is a new page on my bucket list, aka the top 10 places I want to visit in the future. Islands, northern latitudes, islands in northern latitudes, and one honeymoon destination - that just about sums it up.

The latest addition to the TIPS tab is a page called PLACES. This is where you will find spots around the world that caught my attention for various reasons. Right now, you can read about 12 bars with a view, including rooftop- and sky bars overlooking Singapore, Amsterdam, and Auckland.

New countries have been added to DESTINATIONS - Vanuatu and Russia. It is difficult to think of places more different than these two! I recently spent a week in Saint Petersburg, the cultural capital of my Motherland, and would certainly recommend checking out local museums. South Pacific's hidden gem, on the other hand, was the 4th leg of my RTW trip last year: I went up an active volcano, sent postcards from the bottom of the sea, and talked to islanders about their happy life.

On the blog, I have looked into colours of passport covers and some of the ways to research happiness around the world. Why do national passports come in different colours? Can a national passport be yellow? Can citizens of the same country have differently coloured passports? Answers to these burning questions, as well as the curious case of Denmark, are in the article here. If you are interested to see why Costa Rica, Mexico, and Columbia are thought to be the most efficient countries in the world, check out this blog post.

October 6th marks Abroad and Beyond.net's second birthday. I'm looking forward to sharing more stories with you - happy travels! x

#newonsite