A dream come true

I am the winner of a worldwide photography and travelreport contest.

The price?

A journey around the world for 12 months and a job abroad up to 6 months!

For this socalled 2ndChance competition, more than 9000 contestants from 61 countries uploaded over a 1000 travelreports. The worldwide contest is an initiative of Europ Assistance, an emergency call centre with about 90 offices in 33 countries. To enlarge their services they have launched the website www.netglobers.com, on which people can find travelreports, tips and advice. In order to become worldwidely known and to receive content on the site, they started the “2ndChance competition”. The price being the trip around the world and a job abroad in one of their offices.

My input for 2ndChance is to be found here This input is restricted by rules such as maximum textlenght.

I have been to Paris for the awarding ceremony. I received my price from the CEO of Europ Assistance, Martin Vial. Martin Vial said that winning this price is due to combining professional skills as photography and writing (because my pictures could not be protected against copying, I did not upload my best pictures). He also read my personal travelblog and concludes that being open minded and my passion for traveling also contributed to choosing me as the winner. “This combination fits our values and our DNA”, said Martin Vial.

I expect to leave somewhere around May 2010. One of the intentions of this journey is doing those things I wanted to do for a long time, but never had the chance because of time restrictions. An example is focus myself on yoga, meditation and ayurveda and maybe also the principels of a martial art. I also want to use this journey to expand my portfolio and produce a photobook with short stories or inspirational lyrics.

The countries of my choice will probably be: Transmongolia Express (Moscow – Ulaan Baatar - Beijng) , part of China, Japan, part of one of the South East Asian silk routes, Nepal, Tibet, India, Sri Lanka, Buthan, Laos, Indonesia, Australia, New-Zealand, Pacific Ocean, US.

From now on you can follow my preperations and journey on this weblog!