Why I keep a list of places I’d like to visit one day.

I just launched a new Kickstarter campaign featuring interesting buildings in Berlin. Below is the story how the project came to be.

Whenever you visit or move to a place, how do you try to make it feel like it’s home? Do you feel the desire to understand what’s happening in the streets around you and why some things are the way they are?

Last year I published a guide to Viennese coffee culture, and then a couple of weeks later, made one for Berlin’s café scene. It’s actually ridiculous to think I’ve been to more than 100 cafés where I also took a picture. Why would anyone do that?

It’s got to do with something that happened 11 years ago...

When I was 21, I moved to the UK for a year. Back then I didn’t know it was just for a year, so I took a lot of things for granted; like I would do them one day. Most days, I was just doing the same things I did all the days before. Because it was the easy thing to do. I’d go to the same places, visit the same cities, do the same thing over and over again. Then after moving away, I realized I lived in the UK for a year, yet never took the time to go up to Scotland. This realization of not going to Scotland while I lived so close remains to this day a reminder that I don’t want that to happen again.

Whenever I then spent longer stretches of time in places, I’d make it “a thing” to seek out destinations to visit and try to better understand why my environment is the way it is.

It must have been what inspired me to start a list of places I’d like to see and visit one day. It’s a list where I add all places – from cafés to sightseeing spots, which I’d like to see.

Whenever I hear of a good place or read something in an article, I add the place to my list. And then, in the day to day, I make sure to open that list regularly to get out of my way and see something new.

It’s so easy to just simply do the same thing over and over again because it’s what we’ve done yesterday or last week. It’s easy to not look around and ask what this or that mean, as we’re distracted by what we deal with in our day to day.

I’ve launched another Kickstarter campaign. This time it’s a guide to Berlin’s architecture. It’s pictures of buildings you might potentially not even know exist and then bits and pieces about their history and societal context. If you’d like to get a part of “my list” of places I consider worth visiting and knowing about, this is your chance to get this set. Just like last time, it’s a limited print run only.