"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." - Douglas Adams

ABOUT ME

We (that is me, Nico, my wife Renate and our two sons Noah (17) and Amon (16) and our 2 cats) are a small and crazy family that is addicted to travel.

Nico is working for a Japanese company in Duesseldorf as a manager for spare parts sales and Renate is a tutor / coach. And of course we are both full-time parents...

Nico spent 3 weeks on the Camino de Santiago, Spain and Renate was travelling for 70 days alone (during her 4th to 6th month of pregnancy with Noah) - only with a backpack in Thailand, Myanmar/Burma and India from May, 3rd to July, 11th 2006.
Our two boys were both preemies (Noah 10 weeks and Amon 5 weeks early-born) and we wanted to avoid any handicaps. So we decided to travel and show them the world. While doing this we wanted to give them a big base on which they can build on.
We started our world trip on 21. September 2011 in the USA, followed Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru, Chile, New Zealand , Australia, China and returned on 01. August 2012.
It was a great journey and fantastic to see how our kids grow and learn.
After this we made several trips throughout Europe (Germany, England, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Egypt,...) to show our kids places far beyond our narrow hometown.

These trips were a real big experience for us which made us more self-contained.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

Hosting and surfing...

German School system is very strikt; you are not allowed to take your kids out of school. Because of this we are limited in travelling (maximum is only up to 3 weeks in School holidays).
We like to get to know countries by its people so we are interested in talking to the people who live right there.
So we thought if cannot travel to all these countries we would invite these countries to us.
That brings diversity to our life.

On our trips we are using CS as we make the experience that meeting locals are the best experience; no matter where you are...

Both brodens our horizons!

In case you are not so enthusiastic of CS any more because of the new terms of use, you might contact us on "BeWelcome" - user winternam

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Pretty much right now...
Before starting our world trip we had several "surfing" guests.
On our world trip from 09/2011 to 08/2012 and on our "Deutschland-Tours" we had the chance to meet some amazing and interesting people, shared many experiences and now we want to give back some of our great experiences while hosting other people!!!

Interests

These are the interests of both of us - my wife and me:
travelling, hiking, nature, reading, football (soccer), interiour designing, decorating rooms, painting, gardening, beeing creative in general, meeting people, Art, Photography, dancing (freestyle), Spiritual live, Psychology, Sauna,...

Music, Movies, and Books

Actually with two kids there is not so much time to watch movies or read. So here is a little choice:

Nico:
Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Lie to me, Finntroll, Machine Head, Pink Floyd, Anathema, Amorphis, Volbeat, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, Falkenbach, Rage against the machine, Therion, Hitchhikers Guide to Galaxy, Life of Brian, H.P. Lovecraft, Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, Pixar Movies,

Renate:
Lie to me, Adele, Amelie, What the bleep do we (k)now, dancing,

Noah & Amon:
Music, gaming, BMX, kart driving, movies, Skateboards, football,...

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

It is fantastic to see our kids grow and learn and it was fantastic to see
- Germany /
- sunset in the Arches, Utah /
- Machu Picchu /
- Condors in Canyon de Colca /
- the Nazca Lines /
- Mayan pyramids of Coba /
- Millions of birds on Islas Ballestas /
- Antilope Canyon /
- Earth Quake in Chile 7.2 - Not funny at all /
- Sunrise at the end of the world at Cape Reinga, New Zealand /
- Uluru or Ayers Rock /
- Watching two Emus taking a half-an-hour-bath on a muddy dirt road in the Outback of OZ...
- an Orca Family hunting at the Icelandic Coast
- and lots of other stuff...

Countries I’ve Visited

Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Iceland, India, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Myanmar, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Peru, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, San Marino, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Germany, United States

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