Hi, I'm Lizet!
Hi, I'm Lizet!
My travel life
This is me in my happy place, on a train through beautiful surroundings (in this case, the French Pyrenees.) —>
I was born in Leiden, The Netherlands, in 1991 and lived there for 27 years. Then I was fed up and instead of moving to Utrecht or Groningen, I left for Prague. Time for adventure. Just a year off, into the wide world, before looking for a good job and maybe buying a house.
Spoiler: I didn’t come back after a year. Since the Czech Republic was so nicely located in the middle of Europe and I spent the first year mostly beer-drinking, I decided to stay another year to travel. Unfortunately, the pandemic quickly put a stop to that, but in 2021 I still decided things had to change. I started my own business as a content writer and six months later I was living as a digital nomad in Barcelona. I’ve been travelling around ever since, and slowly sustainable travel became more important. I heard how other digital nomads sometimes take as many as 100 flights a year, and refused to leave such a bad impact on the world.
Sustainable travel blog
Sustainable travel blog
For the longest time, I hesitated about creating a travel blog, as there are so many already. What do I actually have to offer? And then I realised that sustainable travel, from train travel to more conscious travel, is still uncharted territory and raises questions for many people. So here is the blog that answers all those sustainable travel questions!
I myself have been living a sustainable lifestyle for years. For me, it is not a trend or ‘because it has to’. I genuinely think it is important to be a bit kind to our planet. And I also see the effects of this during my travels. I don’t want to contribute to the mountain of waste, so with me the packaging-free shampoo bars, reusable coffee mug and water bottle with water filters go everywhere with me. And preferably by train, because it’s sustainable, but also because I don’t really like flying.
I don’t believe in perfection and black and white thinking. I take you on my travels in my blogs, and they are really not perfectly sustainable. As a full-time traveller, I have a luxury position when it comes to the choices I can make. Does it take 3 days to travel to my destination by train? Then I make that an adventure with 3 stopovers. These are often cool trips! But I quite understand that you prefer to spend your 25 holiday days a year at destination, and don’t want to spend another 6 days travelling.
So, no judgement here. But I do hope my blog helps you understand your impact, and how things can be done differently. On location, do look at trains and buses, instead of booking a rental car straight away. Or go to some less-visited destinations, to give the people and nature in the flooded locations some peace and quiet. Opt for small-scale, locally-run accommodations instead of the well-known chains and spend a day at the market to sample the local vibes.
There are lots of ways to travel more consciously and sustainably that go far beyond train travel. Not sure where to start? Then I can help you. By telling my sustainable stories, and teaching you more about our impact as travellers.
Let me plan your sustainable trip
Ready to book trip, without the stress
Ready to book trip, without the stress
Travel planner
Travel planner
For me, sustainable travel is very natural, but I find that others are sometimes really surprised by the trips I manage to put together. Time to do something with this! There came mega-ambitious plans, but eventually there were the (train) travel guides.
Do you ever have a conversation with someone about a topic that is as obvious to you as the rising of the sun in the morning, but is abracadabra to the other person? I found out after a while that sustainable travel, especially train travel, is abracadabra for many people. I also noticed that there are few travel agencies that help with this. While there is a growing demand for sustainable travel.
Ambitious plan: I am going to start such a sustainable travel agency! I had already reserved a name and domain name and then I had to look for a programme that would make this possible. And that’s where things went wrong. Nobody offered the option of train travel ‘because travel agencies don’t offer it’. Yes, hello. Of course, if you look at it that way, nothing is going to change.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have €8000 lying around to have such a programme made, so it had to be simpler. Et voila! Train travel guides.
The guides should make it a lot easier for people to book sustainable travel, especially by train. I offer inspiration and I do all the research for you. All you have to do is click on the links and book. There will be lots more here, in different types, for different types of travel.
And I’m already talking to some ambitious entrepreneurs who are setting up such a cool sustainable travel agency, so who knows where that will take me. But for now, I mainly share my beautiful train journeys and hope to make it easier for you to train travel!
So, this is me
Thanks for reading half my life story, if you actually made it to here. Being brief is not my strong suit. And that’s totally unnecessary for this page, right? You wanted to know who I am, so here is the full, uncensored version! So if you still have questions, a compliment, a comment or maybe even a complaint, you can always send me a message! Most of all, I hope the rest of my travel blogs and travel guides are useful and I can help people with them.