Sandalsand Norge >>
These should have been days of happiness. Instead I have for months been sorry for what is happening. I have been growing a huge backlog of unfulfilled tasks. The tasks of creating more content on Sandalsand.
Days of joy and days of sorrow
I could have waited another few months to write this, and included it in my year-end summary. As August 2021 is coming to an end, so is my first decade of publishing stories from travels around the world. I published my first article on August 1, 2011. It was the introduction to a journey on the Trans-Siberian railway.
I would like to raise a toast to that. Cheers.
Few websites survive for a decade, and few travel websites are up and running after such a long period of time. I have over the years written hundreds of travelogues. I have published hundreds of videos and thousands of photographs. Also, I have shared with my dear readers, impressions from almost two hundred World Heritage Sites. Besides, there are dozens of travel related articles.
Of course, the last couple of years have been crippled by the pandemic. I haven’t left my home country Norway since February last year. I have compensated that with quite extensive domestic travels.
The reason I’m writing this, is that I have not published anything on Sandalsand Global since November 2020. That is now almost a year ago. Moreover, 2020 was also a year of an unprecedented lack of articles.
My lament
So, this is my lament, in a time where I should be joyful: My publishing activity has ground to a halt. During months without travels, I could have seized the opportunity to actively cut down on my backlog. It never happened.
Have I in effect lost my motivation to share my stories and impressions? Perhaps.
Have I run out of fascinating stories to tell, or travels to share? Not at all.
I still have many travels to share with you, to inspire you to travel the world. Some are from decades back to fill the gaps, and I have more up my sleeve from travels in the last three years. In total, I have identified more than thirty.
The featured image of this post was taken at the Gyeongbokgung palace complex in Seoul, a World Heritage Site. My stories from WHC-sites are fortunately up-to-date.
My backlog (1): The legacy
Instead of mourning much more, let me just show you what I have identified as meaningful working titles for my untold stories.
- Ireland and Northern Ireland road trip
- Belfast and Northern Ireland, the start of a road trip
- The west of Ireland, from Letterkenny to the Ring of Kerry
- The south and east of Ireland, from Kilkenny to Dublin, to Armagh
- Central European road trip
- Germany from Goslar to Füssen (The Romantic Road)
- From Füssen to Lake Constance and into Switzerland
- Switzerland – Luzern, Bern and out
- France – Villages and castles of Alsace and Lorraine
- Germany – Schwartzwald, The Rhine and northwards
- Denmark, Skagen and more
- England and Wales road trip
- Newcastle to York and the Moors
- A Welsh selection
- Wales to Bath and the Cotswolds
My backlog (2): Recent travels
- Norway (for instance)
- Norway’s National Scenic Route in Lofoten (and several others)
- The Hurtigruten coastal steamer
- Southern Africa on a safari and more
- Windhoek and the Namib Desert
- Namibia’s Atlantic Coast
- Spitzkoppe National Park
- Etosha National Park
- Okavango National Park
- Victoria Falls (Zim and Zam)
- Johannesburg and Soweto
- Middle East city breaks
- Doha
- Dubai
- European city breaks
- Vienna
- Bratislava
- Copenhagen
- Dublin
- Berlin
- East Asia (finish the series)
- Pyongyang’s monumental sights
- Mass Games in Pyongyang
- Traditions and modernity in Seoul
- Life in the hutongs and on the lakes of Beijing
My backlog (3) Special articles
Most articles on Sandalsand describe actual trips. Some entries have a different perspective, but are all related to travelling. These are some possible special articles, based on plentiful of own visits:
- Dark Tourism, where and why?
- Overtourism, where and at what cost?
Do you find that interesting?
So do I. Please bear with me. I hope I will find the right mood to make a shift into finishing off, or cutting down on this backlog. In any case, I am not as sorry about the output from my Norwegian language website, Sandalsand Norge. But that site is not so easy to understand unless you are able to read Norwegian or find Google Translate to be a weapon of choice.
I’ll be back!
