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White spots on the map? Christoph Pfaff can’t stand them. Pfaff travels around the world and records his experiences on Vonunterwegs.com. In our interview, the multi-award-winning blogger explains why lying poolside can be hard work, but is still fun.

Mr Pfaff, let’s start with the classic question for very busy, always-in-motion people like you: Where are you at the moment?

Pfaff: I’m at home in Kiel, but I’m ready to pack my bags again. My next destination is Iceland.

We usually think of a destination as a specific place. But what are the motivation and purpose of travelling for you?

As for many, travelling has always been my passion. Sadly, the holidays allotted to me as a full-time radio editor weren’t enough for travelling, so I ultimately made my hobby my profession. Because my admittedly megalomaniac motivation is to someday – when the last grey hairs fall off my head – have seen every spot on this earth. And thirty leave days a year are simply not enough for that.



Does your awareness of countries and people change with every spot you add to your resume?

Yes, by all means, if only for the fact that I come into contact with more local people now. When travelling as a holiday-goer that also happens, naturally, but if you’re looking for stories, you have to speak with people. It’s quite fascinating how many genuine characters you meet when travelling: everything from creative freaks to volunteer helpers.

In ancient times there were people like Homer and Virgil who reported on their journeys and the wars that were raging subjectively and with fantastical streaks. You also have a very personal way of telling about your journeys, sometimes with contrived scenes. Is that the completion of a circle, perhaps? Are Homer and Virgil your predecessors in a way?

I never thought about that. But now that you mention it, there may be something to it: Homer as the precursor for today’s travel bloggers. Is the domain ‘homerstravelblog.com’ available? I have to get that for myself.

Although your present domain is doing more than well. Are the travel videos you post there merely for entertainment or are they intended to have utilitarian value as modern travel guides?

My main aim for the video work is to entertain my viewers and at the same time show them how beautiful, diverse, exciting and often also how crazy our planet can be. I hope that the films are inspiring about where one could spend one’s next holidays. In addition, though, they are not really meant to assist in travel plans. Anyone who watches a video and wants to ask for practical tips or similar can write me anytime. I’m happy to help.

In the video about the Seychelles you say in jest that you “can’t make the people believe that what we do here has anything to do with work.” Now you have the true opportunity to explain what that is exactly: hard work.

The Seychelles journey is a perfect example for this subject. Because anyone who thinks that the four or five beach scenes took three minutes to shoot and I spent the rest of the day working on my tan is sorely mistaken. In reality, over those almost four days I did not spend a single minute on the beach or by the pool without my camera or at least my notes in my hands. I won’t deny that it still sounds an awful lot like luxury problems. But when the mind is working, the body cannot take a vacation, it doesn’t matter in what kind of paradise it happens to be at the time.



Are there any journeys you take in which you, your mind and your body really take a vacation – without a camera, a notebook and research?

Over the past few years it has become difficult for me to really take a holiday when on holiday because travel dominates my routine otherwise. I had to re-learn that it’s okay to leave the camera at home and just be there. I won’t be able to tell you whether I’ve truly internalized that until I get back from Iceland. This journey will really be purely for relaxation.

What was the absolute highlight for you so far – which trip, which experience?

Hard to say; I wouldn’t want to miss any of my past trips. Sometimes it is the very minor moments that pin an experience to the mind’s memory. It can be a song that you happen to hear on the night bus playing on the radio during a sunrise in the Australian outback or an unexpected storm in the pitch-black South African bush that kicks up the embers from the campfire and floods the austere tents of the camp. It’s these unplanned moments – and there are many of them as long as you don’t expect them.



You’ve already visited about thirty countries and five continents. Is there still a spot on earth that you would especially like to set foot upon?

I’m really not fond of the cold, but I do want to someday tackle the two polar regions of our earth. Then – as a contrast because I also haven’t been there – the South Sea around Fiji, Tonga and those parts.

The South Sea is presently as far away as home sometimes is. How does your view and feeling for Schleswig-Holstein change with your many journeys?

No one is going to get me away from here anytime soon. Kiel is the port that I will always want to sail back into, even if it might take awhile longer at times.


Matthias Mischo held the interview. It originally appeared in the young German-Czech online magazine Jádu by the Goethe-Institut Prague.