{"id":155,"date":"2025-01-13T19:50:51","date_gmt":"2025-01-13T19:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/photo.michelschmidlin.com\/?page_id=155"},"modified":"2025-02-13T20:55:39","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T20:55:39","slug":"journeys","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/michelschmidlin.com\/en\/journeys\/","title":{"rendered":"Journeys"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Journeys<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking back, it’s difficult for me to say what exactly made me go on my first long trip in 2014. As a kid I was not very enthusiastic about traveling. I remember preferring to stay at home during holidays and being happy to return home at the end of trips I took with my parents. Something changed after I finished high school in 2013 \u2013 I started dreaming about traveling for an extended period of time. At first, I thought about asking a friend to join but quickly realized that really this trip would have to be a solo one. Putting a lot of distance between me and all the things, places and people I knew well felt like a challenge, but one I wanted to take on. In fact, this was probably one of the main drivers that made me want to travel to a faraway place. Surely, I was also influenced by the people around me \u2013 it isn\u2019t uncommon for Swiss people to go traveling after high school. But much more than that it felt like traveling on my own was an experience I needed to grow personally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I chose to go to Canada for multiple reasons: I\u2019d be able to communicate with locals easily, I had relatives there who would be able to help me if I needed it and I had always been drawn towards the great Canadian wilderness. I spent five months traveling from east to west, up north and back down south by train, car, ship and plane and also took a few trips across the border into the United States. I discovered a lot on this trip, including what I wanted to study at university once I returned home and my love for nature photography and exploring and experiencing previously unknown places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During my bachelor I didn\u2019t have the opportunity to go on extended trips. But after I got my degree in biology, did an internship, and finished the mandatory Swiss civil service I once again got the chance to go traveling. This time luck brought me to the southern part of the same continent I had visited 4 years earlier. I spent time exploring parts Chile, Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil. In total this trip lasted for 8 months, and I again learned many things about our planet and its inhabitants, including myself. On this trip I spent time in a wide variety of ecosystems including the Patagonian mountains, high altitude deserts and both temperate and tropical rainforests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right after returning from South America, I started my master\u2019s degree in Ecology and Evolution. After finishing it in 2021 I found time for a two-month trip to mainland Spain and the Canary Islands in a self-built camper van.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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North America 2014<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After finishing high school in 2013 it was clear to me I was going to go to university. However, I was unsure about what – there were a few different topics that I was interested in. Like many others in Switzerland I took a one year break between high school and university to do mandatory civil service and figure out what topic I should sign up for. However, after half a year of civil service I hadn’t figured it out and still had 5 months until the beginning of the semester. Still not knowing exactly what to do at university I decided to go travel in Canada, a place I had often thought and dreamt about before. I traveled east to west, up north and back south by cargo ship, train, car, bus and plane. And in the end I had my answer: biology. But I guess more importantly I also discovered my love for adventure and exploration during this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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South America 2018\/2019<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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At the end of 2018, after finishing my bachelor’s degree, I traveled to South America with my family to spend 3 weeks of vacation together. And as luck would have it I was free to stay for a bit longer after my family returned. Quite a bit longer actually. I stayed for another 7 months and travelled from south to north, visiting Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Brazil. I was fortunate enough to spend time in very different ecosystems and spend a lot of time photographing and exploring freely. All the diversity in life forms inhabiting very different landscapes and climates reinforced my decision to continue studying biology and completing a master’s degree in ecology and evolution.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Journeys Looking back, it’s difficult for me to say what exactly made me go on my first long trip in 2014. As a kid I was not very enthusiastic about traveling. I remember preferring to stay at home during holidays and being happy to return home at the end of trips I took with my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"iawp_total_views":29,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-155","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michelschmidlin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michelschmidlin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michelschmidlin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michelschmidlin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michelschmidlin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/michelschmidlin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1393,"href":"https:\/\/michelschmidlin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/155\/revisions\/1393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michelschmidlin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}