Nice to meet you!
We are Stijn van Langen and Ellen Wissink from the Netherlands. Stijn, built in 1971, is a physicist and works as forecasting manager. Ellen, built in 1974, is a self-employed occupational hygienist and very parttime photographer.
In 2004-2005 we traveled to Southeast Asia, China, Australia and New Zealand. We quit our jobs and gave up our rental house. A very good decision, in retrospect. In 2006, after a year of working hard back in the Netherlands, we gave up our rental house and jobs again and went on another long trip through South America.
In 2009 we got Teun. No reason for us to stop travelling. On the contrary! We soon packed up all our lightweight travel gear again and the three of us travelled all over the world. Successfully, Teun is a born traveler. Tessel was born in 2012. Fresh into the world we tested her traveling skills in a four wheel drive in Iceland. She graduated with honors and since then the four of us have been on the road every year for as many weeks as possible. In recent years our focus has been on hiking, preferably as high and as long as possible.
In the course of our traveling years we have discovered that we have a preference for “slightly” colder (read: arctic) areas. We like barren plains, high mountains combined with endless skies and raging clouds. Swimming in ice-cold seas and glacial lakes. Taking our car on a ferry, sailing as far away as possible and driving on small mountain roads whilst praying that you don’t run into too much oncoming traffic. Ploughing through thick mud with our mountain boots and walking into the sea in winter with our fishermen’s breeches on. We don’t like to remain in one place for too long, there has to be movement in our travels. We like to throw our stuff in the back of the car and keep moving.
We’ve always enjoyed hiking, but a couple of years ago we were hit by the ‘hut hiking’-virus. We think it’s a fantastic way to unwind and to travel in a slow pace. Don’t be fooled to think we are super fit and muscular mountain climbing professionals. We are definitely not the most athletic or well-trained people in the world. On the contrary, we may well be the most unfit amateur mountaineers in the world. At least one of us suffers from vertigo. And the other one dislikes sports in general.
We have a website with lots of stories about travelling with children (in Dutch), huttentochten met kinderen (in Dutch) and a photography website.
