Sofie Couwenbergh

Sofie Couwenbergh quit her stable job in marketing to travel the world and create a career for herself. On her bilingual blog Wonderful Wanderings, she introduces her home country Belgium to the world and the world to Belgium, focusing on cities and local culture.

Her Wonderful Walks are unique thematical walks which have sights, activities and culinary stops marked on detailed maps so that you always know where to go. Sofie runs on tea, is slightly addicted to chocolate and whenever she isn’t travelling or writing, you can find her at a dance class.

You can work pretty much where you want to – on the road, do you find it hard to work or do you just have fun and work when you come back home?

My home base is in Belgium, so whenever I travel I try to keep up with emails and I do live social media as well as some photo and video editing, but I usually do the bulk of the work related to that trip when I'm back home for several reasons. As I don't travel constantly, I really want to savour each trip and take in all of the impressions and experiences to write about them later.

I do try to give plenty of updates on Facebook and Twitter, for example, but I won't cut three hours of travel out of my day to write a blog post. It also works for me this way because I'm usually gone for a maximum of two weeks at the time, so I can do my writing and most of my marketing in between trips.

Do you feel many people are envious of your lifestyle?

Sometimes, yes, but in those cases it's mostly because they seem to think I'm travelling 90% of the time, which isn't the case. I share travel stories 24/7 on the blog and my social media, but that doesn't mean I'm actually travelling as well. Of course, whenever I am travelling I give live social media updates, but when I'm back from a trip I'll still share cool photos and so on. So I always try to show people what my days really look like and tell them that I actually spend far more time behind my laptop then I do exploring.

In which countries have people recognised you, even when you thought nobody would?

I have to say that hasn't happened yet, and I'm perfectly fine with that:) Of course, it would be cool to become a bit more known and I definitely want to keep growing the blog, but being anonymous and having the possibility to be whomever you want to be in a strange place is exactly one of those things I love so much about travel.

Which three items would you never travel without?

Only three? Damn! :-) Well, my smartphone, paper tissues and my credit card. That credit card will take are of all the rest:-)

Are there any specific souvenirs or other things you collect from the places you go to?

Not really. I tried starting a souvenir collection a couple of times, but it's not really my thing. I don't often go shopping abroad, but when I do, I actually prefer being clothing. I know that sounds boring, but then at least it's something I'll use and each time I'll wear it, it'll make me think of that trip I made. Unfortunately, clothes aren't exactly the cheapest kind of souvenir.

Tagged as: Belgium

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