"What Could Possibly Go Wrong?"

              Telling stories nobody asked for. From places nobody wants to go.

 

WELCOME TO THE BLOG!

This isn’t a lifestyle blog. It’s a survival record.

A flaming crash site of ambition, aviation, idiocy, and accidental heroism—documented in full colour, soaked in sweat, diesel, and deeply questionable judgment. The kind of brutal honesty that makes your inner child cry and your therapist up their hourly rate.

This is where adventure shows up drunk, kicks down the door, and vomits in your shoes.
Where “thrilling escapades” involve border interrogations, explosive diarrhoea in war zones, bureaucratic hostage situations, and once—no joke, this really happened—a low pass over a herd of elephants that nearly sparked a diplomatic incident.

And the best part?
Every word of it is true. Tragically. Hysterically. Criminally true.
And we have the pictures to prove it. Nothing’s been airbrushed. Nothing’s been softened. The only fiction here are the fake names we gave to people who are either still recovering or actively trying to hunt Marcel down.

The half-German, half-English chaos? Not a bug. A feature. It’s exactly what happens when you live out of a duffel bag, operate across ten time zones, and believe that bilingual sarcasm counts as a valid communication strategy.

This blog is not for:
– People who enjoy “wholesome content.”
– Anyone who’s ever said, “I just want a quiet life.”
– The spiritually fragile, lactose-intolerant, or those who list “vibes” as a core value.

This is for:
– The derailed.
– The feral.
– Those who know the best stories start with: “So, there was this mine field…”
– Anyone who’s ever been medically disqualified from inner peace.

This is for the professional disaster magnets.
The ones who measure life not in Instagram followers or overpriced travel insurance, but in how many times they’ve almost died in the name of “figuring it out.”
It’s not for eco-glamping, Lonely Planet-toting safari hobbyists who cry when their vegan options are late.
It’s for the bold, the broke, the borderline insane.

Decide for yourself if this blog is your flavour of poison, or if you'd rather invest in a hand-lettered self-help manual from someone who “found themselves” on a yoga retreat in Bali… and frankly, should have stayed lost.

Listen up:
We’re not here to help you “find yourself.”
We’re here to show you what happens when you completely lose the plot—
—and come out the other side with a passport full of red flags, a pilot license held together with duct tape, and a restraining order from Air Kenya.

Mark your calendars (in pencil—chaos permitting):
Once a week—more or less—a fresh disaster drops.
Come for the laughs. Stay for the trauma bonding.
Keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times. And whatever you do:

Don't try this at home!

 

 

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

Unser Blog entführt euch in unsere abenteuerliche Welt jenseits des Zeitgeistes. Mit einem Mix aus humorvollen Erlebnissen, spannenden Abenteuern und berührenden Momenten möchten wir euch die Vielfalt und Schönheit unserer Erde näher bringen. Der Sprachen Mix aus deutsch und englisch ist beabsichtigt und spiegelt unsere flexible und unorthodoxe Lebensweise wider.

Tragt es euch im Kalender ein: Einmal oder auch zweimal wöchentlich erwarten euch neue Geschichten auf unserem Blog 

 

From Riches to Rags: An African Odyssey, Part XII / Containerised Glory: From Hangar Dreams to Borderline Psychosis—The Idiot Has Landed

“No Marcel, I’ll bring my expertise to the table, and you foot the bill,” Enrico said flatly, his eyes locking onto mine with the detached precision of a surgeon about to amputate your financial future. “After all,” he continued, like someone about to sell you your own kidneys, “you’ll get 50 hours of quality flight training under all sorts of arduous conditions. Most people would sell an organ—or at least a moderately beloved family member—for that.”

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From Riches to Rags: An African Odyssey, Part XI / Grease, Grit and the Gospel According to Kalli.

“Kalli!” I burst into his hangar like a deranged landlady who just found out you’ve been keeping goats in the kitchen. “Kalli, I need your help!” He emerged from beneath an oily engine block, his arms elbow-deep in mechanical grease, giving me the same exhausted expression you’d give a toddler who just ran in crying that he’d set the house cat on fire—again.

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From Riches to Rags: An African Odyssey, Part X / The Bounce Chronicles: Tales of Terror from the Wrong Side of the Runway

“Kalli!!” I bellowed into the hangar like a man casually requesting tea after detonating a hand grenade in the living room. Kalli, blissfully unaware of the incoming catastrophe, was wedged under the cowling of a Cessna 172, elbow-deep in what I could only assume was mechanical witchcraft involving the nose wheel. He looked up, squinting like a mole dragged into daylight.“Do you have some yellow duct tape by any chance?” I asked, as if that were a standard request in a facility dedicated to keeping planes airborne and not held together by stationery supplies.

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From Riches to Rags: An African Odyssey, Part IX / The Propeller of Doom: One Man’s Descent into Tailwheel Terrorism

“BILL!!” I screamed, my lungs operating well outside warranty, the sound slicing through the cockpit noise like a mayday call from a pilot who just realised he’s been flying the manual for a toaster. “Let’s do another round! I need to learn this! NOW!!” We were ripping down the runway at fifty miles an hour—on one wheel. One. The tail was kicked skyward like it had been possessed by the Lucifer himself. The right wing was flirting with the asphalt, nearly peeling it off like a cheese slicer on a bad day. I was having the time of my tumultuous, ill-advised life—blasting down the runway on one wheel in a flying deck chair from hell, utterly unaware this level of airborne lunacy was even legal, and fully convinced we were auditioning for the airshow spin-off of Jackass: Aviation Edition.

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From Riches to Rags: An African Odyssey, Part VIII / Taildraggers, Tantrums, and the Final Nail in Sanity’s Coffin

“What do you mean by, ‘Honey, I just bought an airplane’?” Nicole stared at me like I had just sprouted a third eye and offered to fly us both to Hell in a homemade hot air balloon. Her expression landed somewhere between cardiac arrest and righteous homicide. If I’d told her I was Elvis reincarnated with a side gig in necromancy, it might have gone over easier. Up until that moment, she had been clinging—desperately, delusionally—to the idea that this whole “Africa situation” was just a passing phase. A midlife tantrum. A chaotic mirage that would vanish like a suspicious wire transfer in a Nigerian inbox. But now? Now she realised, with the chilling finality of a guillotine blade, that this wasn’t a phase.

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From Riches to Rags: An African Odyssey, Part VII / Love at First Stall

“Enrico,” I mumbled like a love-struck, deranged Othello revival crashing into a midlife aviation crisis, “you can’t be serious. This thing—granted, it has a certain deranged charm—can’t possibly fly. And even if it does, how could it fit a pilot, let alone a passenger? It’s minuscule. It looks like the unlucky offspring of a kite and a lawn chair after one too many drinks at an ultralight convention. If IKEA built planes, this is what they’d send you—flat-packed with two screws missing and a manual written in Swedish sarcasm.”

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From Riches to Rags: An African Odyssey, Part VI / From Theory to Therapy: A Pilot's Descent into Fabric-Bound Madness.

“Tell me again, please, Marcel—how this is even remotely a sound plan. Seriously—walk me through the logic, step by step—because I must’ve missed the part where you got kicked in the head by a zebra.”  Shlomi’s voice, sharp as a lawyer’s letter and twice as judgmental, crackled through the line with the crisp authority of someone who had actually survived Africa—unlike me, who was about to treat it like a casual DIY project. I could practically hear his eyebrows folding into origami swans of disbelief.

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From Riches to Rags: An African Odyssey, Part V / Into the Abyss of Aviation: Where Sanity Stalls and Delusions Take Flight

“Listen, Marcel!” Shlomi took a deep breath, the kind a man takes before delivering news so devastating it might as well come with a condolence letter. I braced for impact, already wondering if it was too late to fake a medical emergency or hurl myself out of a conveniently placed window. “You see, don’t let this rub you the wrong way, but… you are useless.”

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From Riches to Rags: An African Odyssey, Part IV / Where Good Intentions Go to Die. Charity Begins at the Customs Office

“No, Marcel, I don’t believe sending your designer clothes here is a great idea, really. All that would accomplish is giving the customs officers a wardrobe upgrade. By next week, half of Nairobi’s airport security would be strutting around in your Armani suits like underpaid Bond villains. Meanwhile, the black market—where 95% of all donated Western apparel ends up anyway—would be absolutely thriving, selling your well-intended generosity at a tidy profit. Your wardrobe alone might trigger an economic boom, possibly even a hostile corporate takeover of the secondhand clothing industry. But would a single orphan, a single starving child, a single soul in actual need ever touch so much as a thread of your donations? Absolutely not.”

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From Riches to Rags: An African Odyssey, Part III / Shots Fired: How a Camera Took Me from the High Life to Nairobi’s Human Blender.

“Are you ready? Sure you want to do this?” Shlomi asked, with the casual tone of a man inviting you to brunch, not a descent into the rectal cavity of urban despair. I looked at him—unsure, unprepared, and utterly incapable of backing down. Why? Because if I did, this bastard would hang it over my head for the rest of eternity like the Sword of Damocles, except less sword and more insufferable smugness.

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From Riches to Rags: An African Odyssey Part II / From the Maasai Mara to Motel Ebola: My Descent into the Bowels of British Hospitality.

“Damn you, Shlomi! May you wake up stark naked at the bottom of a festering hippo pool, gargling elephant dung like it’s mouthwash, sprouting a rat’s tail from your forehead, and cursed with a baboon’s ass so blindingly red that traffic stops out of sheer confusion! May every mosquito within a hundred-mile radius see you as an all-you-can-drink buffet, and may the local witch doctor take one look at you and immediately request an exorcism!”

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About us:

 

Romdane Travel Tales isn’t just another travel blog—it’s a chronicle of chaos masquerading as adventure. We’re not just passionate travelers; we’re borderline unhinged storytellers who plunge headfirst into the world’s absurdities and live to tell the tale (most of the time).

Our stories? Wild and untamed. Authentic and original. Brimming with life and just the right dose of insanity. From hilariously catastrophic mishaps in far-flung lands to unexpectedly moving encounters with humans—and occasionally creatures—you’d never dream of meeting, we’ll take you on an emotional rollercoaster you’ll probably regret not buckling up for.

But we’re not here just to entertain. Oh no, we’re here to ignite something within you. Call it wanderlust, call it a midlife crisis—we don’t judge. If our stories of questionable decision-making and serendipitous survival inspire you to pack your bags and jump headlong into your own adventure, then mission accomplished.

Because here’s the thing: travel doesn’t just broaden your mind—it exposes your soul, opens your heart, and occasionally empties your wallet faster than you can say “souvenir.”

Every post on Romdane Travel Tales is crafted with care (and a little self-deprecation), aiming to make you laugh, cry, or at least reconsider your own life choices. So, join us on this whirlwind of mishaps and marvels. Let us inspire you to step out of your comfort zone—and maybe even book a one-way ticket to chaos.

 

 

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

Romdane Travel Tales ist mehr als nur ein Reise Blog. Wir sind leidenschaftliche Reisende und Geschichtenerzähler, die es lieben, die Welt zu erkunden und unsere Erlebnisse mit euch zu teilen. Unsere Geschichten sind authentisch, voller Leben und oft auch ein bisschen verrückt. Vom brüllend komischen Missgeschick in einem fernen Land bis hin zu tief bewegenden Begegnungen mit Menschen aus aller Welt - wir nehmen euch mit auf eine emotionale Reise, die ihr so schnell nicht vergessen werdet. Unser Ziel ist es, euch nicht nur zu unterhalten, sondern auch zu inspirieren. Vielleicht findet ihr in unseren Geschichten den Mut, selbst einmal die Koffer zu packen und das Abenteuer zu suchen. Wir glauben daran, dass Reisen nicht nur den Horizont erweitert, sondern auch das Herz öffnet. Jeder Beitrag auf Romdane Travel Tales ist mit Liebe zum Detail geschrieben und soll euch ein Lächeln ins Gesicht zaubern oder auch mal eine Träne der Rührung entlocken. Begleitet  uns auf unserer Reise durch die Welt und lasst euch von uns zu neuen Abenteuern inspirieren.