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Travel Inspiration

These articles are written for travellers who want to learn more about travelling in a responsible and sustainable way, based on academic knowledge.

Expert Articles

These articles are geared towards a professionally engaged audience such as policy makers, DMO’s and academics who want to learn more about sustainable tourism development. 

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Travel Inspiration

Hiking in the Netherlands, say what?! The flattest country ever, below sea level, and the highest ‘mountain’ only being 322 meters high… Moreover, the country is super crowded and there seem to be buildings everywhere. But don’t be fooled, even though it may be nothing

What is the most sustainable transportation option? The answer to this question seems obvious. We all know that travelling by airplane is the worst option and travelling by train the best option, right? It is however a bit more nuanced than that. To my own

In an era of overtourism, many destinations are suffering from selfie-taking crowds waiting in line for that one insta-worthy shot. Even though these destinations cannot bear any more visitors, the posts on social media keep on drawing more crowds. At the same time, there are

A place just for you, where can you still find that? Many destinations suffer from selfie-taking crowds waiting in line for that one insta-worthy shot. At the same time, many places on earth remain relatively unvisited but are equally (or even more) beautiful. An example

A quick Google search into the best neighbourhoods of Valencia will soon lead you to the most popular areas of the city: Russafa, El Carme and El Cabanyal. Not coincidentally, these are also the neighbourhoods that struggle the most with gentrification processes ánd are home

After many articles about flight shame, the flight free movement has gained momentum in 2020, especially in the Netherlands with around 23.000 people pledging to not fly this year. And I’m all for it. Air travel is one of the biggest polluters of the travel

Travel Inspiration
Shirley * Paradise Found

Best hikes in the Netherlands

Hiking in the Netherlands, say what?! The flattest country ever, below sea level, and the highest ‘mountain’ only being 322 meters high… Moreover, the country

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Expert articles

In 2019, I was among the first to connect the doughnut economics model concretely with tourism. I wrote a blog post about the clear connections between the ideas about the doughnut and what is happening in tourism. The article received tons of reactions from people

To be regenerative in nature, it is not only important to offer a sustainable service or product, but also to have an organizational structure that fits regenerative values, even if this is partly at the expense of profitability. Several pioneers within the tourism sector show

Five years ago I started my PhD research, investigating in what ways cities could develop tourism more sustainably. Cities were then (and still are) struggling with the pressure of growing tourism and finding ways for it to be more sustainable. I ended up with three

Many cities want to develop sustainable tourism using creative strategies. One way to do this is by attracting tourists that explore the city beyond its most touristic places, for example by visiting more local and creative areas. This blog post based on the research paper

By now we have all seen the discussions online about rethinking the future and moving towards a ‘new normal’. How can our world become fairer, more sustainable, slower? What do we want the world to look like after COVID-19? The tourism sector is no exception

The dispersal of tourists as a strategy against (potential) overtourism is something that more and more destinations are implementing. But how effective are these strategies in practice? And what does it do to the places tourists are dispersed to? The question we are trying to