L
Lebensmüder
Soon to be deleted account
★★★
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2018
- Posts
- 5,202
The only places I realistically want to visit are:
I was never anywhere without parental guidance due to it. And my parents grow older and older, they also have different preferences (they like culture/beaches/bars), while I prefer hiking as far as possible (especially in mountain regions and around lakes) and watching animals. I hate spending time on beaches and don't go swimming, mostly I then go around the cliffs or into the shrubland. And they sometimes annoy me - for example: Years ago they completely freaked out as I told them that I wanted to buy some night-vision goggles/lamps for the head in order to go animal watching in the night (wanted to see some geckos/anurans).
Furthermore, what does it matter when I am alone anyways?
Many of the places I wanted to visit in my country have also been irreversibly destroyed due to COVID like many of the zoos which lost all their money and are now closed forever. Unironically everything feels like shit, my younger (richer and NT) relatives/coworkers have traveled to the Kilimanjaro, have done Safaris (one girl was so stupid that she thought a harmless file snake was a black mamba, others didn't recognize a dwarf puff adder, jfl), watched Great Whites in nature and held baby turtles in their hands - they mog me in every regard of life and I hate every second of it.
- Florence (the Tuscany in general)
- some Greek islands (like the Cyclades)
- Rome
- Stromboli/Aeolian Islands
- Venice
- Vesuv/Pompei
- Sardinia/Corsica (failed in Corsica to find black widows and mountain newts the last time I visited and also wasn't at the turtle collection, also want to see Sardinia for the lungless salamanders there)
- some places in Northern Italy which I already know like the Lake Garda where I know good paths and spots for watching animals like dice snakes/esculapian snakes/fire salamanders/other animals
- former Jugoslavia (especially the cave where I saw Olms/skeletons of prehistoric animals irl for the first time which added fuel to most of my obsessions
I was never anywhere without parental guidance due to it. And my parents grow older and older, they also have different preferences (they like culture/beaches/bars), while I prefer hiking as far as possible (especially in mountain regions and around lakes) and watching animals. I hate spending time on beaches and don't go swimming, mostly I then go around the cliffs or into the shrubland. And they sometimes annoy me - for example: Years ago they completely freaked out as I told them that I wanted to buy some night-vision goggles/lamps for the head in order to go animal watching in the night (wanted to see some geckos/anurans).
Furthermore, what does it matter when I am alone anyways?
Many of the places I wanted to visit in my country have also been irreversibly destroyed due to COVID like many of the zoos which lost all their money and are now closed forever. Unironically everything feels like shit, my younger (richer and NT) relatives/coworkers have traveled to the Kilimanjaro, have done Safaris (one girl was so stupid that she thought a harmless file snake was a black mamba, others didn't recognize a dwarf puff adder, jfl), watched Great Whites in nature and held baby turtles in their hands - they mog me in every regard of life and I hate every second of it.
I always wanted to go to Africa as a child, because I loved watching documentaries about the various animals that lived there (especially snakes). I even did presentations about them (for example: Boomslang/Twig Snake) in school and watched the documentaries about them obsessively. Still after all these years I like to watch TV series about them, the recent "Africa's Claws and Jaws" got me again (really good series, highly recommend it, they even show file snakes, night adders and barking geckos which are otherwise very uncommonly seen in these documentaries).
Have also read some books/field guides about certain arachnids/snakes from Africa and lurk on Facebook groups for herpetologists/animal identification courses for this region. My family also has ties to South Africa, many of them lived there/traveled there and saw Safaris/etc. first-hand (I never did it), my grandfather was very interested in it too and kept/bred Malawi cichlids (the fish are also very interesting, especially like knivefish, bichirs and bone tongues like the Pantodon). Unlikely that I will ever go there due to the current climate/danger in these countries, would likely end up on a gore site. Nowadays I am also not capable of following every development from that region - for example the new systematics for house snakes/etc. Therefore it's useless anyways, because I would be overtaxed. But I would be lying if I said I didn't want to see barking geckos, puff adders (especially Bitis peringueyi and other dwarf Bitis), Mambas and some spiders like Hexophthalma irl. Think about buying a book about Asps in the moment, but will probably be too stupid to understand it anyways.
Have also read some books/field guides about certain arachnids/snakes from Africa and lurk on Facebook groups for herpetologists/animal identification courses for this region. My family also has ties to South Africa, many of them lived there/traveled there and saw Safaris/etc. first-hand (I never did it), my grandfather was very interested in it too and kept/bred Malawi cichlids (the fish are also very interesting, especially like knivefish, bichirs and bone tongues like the Pantodon). Unlikely that I will ever go there due to the current climate/danger in these countries, would likely end up on a gore site. Nowadays I am also not capable of following every development from that region - for example the new systematics for house snakes/etc. Therefore it's useless anyways, because I would be overtaxed. But I would be lying if I said I didn't want to see barking geckos, puff adders (especially Bitis peringueyi and other dwarf Bitis), Mambas and some spiders like Hexophthalma irl. Think about buying a book about Asps in the moment, but will probably be too stupid to understand it anyways.