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Booze Beats and Border Hopping, Panama City, Panama City (2026)

26/08/2026

Hello my lovelies! 💕

After landing in New York and making it through immigration, Dominik got pulled aside for a few extra questions. Apparently the important things were where he was staying that first night and how much cash he was carrying. 😂 Apparently I was less suspicious.

From there, we took the ferry across to the pier, where a self-driving Uber picked us up. There was a driver—but he didn’t actually drive the car at all. We were officially passengers in our own little autonomous adventure. 🤖🚗

Then it was off to the YMCA.

You cannot imagine how many times I sang “It’s fun to stay at the YMCA!” while we were there. And honestly? It is fun to stay there!

For those who don’t know: a Y is essentially a fitness center that can also have hostel-style rooms. We actually had to become temporary members to stay there. And yes, we had bunk beds.

And no, I did NOT sleep on the top bunk. Luckily, Dominik was able to navigate the climbing situation. The ladders were so close to the walls that they couldn’t actually be used, so getting to the top bunk involved being a little bit monkey-like: climb onto the chair, then onto the wooden cabinet, and finally onto the bed. Every trip up and down was an adventure in itself. 🐒

After days of watching nothing but ocean go by, New York was quite the sensory explosion—people, traffic, sirens, music, heat, food, skyscrapers and something happening on every corner.

And then there was New York City in summer. Hot. Muggy. And rainy. Quite a lot. ☀️💦🌧️

But the upside? There are free celebrations, concerts and events happening EVERYWHERE. There was so much going on that our biggest problem was deciding what not to do.

So we picked and chose:

🎶 SummerStage in Central Park
🎧 Silent disco & orchestra rehearsal at Lincoln Center
🎭 Broadway in the Park
🀄 Mahjongg lessons in the park
🎉 Festivals in Tompkins Square Park
🚲 Summer Streets
🌃 Times Square on Friday night

And of course, we ate our way through New York: NY-style pizza, bagels, Gray’s Papaya hot dogs, Levain cookies and several trips to the Whole Foods deli.

We made it to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, visited the Frick Collection and wandered the Upper East Side among all those incredible Gilded Age mansions.

We explored the Upper West Side in search of the free Banksy, and visited the Dakota, where John Lennon lived and was tragically killed.

We searched desperately for restrooms in Central Park. (An important but underappreciated part of any NYC itinerary. Get the flush app, if you haven’t already!)

And then there was Times Square, where we were stopped by the police because we were walking around with our beers in brown paper bags.

FYI: Don’t do this anymore! Apparently the brown-bag trick is no longer the thing. Ask for a plastic cup and pour your beer into it. 🍺

One of the absolute highlights was meeting up with another very cool German couple, Stephi and Olli, whom we had met on the QM2. We spent a wonderful evening together in Tompkins Square Park and then wandered through some of the old punk bars of the Lower East Side.

Later, in the Lower East Side, we practiced our newly acquired beer-pouring technique with Stephi and Olli. And yes—the stores really do have plastic cups. Who knew? 😂🍻

After the quiet of the Atlantic, NYC was the complete opposite—chaotic, hot, sweaty, rainy, loud, delicious, fascinating and completely exhausting.

And I loved every minute of it. 💙

Next stop: Des Moines, Iowa—and SWEET CORN SEASON! 🌽😍

24/08/2026

Hello my lovelies! 💕

As usual, I’m a little behind on posting my impressions. I need to let them simmer properly before I can put them into words. 😉

The Queen Mary 2 Atlantic crossing was such a wonderful journey. We had foggy days, windy days, sunny days—and, thankfully, no storms! 🌊 Every kind of weather made the experience feel a little different.

There was something magical about realizing that for days, there was nowhere else to be. No sightseeing schedule, no trains to catch, no “what’s next?”—just the ocean, good food, music, dancing, interesting people and the occasional dramatic fog bank. It was a very different kind of travel, and I absolutely loved it.

And then there was the atmosphere aboard QM2. There’s something wonderfully old-school about dressing for dinner, five-course meals, ballroom dancing, gala nights and simply being on an actual ocean liner rather than just taking a cruise. It felt a little glamorous, a little nostalgic and, honestly, like stepping into another era. ✨

We followed almost exactly the same North Atlantic route that Titanic took on her ill-fated voyage, which was a rather surreal thought as we sailed through the same ocean nearly 115 years later. Even were around 100 miles away from her final resting place. Thankfully, our story had a considerably happier ending.

And there was always something to do. Shows, movies, lectures, music, the library, and even casino gambling lessons. We could spend an afternoon learning something new, watching a film, listening to a lecture, wandering through the library—or learning how to lose money at the casino, as if we really needed lessons for that. 😂 There was genuinely enough going on to fill every day, while still having the freedom to do absolutely nothing.

We each won at darts, music bingo AND Baggo (co****le), which earned us a prize and a bottle of bubbly! 🥂 We danced the night away and closed down the nightclub on multiple nights. And no, before you ask… not every night. Future goals!

We dressed up for the gala nights—Black & White and Roaring ’20s, met the Captain at the Captains reception and saw the most amazing karaoke singers ever. I‘ve got goosebumps just thinking about it.

We met people from all over the world, and one of the best parts was how easily strangers became temporary travel companions. You’d meet someone over a drink or in the hot tub, have a great conversation, run into them again the next day, and suddenly you had people to laugh with. There’s something really lovely about those little friendships that exist just for the journey.

We also watched the dogs being walked in the kennels, wandered the promenade deck and even made it to the fitness center. (Yes, really, even on those morning after dancing the night away 😂)

On the last morning we dragged ourselves out of bed at 3:30 a.m. to watch our arrival into New York City—seeing the Statue of Liberty and passing beneath the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge with only a few meters of clearance. Talk about an entrance!

We also had a port day in Southampton, where we enjoyed a pint at the Duke of Wellington, one of the oldest pubs in England, dating back to 1490. But then we discovered something even older: the bowling green, which has been in use since 1299! 🍺

And somewhere along the way, we realized the days at sea weren’t days we had to fill—they were the experience itself.

If you can’t tell by now… yes. I had an absolute BLAST.

So if you have the time and the opportunity, go book yourself an Atlantic crossing! The Queen Mary 2 is the last true ocean liner in the world, and what an experience she is.

I can’t wait for my next voyage. ⚓️🌊🥂

07/08/2026

So we finally pulled into New York City — one of my favorite cities on this miserable, magnificent planet. After crossing the Atlantic on the Queen Mary 2, Manhattan felt like being fired out of a cannon directly into the heart of civilization.

We checked into the YMCA up by Central Park, mostly because the location was perfect and the price didn’t require selling a kidney on the black market. The accommodation came with bunk beds, which meant that every night became a new chapter in the ancient art of climbing into the upper bunk while operating at increasingly questionable blood-alcohol levels.

By the end of the evening, reaching the top bunk was no longer a simple physical activity. It was an expedition. A vertical assault on Mount Everest with a mattress waiting at the summit. One wrong move and you were going down like a drunken astronaut re-entering the atmosphere.

During the days we did the usual New York damage — wandering the streets, sightseeing, absorbing the endless noise and insanity of Manhattan. But then came the important part.

Two days were sacrificed entirely to the holy trinity of **drugs, beer and punk’n’roll**.

We headed down to Tompkins Square Park for the 38th anniversary of the 1988 Tompkins Square Park Riot — a celebration of punk history, chaos, resistance and the beautiful inability of this city to behave itself.

And what a fu***ng circus it was.

Loud guitars. Beer. Strange chemicals. Sweat. Leather. Mohawks. Old punks. Young punks. People who looked like they had been living in a basement since 1987. The kind of crowd where nobody asks what you do for a living because nobody gives a damn.

Better yet, we reunited with some fellow travelers we had met aboard the boat. The Atlantic crossing had apparently not cured any of us of our questionable decision-making, so naturally we picked up exactly where we had left off.

The party spirits were high, the alcohol was flowing, and somewhere between the music, the madness and the Manhattan night, the Queen Mary 2 seemed like a distant hallucination.

This is why you travel.

Not for the fu***ng landmarks. Not for the refrigerator magnets. Not even for the overpriced coffee.

You travel for those completely irrational nights when you end up standing in a park in New York City with a bunch of lunatics you met on a ship crossing the Atlantic, surrounded by punk rock and questionable life choices, wondering how the hell you got there — and realizing you wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

We still have a couple more days in NYC before we point ourselves westward.

Next stop: Iowa.

The skyscrapers will disappear. The traffic will thin out. The cornfields will begin.

And knowing us, the trouble will follow.

**The road continues. The hangover probably will too.** 😎🍻🥰

27/07/2026

There are airports, and then there are proper departures. Airports are for people in a hurry, cattle herded through security lines with overpriced coffee and plastic smiles. Ocean liners are for lunatics with time, bad intentions, and enough curiosity to disappear from one continent before arriving at another.

After a few necessary weeks back in my hometown of Münster—trapped in the bureaucratic circus of passport offices, doctors, waiting rooms and rubber stamps—we finally escaped. The backpacks came down from the closet, the paperwork was buried where it belonged, and civilization was left to sort itself out.

One item had been sitting on the bucket list for more than twenty years.

Cross the Atlantic on an ocean liner.

Not squeezed into a flying aluminum tube, but properly. Titanic style.

Last autumn we crossed the southern route, but this time there was only one logical choice: the last true ocean liner still in service. The mighty Queen Mary 2. Hamburg to Southampton. Southampton to New York. Seven days chasing the horizon across the North Atlantic like it was still 1955.

I had wanted to board this ship ever since watching the documentary about her maiden voyage back in 2004. Twenty-two years of waiting. Sometimes the universe is slow to deliver, but when it does, it arrives wearing polished brass, white gloves and four enormous red funnels.

Naturally, we packed accordingly.

A gala outfit for the captain's evening. More rum than common sense. And just enough dignity to lose it spectacularly somewhere between England and Newfoundland.

The voyage quickly settled into a dangerous routine.

Spain beat Argentina while half the pub slowly surrendered to alcohol. We celebrated like it was our own national holiday despite having absolutely no stake in the result. Then came the pool. Then the whirlpool. Then the Queen's Ballroom, where elegance dissolved into drunken philosophy. Then the indoor pool. Then G32, the ship's nightclub, where every evening ended and every morning quietly began.

The Atlantic has an odd way of destroying schedules. Every night the clocks moved forward another hour as the ship chased the sun westward. While everyone else worried about jet lag, we were conducting highly questionable scientific research into the effects of consecutive rum-fueled evenings on the human liver. By tomorrow morning, when New York finally appears through the morning mist, our body clocks should be perfectly synchronized.

Our livers, however, may have filed for political asylum.

Now the skyline waits on the horizon.

Back to New York. Back to the greatest city on Earth. Concerts already waiting. Old friends to embrace. New friends from this floating asylum to meet again somewhere beneath the neon lights of Manhattan.

The Queen Mary 2 is far more than transportation. She is a magnificent anachronism—a glorious middle finger raised against speed, efficiency and modern impatience. For one week the Atlantic becomes your address, the horizon your entertainment and the bar your second home.

If there's one thing I can recommend before the curtain falls, it's this voyage. Put it on your bucket list. Save the money. Take the time. Board the ship.

Because somewhere between Southampton and New York, with a glass of rum in your hand and nothing but ocean in every direction, you'll remember that the best journeys aren't about arriving anywhere.

They're about getting gloriously, magnificently lost along the way.

Life is good 🥰😎🍻

21/07/2026

Bon Voyage! 🛳️🌊 Next stop New York City 🏙️

01/03/2026

„Panamaaaa… Panamaaa-aa…
I can feel it burnin’ down the avenue…” 🎸🔥

Cruising the Panama Canal.
Island heat in Bocas del Toro.
Red Frog Beach blazing at sunset.

Mist over the mountains in Boquete.
Salt and surf in Santa Catalina.
Green jungle magic in Valle de Antón.
Skyline shining bright in Panama City.

From beaches to volcanoes,
from sloths to starfish,
from coffee to rum —

Panama hits different. 🇵🇦✨
Turn it up.

16/02/2026

What time is it? It’s Carnival. And not the polite, corn-syrup hallucination our friends in North America call “carnival.” No Ferris wheels. No pink clouds of cotton candy. This is the Latin American kind — beer by the bucket, basslines that rattle your spinal cord, and dancing in the streets until 4 a.m. whether your knees approve or not.

We clawed our way out of the volcanic bowl of El Valle de Antón, boarded one of those heroic public buses — dirt cheap and spiritually expensive — and endured the three-hour baptism by reggaeton and questionable suspension into Panama City.

Headquarters: the towering Megapolis Hotel, formerly the neon cathedral known as the Hard Rock Hotel. Suite on the 21st floor. Glass walls. The Pacific brooding in the distance. A pool hanging above the city like a dare from a wealthy madman. For a few days we trained properly — pool, beer, sun, repeat — hydrating exclusively with lager and bad decisions.

Then Carnival hit.

A tidal wave of humanity flooded the streets. Thousands upon thousands. Security tighter than a diplomatic summit, but once you squeezed through the metal detectors and suspicion, the gates opened to glorious chaos. Beer: $1.50 a can. Food: honest. People: wildly friendly. Everyone vibrating at the same reckless frequency.

Music everywhere. Sweat. Laughter. Strangers hugging like long-lost cousins. We did what professionals do in these situations — merged with the crowd and drank like the calendar had been cancelled. There are moments when civilization feels fragile and doomed. This was not one of them. This was joy at full volume.

Now the clock is ticking on Panama. A few bureaucratic skirmishes remain — passport business for Sarah — then a tactical stop in Münster. After that? The travel gods will decide. We merely show up, bags half-zipped, liver trembling, ready for the next beautiful mistake 😘😎🤘

08/02/2026

We tore ourselves away from the paradisiac calm of Santa Catalina—those lazy beaches and cinematic sunsets—and crammed into one of those dreadful minivan shuttles that feel like a rolling confession booth, hurtling straight down into the crater of an ancient volcano.

Valle de Antón sits down there like a damp secret, hemmed in by towering rainforest walls, where the weather can’t make up its mind: storm clouds brood overhead, sunlight punches through in sudden bursts, and rain arrives in aggressive, sideways gushes. We hiked up the volcano and the jungle put on a full carnival— the world’s smallest hummingbird buzzing like a bad idea, a sloth mother dangling with her baby from a tree as if gravity were optional, butterflies everywhere, and toucans looking down on us like judgmental bartenders.

It’s a hard shift from beach life to volcano life, but rum is cheap, food is good, and the people are friendly, which counts for a lot when you’re living on lava and sharing airspace with bats. We can’t stay long—this place feels like it could erupt at any moment—but for a few days at least, we’ll survive the madness 😎🦋🦜💦

05/02/2026

The coffee tour day was the last honest day of weather we got up in Boquete, the final handshake before the mountain decided to drown us in v***r. For two days straight you couldn’t tell if the clouds were politely kissing your face or just straight-up mugging you with rain. We were so high up on the volcano that reality itself felt damp. Everything smelled like wet earth and regret.

So we did the only sane thing: we fled. Hired one of those dreadful minibus shuttles — the kind driven by a man with the eyes of a rally driver and the morals of a pirate — and shot downhill toward Santa Catalina. A surfer town straight out of a postcard, all dusty roads, salty air, and people who look like they’ve never checked their email. We checked into a hotel with a pool and obscene sunset views, the kind that make you feel briefly forgiven for all your past sins. This became basecamp. Command central. The last outpost of responsibility before total beach-induced brain rot.

From there we plotted a boat trip to the Coiba Archipelago, a UNESCO world heritage site and basically nature showing off. This is where wildlife from the Galapagos wanders over like it heard the party was better on this side. We tore across the water in a speedboat, teeth rattling, eyes watering, and dove straight into another universe. Reef sharks cruising by like bored security guards. Manta rays gliding past with that smug, ancient calm. Turtles doing their slow-motion zen thing. No whale sharks though — those elusive bastards were clearly off somewhere doing important whale shark business.

On land, Coiba was a jungle fever dream. We learned about endemic species like the Coiba howler monkeys, who sound like a broken demon engine echoing through the trees. The beaches were criminally beautiful — the kind that make you stare at the horizon and seriously question every life decision that ever led you away from places like this.

And then you notice the river. Twenty meters from the beach. And in it: enormous crocodiles, just lying there like prehistoric landmines, waiting for a tourist with poor judgment and a sense of adventure. That’s when Panama gently reminds you that paradise always comes with teeth.

Now the plan is simple. The next five days will dissolve into beer and rum, pool water and salt water, nothing more ambitious than deciding which direction the sun is setting. No alarms. No schedules. Just floating, drinking, and slowly forgetting what day it is.

Life is very, very good down here in Panama... 🥰😎🍻

01/02/2026

We thought we’d seen it all when it comes to coffee.

From misty plantations in Thailand to the lush hills of Bali. From mountain-tribe beans in Laos to the infamous, slightly unsettling luxury of luwak coffee. We’d sniffed, sipped, slurped, and nodded knowingly at cups all over the world. Or so we thought.

Then came the Elida Estate of Lamastus Family Estates.

High up in the mountains of western Panama, tucked against the untouched wilderness of Volcán Barú National Park, the Lamastus family has been producing coffee for four generations, dating all the way back to 1918. What makes Elida Estate special isn’t marketing hype—it’s geography, ecology, and obsession-level attention to detail.

The farm sits between 5,500 and 8,200 feet (1,700–2,500 meters) above sea level, making it the highest coffee farm in Panama. The trees grow slowly here, shaded, bird-friendly, surrounded by virgin cloud rainforest, in a cold microclimate that pushes coffee plants to their absolute limits. Every lot tastes different because every corner of this mountain behaves differently.

The tour started promptly at 9 a.m., which felt ambitious until the first cup hit the table: honey-processed Geisha. An award-winning one.

To put that cup into perspective—this exact bean variety can cost up to $980 per cup in Dubai. At a private auction in 2024, one kilo of Elida Geisha sold for an eye-watering $13,518 to a South Korean buyer. No pressure.

The taste? Nothing we’d ever experienced before. Light-bodied, almost tea-like. Explosive florals—jasmine, orchid, rose—followed by bright citrus notes of bergamot, tangerine, and grapefruit. Stone fruits, a touch of honey, and a finish so clean it felt engineered. This wasn’t coffee as fuel. This was coffee as art.

Caffeinated and slightly stunned, we jumped onto a four-wheeler and spent the next hours exploring all 65 acres of the estate, climbing from 1,700 to over 2,100 meters in elevation. We stopped constantly—learning about planting techniques, slow growth cycles, harvesting methods, and how subtle changes in temperature, wind, and shade can completely alter a coffee’s flavor profile.

During peak harvest, Elida Estate employs up to 600 workers. We visited every stage of production: the different drying methods, the roasting room, workers hand-sorting beans with monk-like concentration. Nothing here is rushed. Nothing is accidental.

The tour wrapped up with a professional cupping session, competition style, tasting multiple varieties side by side like the pros do. Slurp, swirl, spit (or don’t), repeat. By the end, our palates were fried and our standards permanently ruined.

Yes, the three-hour tour is pricier than most coffee plantation tours in the area. But at $75, it’s worth every single penny. If you care even a little about coffee—or craftsmanship, or obsession, or how far humans can push plants and patience—Elida Estate isn’t just a highlight of Panama.
It’s a benchmark 🥰☕️🫘

Booze Beats and Border Hopping

26/08/2026

24/08/2026

07/08/2026

27/07/2026

21/07/2026

01/03/2026

16/02/2026

08/02/2026

05/02/2026

01/02/2026

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