This week’s guest interview is with Tracy, travel blogger behind Amsterdam Wonderland. She explains ‘We are Tracy and Marc. He’s from Amsterdam, I’m from London. Though we live in the UK we spend a great deal of time visiting family and friends in The Netherlands with our young sons – mini Dutchies Oscar and Zac. Almost as soon as we met, friends and family from the UK started asking for tips and recommendations for forthcoming trips to Amsterdam. Realising how limited most guides to the city are, we started a hotspots list that spread like wildfire, passing from person to person way beyond our own network. As our discoveries grew, we realised we needed something more comprehensive and a better way to share the information… and from that, AmsterdamWonderland was born – with a mission to challenge every cliché about Marc’s amazing homeland.’
1. What is your name and where do you come from?
I’m Tracy, I live in London but my husband Marc is from Amsterdam so we travel to the Netherlands regularly
2. What sort of traveller are you? Full time / part time / business / backpacker etc?
In the past, when I was single, I was an extensive world traveller in every spare minute I could get. Now that Marc and I are married with school-age kids, we’re more limited and tend to visit Amsterdam as often as we can – usually every couple of months (or more frequently during the football season if Marc gets his way!). He and I also try to fit in a city break somewhere else in Europe every year – just the two of us – and we also head off on one big family holiday. This year we’re going to California in 6 weeks time and are all absurdly excited!
3. How do you fund your travelling?
Marc and I both work full time. I’m a Marketing Director so travel and blogging are just passion projects that we fit around the edges.
4. Where is the best place you have ever been and why?
Before I met Marc I used to love the world’s most hectic, colourful and crazy places – India, Bolivia, Marrakech, Nicaragua etc. but now that I’m an honourary Dutchie I should probably say Amsterdam. I get the best of both worlds – part visitor, part honorary local. I have got to know it in huge depth and adore it. Our dream is to have a pied a terre there one day. Right now we’ve got as far as three season tickets to Ajax Football Club and two bikes!
5. Where is the worst place you have ever been and why?
I’m a bit of a starry-eyed optimist so I tend to try to find something wonderful about everywhere I go.
That said, the worst place is probably waiting at Luton Airport for the Friday night flight to Amsterdam – when you’re standing with your kids and are surrounded by leery stag-do’s in inappropriate fancy dress, drinking, shouting obscenities and over-sharing about all the time they are going to spend in the Red Light District, it makes me want to weep.
6. Do you have a Bucket List? If so where are the 3 top places on it?
I want to take Marc to some of the incredible places I went to before meeting him. The list probably includes Brazil, Venice and some of my favourite parts of India including Kerala and Rajasthan. That said it might never happen because I keep being seduced by new places and experiences!
7. What 3 things (apart from the essentials – food/water etc) do you always travel with?
Marc, and our sons Oscar and Zac! Well, not always…our boys are lucky enough to have amazing grandparents who they adore, so Marc and I do also get to go away just the two of us occasionally.
8. What makes you happy and why?
I wouldn’t be a travel blogger if I didn’t say blogging and travelling. I absolutely adore planning a trip and finding incredible experiences we can share as a family. I have planned OBSESSIVELY for our big California adventure and am so excited that I get to recreate one of my best ever childhood holidays with my boys. But even more than the planning, that moment after you land when you catch the first breath of thick air as you stand on the steps of the plane or waking up on the first morning (at dawn) and stepping outside to explore – that always takes my breath away.
9. How long have you been blogging and why did you start?
After Marc and I met, people were always asking us for recommendations for forthcoming trips to Amsterdam. I’d always been a big ‘sharer’ of insider info and I was passionate about directing people away from all the cliches about this amazing city. I hated that visitors often saw the worst of it or associated it with drunken student travels. What started as a ‘hotspots list’ that got passed from person to person, quickly became a blog and then became a huge passion project for me.
10. What makes your blog unique and why should people read it?
I describe Amsterdam Wonderland as ‘Amsterdam curated. Minus the cliches. Kids welcome. Stag and Hen nights head elsewhere’. I blog about all that is amazing about Amsterdam (and slightly beyond) and focus on great eating, great activities and brilliant family days out. There isn’t really anything else in English like it. There are places in Amsterdam we’ve been to that aren’t good enough to make it to the blog, but if we find something incredible we’re keen to share. I want people to stay away from tourist traps and eat in places that Amsterdammers have on their hotlists. I want them to avoid the depressing and exploitative Red Light District and discover a city for all seasons, filled with magical corners and wonderful experiences. I’m always happy to help people with their planning if they get in touch directly. I don’t monetise my blog – I do it because nothing makes me happier than the fantastic feedback I get from visitors who say that they have discovered something they would never otherwise have known about and who, as a result, fall a little bit in love with this hugely special place.
From ESLT – thank you, Tracy, for taking the time to answer our questions. Safe Travels 🙂
You can also find Amsterdam Wonderland on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter
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