Quixoticguide
Hi, I’m Maarten Van Den Driessche, a curious human, aviation enthusiast, vexillophile, world traveler, and food lover with over 14,000 days of life experience.
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Marc Napier and the Flags That Refuse to Behave
Maarten’s Note I’ve crossed many borders where flags were treated as unquestionable facts—stitched onto uniforms, printed on documents, fixed above checkpoints. Traveling long enough teaches you something else: identity is rarely that stable. It shifts, overlaps, and sometimes contradicts itself. When I first encountered Marc Napier’s net.flag, it felt less like digital art and more…
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The Coincidence Atlas
An atlas is supposed to explain the world.Borders, scales, legends. Certainty. The Coincidence Atlas does the opposite. It maps what cannot be planned. This atlas is not organized by country or capital, but by moments of alignment: places entered by accident, meetings that should not statistically exist, cities that appeared briefly and then rearranged your…
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On Dates, Dust, and What a Country Chooses to Celebrate
Travel teaches you quickly that dates are never neutral. We mark them on calendars, book flights around them, and photograph their parades and fireworks as if they were natural phenomena — like monsoons or cherry blossom season. But public holidays are not weather. They are decisions. They are curated memories, pinned down and repeated until…
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In Search of the Perfect Fry
A QuixoticGuide food travel essay There are foods you eat, and foods you travel for. French fries—frites, if you know where you are—belong firmly to the second category. I’ve eaten them on plastic forks beside canals, from paper cones stained translucent with beef fat, and late at night when the city has stopped pretending it’s…
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A World by Alphabet: What the First Letter of a Country’s Name Reveals
At first glance, the alphabet seems neutral — a simple filing system, a way to impose order on the world. But when you line up all 193 UN-recognized countries and sort them by their first letter, surprising patterns emerge. Some letters are crowded crossroads of history and geography, while others are nearly empty. This is…
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Najaf and Kufa: travelling in the footsteps of Imam Ali
In Iraq, there are cities you visit — and cities you enter with reverence. Najaf and Kufa belong firmly to the latter. Arriving here is not just a journey through space, but through time, faith, and moral legacy. At the heart of it all stands one figure: Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib. Najaf: a city…
Dream destinations
Finding the perfect travel destination involves considering a variety of factors to ensure the trip meets your expectations and desires. My destinations
Research Destinations
- My Travel Blogs and Websites:
- Social Media:
- Books and Documentaries:
My Travel guides
- Travel guides are invaluable resources for planning and making the most of your trips.
- They provide detailed information on destinations, attractions, accommodation, dining, and local culture.
- Providing practical tips and itineraries with a focus on cultural experiences.
“Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” –
Ibn Battuta
Maghrebi traveller