Author: Maarten Van Den Driessche

Perched on the southern tip of Santiago Island, Praia may not shout for attention like other capitals — but that’s exactly its charm. Here, the pace slows to the rhythm of morna music and Atlantic trade winds. The name Praia literally means “beach,” yet the city offers far more than sand and surf. The historical…

In November 2012, a team of Australian scientists set sail toward a small speck in the Coral Sea. Their charts showed a landmass named Sandy Island, located between Australia and New Caledonia. It appeared on Google Maps, world atlases, and nautical databases — about the size of Manhattan. But when the researchers arrived, they found……

There’s an airport in the heart of Cyprus where time has stopped. Its runways stretch toward the Mediterranean sun, but no plane has landed here since 1974. This is Nicosia International Airport — once the bustling gateway to the island, now a ghost frozen in the buffer zone between two worlds. The Airport That Time…

Bek Air (Z9/BEK) I flew from Almaty to Astana with Bek Air ✈️ Bek Air (Z9/BKA)🇰🇿 Kazakhstan’s short-lived low-cost pioneer Bek Air was a Kazakh airline based at Oral Ak Zhol Airport (URA), founded in 1999 and initially operating business charters. It later grew into a domestic carrier, focusing on connecting regional cities across Kazakhstan…

✈️ Airbus A318: The Baby Bus with Big AmbitionsBy Quixotic Guide The Airbus A318, affectionately nicknamed the “Baby Bus,” is the smallest member of the Airbus A320 family — a short-lived but fascinating chapter in modern aviation. At just 31.4 meters long, it’s nearly six meters shorter than the A320, yet it carries the same…

By Quixoticguide The population of our planet is unevenly spread across 195 UN-recognized countries — a fascinating portrait of scale and diversity. From global giants to tiny island nations, each state tells a different story about how humans inhabit the Earth. A World of Contrasts A Planet of Uneven Density These numbers reveal a striking…

By QuixoticGuide A Country of Extremes Venezuela is a land of impossible contrasts — Caribbean beaches and Andean peaks, sprawling plains and jungle plateaus, waterfalls that seem to fall from the heavens. For years, it slipped off the traveler’s map, eclipsed by turmoil and headlines. Yet beneath the surface, the same beauty that once drew…

By Maarten Van Den Driessche | QuixoticGuide.com The world map is shifting — not through wars or borders, but through power, trade, and influence. The age of the unipolar world is fading. In its place emerges a new mosaic: nations once called “developing” now defining the tempo of global change. From Lagos to Jakarta, São…

On November 16, 2009, I stood among hundreds of awestruck visitors at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, eyes fixed on Launch Pad 39A. The countdown reached zero, and Atlantis — mission STS-129 — roared to life. A brilliant flame pierced the Florida sky, followed by a deep, rolling thunder that shook the ground seconds…