International travels

First trip abroad within Europe. We went one month before I started French classes at school, which was a bit unfortunate.

Day trip with our gymnasium’s Latin class to Xanten’s archaeological park at the former site of Colonia Ulpia Traiana.

First “real” visit to Germany, i.e. not for shopping. We went one month before I started German classes at school, which was a bit unfortunate.

A bus tour that was supposed to include Basel, but we arrived too late in the evening to visit the city. We did visit Milan (which was okay), Venice during the rain (which was miserable), Mount Titlis (which I did not care much for), and Lausanne during a heat wave in a hotel without any air conditioning.

Study trip to Rome, Vatican City, and Pompeii with our Classical Studies class during my fourth year of gymnasium. Not only did we visit pretty much every Roman and Christian site in Rome, but we (being teenagers) also paid an insubordinate number of visits to the McDonald’s across from Rome’s Termini station.

Somehow it took me over 21 years to visit Belgium even though I live just one hour away from the border.

Our study association at Utrecht University organised a study trip to several universities and institutions in London, Oxford, and Edinburgh. Some of the highlights included University College London (UCL), the Joint European Torus (JET), the University of Oxford, the University of Edinburgh, and Heriot-Watt University.

Gronau is one of the few places outside the Netherlands that students and NS season ticket holders can visit for free.

Short day trip to Oberhausen. I have no active recollection of this trip.

The absolute wildest company outing I’ve ever been – and will ever be – on.

I found flying with a budget airline to and from a small airport more stressful than expected. Other than that, Barcelona was absolutely amazing. This may have been the first and last time I truly felt I was on holiday.

For my first post-pandemic trip, I spent a few days in Lisbon. I didn’t have high expectations for Lisbon, but it turned out to be quite a nice city. I might visit again in the future!

After a few years without any social events at all due to the pandemic, we had a two-day-long company outing in Cologne.

Short holiday in Athens, the cradle of European civilisation. I prepared for my trip by watching YouTube videos that warned that the stones on the Acropolis are incredibly slippery. I still slipped and fell.

During AI EU Week 2025, the AI4Debunk project organised a small event where members of the AI Against Disinformation Cluster presented their work on combating disinformation. Brussels itself was fine, but the Belgian Railways were on strike that day, making the journey rather stressful.

HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht and HAW Hamburg are both members of CARPE, which aims to promote collaboration in research and education between partners. In 2025, we worked together on a lab session in which students in Hamburg could manipulate a robot arm in Utrecht simply by writing code.

The AI4Debunk project held its third in-person general assembly meeting at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. Barcelona is still a superb city with a splendid metro system, which served as the main inspiration for this website’s current design.

AI4Debunk’s fourth in-person general assembly meeting was held at the University of Florence. Weird airport, but lovely city. I also made a day trip to Pisa to visit the famous Leaning Tower and came to the same conclusion as everyone else: there really is nothing else worth seeing in Pisa.

I went back to London, and this time I took the Eurostar. London itself was quite alright, but I’m not entirely convinced that the Eurostar is a good alternative to flying. It may be more environmentally friendly, but it’s not as cheap, fast, or fun.

AI4Debunk’s fifth in-person general assembly meeting was organised by Italy’s National Research Council (CNR) in Rome. Great city; I will definitely return.

I visited Madrid during a heatwave. The city itself is alright, but not particularly memorable. I spent the first two days sneezing constantly and the last two completely numbed by my hay fever medication.

I visited Brussels and Paris during the hottest day ever recorded in France, and it went as well as you’d expect. It was so unbearably hot that, for the first time, I decided to cut a trip short.

I’m pretty sure I visited more places than just Perak.

My first and last trip to Hong Kong before the handover to China. I remember having very, very strong feelings about the plane landing at Hong Kong’s infamous Kai Tak Airport.

I’m pretty sure I visited more places than just Perak.

I’m pretty sure I visited more places than just Perak.

My first trip to Hong Kong after the handover, together with the rest of our family in the Netherlands. I remember being amazed at how much the city had changed in just five years, in a good way.

Despite living a few hours away from France, I still managed to set foot in a fake French village in Malaysia before I did in France itself. This is apparently also the only time I have ever visited Kuala Lumpur.

This holiday takes the cake for the most ridiculous flight itinerary I have ever taken. Our trip from the Netherlands to Malaysia started in Düsseldorf, Germany, and included hectic transfers at London Heathrow and Hong Kong. On the bright side, this was the first time we were not selected for a “random” baggage check at a European airport.

I hadn’t been to Hong Kong for nine years, so it was high time I visited Asia’s world city again. This was only a few days after submitting my master’s thesis.

I hadn’t visited my relatives in Malaysia for ten years, so it was about time I did. We also made a short trip to Hat Yai in Thailand, where I skilfully managed to avoid traveller’s diarrhoea until I made the mistake of eating fruit.

I went back to Hong Kong after only two years. My flights with China Southern Airlines included a transfer in China’s dystopian Beijing Capital International Airport. I used the money I saved on a non-direct flight to book a flight to “the other China”.

Back in Hong Kong again. One of the first things I did after arriving in Hong Kong was book a trip to Seoul to alleviate my boredom. This trip to Seoul strangely also included a trip to yet another fake “French” village.

By 2022, most of the world had already lifted COVID-19 restrictions, but not Hong Kong. Combined with the change in the city’s social atmosphere after the 2019 protests and subsequent events, this was not a very good time to visit Hong Kong.

Our study association at Utrecht University organised a study trip to Boston and New York City. The United States had been on my bucket list for as long as I can remember, so of course I had to go! Aside from the usual touristy stuff, we also spent quite some time at Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Northeastern University, Columbia University, the Stevens Institute of Technology, and New York University (NYU).