GIFGAS

Trainhopping across Georgia

Well, the re-upload on my YouTube channel has been deleted. It seems they really don't like my content. Luckily you guys do :)

Enjoy watching and thanks for the support!

Trainhopping across Europe | Part 2

Unfortunately, YouTube has once again removed a classic from my channel. Under the guise of “dangerous acts". This is the second part of my trip through Europe. The rest of the parts can still be seen on my channel for now.

I am actively seeking solutions to counteract YouTube's automatic monitoring body. Last week I worked a lot with noise, because images are composed of noise so, “for noise you are and to noise you will return,” but in vain, the automatic detection system could...

Below the Salt

After riding in Africa and Asia, it was time to explore a bit more of Europe. I looked for countries that had a good train network and interesting scenery. Then I remembered Slovakia, I was there a few times, and every time I was thinking, man, I should ride here. Good trains, nice scenery and the regulations around the railroad were pretty loose.

I decided with Ekton to do it together, after all, he hadn't been away for a while either and was looking forward to a trip. Aki came along ...

Trainhopping across Tunisia

Here we go! The full quality, original video.

From now on I will upload all my videos to this Vimeo page, for Patrons.

I will still keep uploading to YouTube, but I might have to alter the content slightly so the video doesn't get taken down right away after uploading.

Thanks for the support and suggestions. I am glad that you all understand the situation, and recognize that YouTube's system is flawed.

All the best!

Update

Hello everyone.

As some will have already seen, my last video was removed by YouTube due to a violation of community guidelines. This is not the first video of mine that got removed, and I fear that it is virtually impossible to post any more trainhopping content on YouTube. Advertisers are making stricter demands because they do not want their product promoted in a video that contains 'dangerous' or 'illegal' things. And since YouTube gets its revenue from ads, it obeys the advertisers...

Desert Steel

It was time again to expand my horizons and head out into the wide world. Winter had arrived and the cold and wet weather was not at all inviting to make a big trip in Europe. Therefore, I decided to return to North Africa. This time not Morocco, but Tunisia. As in Morocco, there is a lot of phosphate in the Tunisian soil, and that means a lot of bulk transport, so also a lot of freight trains.

 I messaged Rico about my plans and he was enthusiast about it. So after a week of plan...

Gold Fever

After Georgia, Shiey and I decided to explore some more of the Caucasus. Neighbouring Armenia seemed like a good place to continue our journey.  The weather was still nice and there were a lot of abandoned locations, a railroad and some interesting scenery. We booked a flight and departed. I wanted to ride trains across the country but Shiey wasn't really feeling it so he stayed in the capital. Early in the morning I departed on my solo journey to Ararat. 

I could s...

Trainhopping across Serbia | Part 3 (Re-Upload)

It's finally here, part 3!

It took me longer than usual because I needed to handle some other stuff, but that's over now. So I tried fixing my camera, but according to many people who know some things about it, it's not possible. When I was editing this video I really missed the shots from the camera, the GoPro is very nice to film with, but you don't have as much freedom as with a proper camera. That's why I took some time off to save up for a new one and I got one, of course also with...

Trainhopping across Morocco | Part 1 (Re-upload)

When people talk about African trainhopping they usually talk about the iron ore train in Mauritania. But I was more intrigued by neighboring Morocco. The culture, landscape and weather attracted me. And I knew it was possible, since Morocco has the most developed rail network in all of Africa. Still, I stepped off the plane with many doubts; I had no idea how people were going to react to what we were doing. I also had no idea how often trains ran, and at what time. Online there was hardly a...

Update

I am writing this post from a half-empty phosphate train in Tunisia. We have been waiting to leave for some time but so far there is no movement. I am writing this just to let you know that YouTube has removed some of my videos. This has already happened to many related channels. I thought for a moment that I was spared, but nothing is less true. It concerns my Georgia trip, the first part of Morocco, and a video from Serbia. I will upload them on Patreon when I get back from this trip. I wil...

Are you in the telescope?

Are you in the telescope? Is what I heard when standing on the edge of a giant silver pit. No, I replied. I had no idea where the voice was coming from; I heard it all around me. I asked the same thing, are you in the telescope? At this point I thought I was talking to Shiey, as he was looking for an entrance to get into the telescope. A voice behind me proved me wrong, ‘Yo who the fuck are you talking to?’, it was Shiey, he was not in the telescope but behind me inspecting a tunnel.

Steam trains and Landmines

Bosnia round 2! This time, with even more trains and history. I had long wanted to go back to Bosnia because I thought it was a unique country. There were also some routes that I still wanted to do by freight, routes that I could not do in my last Bosnia trip. However, now I had even more reasons to go there. According to the Internet, there were still some old steam trains from the Second World War running around in a coal mine near Tuzla. I messaged Ekton, an explorer from Paris, with a pas...

Journey to the Black Sea

Hello everyone, here it finally is, the second part of the Georgia journey. It took a little longer than expected because I was in the hospital for a while. Everything is going well now fortunately. Nothing train or urbex related. Just some bad luck. But now the video is finally finished! A diverse journey through city, mountains to the coast. It was nice to travel this way for variety. Hope you guys like the video, thanks for the patience and support. See you soon!

Trainhopping in Georgia

Georgia, a country in the Causasus region next to the Black Sea.  A country with an eventful history, where various influences of that past still linger. That, combined with beautiful nature and a good train system made Georgia the ideal destination for a trip in May. The plan was to travel from a mine in Dedoplistsqaro via rail to the Black Sea. For me it was a new system, both the infrastructure and the train fleet still consist entirely of Soviet Union equipment. For Shiey, this was a...

Going nowhere - A photo collection

These are some of the pictures I took while traveling through Italy and France. 

Going nowhere

The video is finally done!
The initial plan was to travel from northern to southern Italy, it should've been a good connection that was fast and reliable. Unfortunately, there were major floods in the areas we were supposed to travel through and all train traffic bound for Bari was stopped. Because of this, we had to improvise. Almost all trains from the terminals in northern Italy go to the north of Europe, which we didn't want because that's where we came from. We wanted to go to the Sou...

New video coming soon

Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well.

I am just writing this to let you know that I am alive and not in jail! And that new projects are coming up. I was supposed to upload the video today but unfortunately I didn't get it done. Tomorrow I leave on a new trip for two weeks so I won't be able to continue working on it. I will upload it when I get back. Thank you for your patience and support!

See you soon. 

Trainhopping to the Mediterranean Sea

After a long gray Belgian winter, spring was finally here, although not much changed. It was the ideal time to head south. Through some friends I met Faavie, he was planning to go to Portugal without spending money. I could use some company on the long trip to Spain, so therefore I decided to take him along on the adventure. He had no experience with trains, but luckily he learned quickly. The original plan was to take a direct train from Belgium to Barcelona, although I knew in advance that ...

Trainhopping to Ljubljana

This trip was quite spontaneous. I went to Vienna to meet Aki, a friend of mine with whom I have made a few trips. Normally we just went to do some things in the city, but since Aki had been sitting at home for a long time, he wanted to take a little trip. After Morocco, I also felt like getting back on European trains, so we decided to go to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. From capital to capital. It should be pretty simple, not such a long distance and a fairly busy line. Yet we had man...

Trainhopping across Morocco | Part 3

When we arrived by bus in Khouribga, we went to check the yard. I did a lot of research online and found out that the phosphate mine in Khouribga was among the biggest in the world. But in my research I overlooked something, they recently laid a pipeline which transports the phosphate all the way to the sea, rendering trains obsolete. Khouribga was also not the best city to spend a lot of time in, it was pretty beautiful, but there was something about it that made me want to leave.

Perh...

Trainhopping across Morocco | Part 2

Part two begins with my favorite day of the whole trip. We woke up to the sun shining between the olive branches. I looked to my right and saw a man approaching us, it was the farmer. He told us that it was no problem for us to sleep on his land, in fact, he even brought us breakfast. Warm homemade bread, tea and olives. It was delicious.

After we ate we went to the river to wash our things and ourselves. We stayed by the water for a few hours because we knew the train wasn't coming unt...

Trainhopping across Morocco | Part 1

When people talk about African trainhopping they usually talk about the iron ore train in Mauritania. But I was more intrigued by neighboring Morocco. The culture, landscape and weather attracted me. And I knew it was possible, since Morocco has the most developed rail network in all of Africa. Still, I stepped off the plane with many doubts; I had no idea how people were going to react to what we were doing. I also had no idea how often trains ran, and at what time. Online there was hardly a...

A photo collection from Montenegro

These are some pictures I took while traveling in Montenegro. I thought they were worthwhile to share.

Happy New Year's Eve!

Lost in Montenegro | Part 2

We were fascinated by the small winding mountain roads that run through Montenegro's interior. History had also left many traces in the north of the country, and the ideal way to explore both was by renting scooters. We didn't want to pay much for them, but that worked out well. We found a scooter rental store in the center of Budva that rented its scooters for 20 euros a day. We arrived at a garage where the scooters were parked. The hasty man told us not to ride them in the mountains. But h...

Lost in Montenegro | Part 1

Montenegro round 2! 

Last year I had a lot of fun in this country but I only saw a small part of it. So I decided to come back, together with Shiey, to travel across the entire country. This time we wouldn’t limit ourselves to freight trains, and we didn’t have a plan. Checkmate, a friend of Shiey, was also in Podgorica, so he joined us, and like that we started our adventure. This was one of the most spontaneous journeys I’ve done so far. We just planned from day to day, nev...

The final stretch | Full video

A sequel to the Serbian trip.

I knew I had to return when I left Serbia without doing the last part of the route through the mountains. And I'm so glad I did. This was one of the most authentic routed I've ever ridden. The semaphore signaling, the old electricity poles, the bumpy tracks, and the thick bushes left and right. When I was on the train it just looked like it was wading through a forest. This is also the first journey filmed with my new camera, I'm glad I had it with me becau...

A photo collection from Serbia

The video is back online! And now it's there to stay, first I had problems with the blur and after that problems with copyright. But it's all good now. 

These are some pictures I took when traveling across Serbia, thought they were worthwhile sharing.  My camera broke halfway through the trip so that's why there are not so many pictures. But luckily I got a new one now, thanks to you. 

Thank you so much for your support. All the love!

Trainhopping across Serbia | Part 3

It's finally here, part 3! 

It took me longer than usual because I needed to handle some other stuff, but that's over now. So I tried fixing my camera, but according to many people who know some things about it, it's not possible. When I was editing this video I really missed the shots from the camera, the GoPro is very nice to film with, but you don't have as much freedom as with a proper camera. That's why I took some time off to save up for a new one and I got one, of course als...

Trainhopping across Serbia | Part 2

Part two. Things finally worked out. We first took our time to explore Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. There was a lot to see there, and we decided to explore the city our way.  We wandered around, looking at buildings and trying to get on top of them, sometimes it worked out, sometimes it didn’t. When we got to the top, we looked around, looking for other exciting buildings we could get on. And so we filled our day, occasionally pausing to eat something or to rest in the shade and en...

Trainhopping across Spain | Analog black and white photo collection

When I was in Spain, Rico was carrying a disposable black and white camera with him. These are some shots he took when we were trainhopping.