Everyone – maybe besides travel blogger - sits at a desk in front of a computer and is ONLINE these days. But Social Media is not only the enemy. It is not only time consuming and leaves the door open to be copied. If you are a blogger or entrepreneur, you might even say, Social Media has not once made you any money. The people who approach you on Instagram maybe not relevant to you now, but they are now engaged in your brand and might be your future customer and Social Media gives you a wonderful platform to connect with people, you would not meet in everyday life.

As my travel guides focus on Berlin, I am always happy to discover travel guide for other cities. This year I found Kyiv by Locals, one of few and unique travel guides about Kyiv.

Until recently Ukraine and Kyiv were not really covered in the travel guide section. There are few books, which cover Ukraine in general, but they are old-school and written by people, who probably visited Kyiv once. Olya, Alina, Zoya and Nina created a travel guide, full of places, where locals go and which they love. It is also a very cute present for your friends and relatives – since they also focused on the design. To find out more about the travel guide and the people behind this project, I interviewed Alina. If you interested in traveling to Kyiv, you can buy their travel guide in my shop and Alina`s Top 5 of Kyiv in this article.

This year we did a road trip through Portugal and drove from Faro all the way to Porto. As it took some time to find all the hidden gems and as Portugal seems to be the place to be at the moment, I summarized my favorites.

We flew into Faro and where lucky to get a room at Marians and Pers Airbnb heaven in Loulé. From here we started our trips to:

As I welcome Airbnb guests from all over the world in my home, I do meet fascinating personalities. In July, it was my privilege to share my apartment with Catherine Genest, who is incidentally a writer for the French art magazine Voir.

Art brought her to beautiful Berlin – why wouldn’t it? There are some wonderful galleries and art museums in Berlin. As a writer, Catherine covers art back home in Quebec City. She sought an online space to share the nicest expos she came across while seeing this city: I obliged. While touring these galleries, I searched for some nice cafés and restaurants, for those who like to round off an art day with a bite to eat or a glass of wine.

Pale ale, wheat, Pils, Bock. . . The choice in beers is gigantic in Germany alone. And for every taste the right beer is in place, because beer is not beer! Uncomplicated evening Pils, amber nectar for the gourmets or Bock for strong characters: Which kind of beer fits your personality and which beer harmonises with which food?

The list of the beer ingredients is very easy to grasp thanks to German purity requirements (Reinheitsgebot): water, malt, hop and yeast. And every beer still has its own taste. This range of flavour originates from the use of different kinds of malt which can be produced, for example, from barley, wheat, hop, or yeast as well as by different brewing styles. Experienced brewers can generate by suitable variations a plethora of tastes – completely without other additions.

Do you ever wish you could just live in the past? If so, you’re not alone. An increasing number of people who glorify glowing halcyon days of yore seems to be a defining fixture of the first quarter of the twenty-first century. I have yet to be convinced. Nostalgia, according to Alan Hirsch, is a yearning for an idealized past. The operative word being idealized.

I find myself remembering my own past more warmly than it was. Probably my first childhood memory is of perching on my knees in a dark, high-ceilinged living room and drawing a bird on the wooden floor by tracing its outline in the layer of black dust sprinkled beneath the coal stove. 1986. Weitlingstrasse 90, Berlin.

My last and fifth recommendation to upgrade your movie night is Victoria. It is a German drama shot in 2015 directed by Sebastian Schipper. The special fact about this movie is, that it was shot in a single take over two hours. First screened at the Berlin film festival where it won the Silver Bear for Cinematography. The camera follows exchange student Victoria on a dark night with a band of criminal Berliners. The film starts in a techno club in Berlin’s Mitte district around 4am and ends with a bank robbery.

But what would be a movie night without some food to hold on to? This week Nina from Törtchen - Made in Berlin made Nachos. Not German but delicious.

If you are traveling on a budget, but want to enjoy live music, you come to the right city, Berlin gives you many options to visit a free concert or at least to visit a concert for little money. Here you can find my favorite concerts in Berlin.

Berliner Philharmonie

Another established city landmark is the bright Berlin Philharmonic concert hall. You can check for concert online. If you travel on a budget, I have a tip for you, every Tuesday at 1 pm they offer a Lunch concert for free, no registration needed.

The Lives of Others is a 2006 German drama film, marking the debut of filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. The movie is about the monitoring of East Berlin residents by agents of the Stasi, the GDR's secret police and won the 2006 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Released 17 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall marking the end of the East German socialist state, it was the first notable drama film about the subject after a series of comedies such as Goodbye, Lenin! and Sonnenallee. As it plays in Berlin, you can recognize many locations of the German capital and as it is portraits German history you can also learn a lot.

But what would be a movie night without some food to hold on to? This week Nina from Törtchen - Made in Berlin made chickpeas. Not German but delicious.

Despite being landlocked, Berlin is a pretty watery city, with the river Spree and the Landwehrkanal winding their way through the capital. As I am searching for the Top 5 outdoor activities in Berlin, I decided to take advantage of this fact and went stand up paddling (SUP) with the StandUpClub Berlin. Stand up paddling is a mix between canoeing and surfing. In stand up paddle, you stand on a long board, like a surfer. But you propel it with a paddle, like a canoeist.

SUP originated in the 16th century in Polynesia. Polynesian fishermen would surf on canoes by Tahiti. In Hawaii it was used then in the 20th century by surf teachers to get quicker to the reefs.

With this debut of filmmaker Jan-Ole Gerster you can most definitely upgrade your movie night. A Coffee in Berlin was shot in black&white and paints a day in the life of Niko, a college student dropout going nowhere fast. He lives for the moment as he drifts through the streets of Berlin. Then on one day: his girlfriend rebuffs him, his father cuts off his allowance, and a strange psychiatrist dubiously confirms his 'emotional imbalance'.

Sometimes you feel lost in Berlin, as a Berliner I know what I am talking about. This movie manages to capture this feeling in an honest but humoristic way. Nina from Törtchen - Made in Berlin  and I recently watched it again, while eating some delicious snacks, like honey roasted cashews. Getting hungry? Don't worry, here is the recipe.

Until the 27th of August I highly recommend to visit the "Born in The Purple" in the Kunstquartier Bethanien in Kreuzberg. The admission is free and they are open daily from 11-20h.

"Born in The Purple" is an interdisciplinary exhibition project by Berlin–Istanbul– based artist Viron Erol Vert that revolves around global urgencies including cultural supremacy, identitarian abuse and basic human rights. Vert shows 12 newly produced artistic positions in the exhibition.

OPEN SKY YOGA

Every Sunday at 9 am and Wednesday at 10 am Anna and Sünne give Open Sky Yoga classes by the pool of the Haubentaucher, before it’s open the doors to the public. So don't forget the bikini and bathers.

Looking into the sky while holding a pose and breathing mindful while listening to the water - 75 min of Vinyasa Yoga will give you the perfect start in the day. Yoga is a powerful path to freedom of mind and body. At Open Sky Yoga you will be guided along this way.

While all of our favorite TV shows have a break in the summer, Nina from Törtchen - Made in Berlin and I are watching our favorite movies. And what’s better than a movie? A movie night with friends, of course!

Last Sunday Nina and I started the series of Top 5 movies and snacks for the perfect movie night. If you miss Berlin and are located somewhere else, I have good news, all the movies I recommend were shot in Berlin and Nina will give you a delicious German snack recipe for your perfect movie night.

Alan Watts once described a wonderful analogy for life. People often think of life by analogy of a journey, which has a serious purpose at the end. As when you travel you want to get somewhere. But maybe life is more a musical thing and we are supposed to sing and dance, while the music is being played. The aim of music is not to make the end of a composition. The point is the composition. Because if so, the winner would be who played fastest. Same way with dancing. You don’t aim at a particular spot in the room, because that`s where you will arrive. The whole point of the dancing is the dance.

Aaaand Action!

The next five blog post will be revealing, how you can upgrade your movie night. First of all, Törtchen - Made in Berlin will give you recipes for 5 snacks and I additionally will give you my Top 5 films for the perfect movie night.

As I am blogging about Berlin and publishing travel guides named BertaBerlin, I will only select movies which were filmed in Berlin. To create a arc of suspense, I will start from the very end of my Top 5.

Berlin is always one of the best gay travelers’ destination, but it’s not always easy to find the queer pulse in the German capital. Luckily travel writer Berta Heide (me) and Adam Groffman from TravelsofAdam.com did publish a very effective and easy-to-use QueerBerlin map. And here I give you 11 queer lovely spots in Berlin.

Other Nature

Self-described as a “feminist, queer-oriented, eco-friendly, vegan sex shop” Other Nature is a friendly and approachable sex shop with a variety of products. Stop in to browse their LGBT library (they also sell the QueerBerlin map) and take advantage of their free tea.

BERLIN, GERMANY — In advance of Berlin’s annual gay pride march (Christopher Street Day), award-winning gay travel writer Adam Groffman from TravelsofAdam.com and travel guide publisher Berta Luise Heide from walk-this-way.net published a QueerBerlin map. The travel guide (retail price: 5€) features recommended LGBT-friendly museums, shops, sights, restaurants, cafés, bars, clubs and more.

One of the best things about studying in the Full Stack Web Development program at SPICED Academy is its location, Berlin. There’s something for everyone in this big, beautiful city and to tell us all about it, SPICED recently invited Berta to conduct an interactive Intro to Berlin workshop for their brand new cohort of international students!

The workshop started with an interactive exercise on "what is a popular stereotype of Germany or your own country?". It was fun to listen to different perspectives from students and also learn a something about where they’re from.

When you read my blog you might assume that I studied gastronomy rather than philosophy. I know. But recently I visited the exhibition of Bernd Kolb, which made me think about philosophy again, especially the question: Who and what am I? This is the central theme of the BRAHMAN exhibition.

Bernd Kolb published special snapshots in his illustrated books ATMAN and BRAHMAN. The exhibition ATMAN 2016 in Berlin has already inspired many visitors and since June 2017 the Malzfabrik hosts another BRAHMAN exhibition.

You think city maps are outdated? You must be kidding: completely offline tourists and Berliners are lead to (secret) spots in Neukölln and soon in Kreuzberg with BertaBerlin treasure map in their hand.

When you think you have seen it all you should give BertaBerlin a try. With love for detail, Berta Heide has explored the Neukölln district and created a beautifully designed city map.