Welcome

2.220 days since Eurasia2013 started, 6 years and 1 month to the day, I’m back on the road! And I’m very excited, to use some understatement. At the bottom you’ll find links to the latest posts.

I’m in between chapters in life and work, and am using some spare weeks to hit the road. There is no grand plan or project this time, just a lot of pins on the Google map that have accumulated. My Fernweh, the curiosity to discover unknown places and wanting to revisit some places with more time are all driving forces in this journey.

The route is relatively vague for the most part. From Barcelona I’ll drive northeast, to see friends and family on the way to and in Berlin. From there it will be more east and more north. I hope to enter Russia on a remote northern border crossing, and then explore parts of the country I haven’t seen so far. After Moscow then there is a big question mark, a lot will depend on the roads I hope to find. Last year I read Paolo Rumiz‘ “Trans Europa Express“, a book that put a lot of pins on my map. It reminded me of the common culture and history of so many countries and peoples between the Rhine and the Urals, the Barents and the Black Seas. From Eurasia2013 I also brought back a great admiration for how the Russians took a lot of that heritage far east and deep south, to Central Asia. I hope to go check this out first hand.

I’ll tour in my 2006 Mini, hoping the diesel engine will keep delivering steady performance at any altitude and fuel quality. The car isn’t made for off-road driving, so I’ll have to stay on roads and decent tracks, no mud nor sand. And I can just carry so much stuff with me, helping with the minimalist approach to traveling. I really hope the Mini makes it back in good shape with me.

Given the time of the year and the upcoming summertime, I look forward to spending many nights camping outdoors and enjoying nature outside of bigger cities.

Blogging will probably be less regular this time. Feedback and suggestions are always welcome.

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News from the road:

Prep

Triple B

Down memory lane

Slesia

Auschwitz

This is the personal blog of Boris Hageney. You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube (sporadic uploads only), Flickr (discontinued) and Twitter (barely used).

I have a passion for traveling and music, as well as business.

Traveling has been a great passion of mine ever since my parents took our family for  month-long trips to different parts of Europe in our summer holidays: England-Scotland (1990), Scandinavia (1991), Czechoslovakia-Hungary-Poland (1992), France (1993). We traveled with a VW Bus, slept in B&Bs or tents, and saw a lot of places I found terribly adventurous at the time. These trips infected me with an insatiable curiosity to discover lands I hadn’t seen, and to hit the road whenever and wherever possible.

I signed up for driving school a few weeks before my 18th birthday and as soon as I passed my last exam went on a trip around Southern Italy in an old VW Golf. Since then I toured pretty much all of Central, Western and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Greece, but also Morocco (2005-2006, 2014) and South Africa (2011-2012). In 2012-2013 I blogged for the first time on a trip through Thailand. I began to write to keep friends and family posted, then started to actually like it. I tend to write at the end of a day on the road, when the impressions of the day are still fresh. Sometimes orthography and style are imperfect. I write in simple english, so that everybody can more or less understand me, although it’s not my native language.

2013 was the year of Eurasia2013. This journey took me from Madrid to Vladivostok and back, with an encore to Cabo da Roca in Portugal. Life has not been the same since that trip.

The desire to get back to the road has stayed strong ever since I came back. During Easter 2014 I did a quick raid to Morocco. Oman was another wonderful discovery in 2014-15. And a trip to Dakar was in preparation for some time, but ultimately didn’t happen. Same for a few other destinations. More recently I spent time in Indonesia, not on 4 wheels though.

Right now I’m on the road again, through (Eastern) Europe and beyond. Updates will be posted here in the coming days.

Since my childhood I got addicted to electronic dance music, in various forms. I DJ’ed in Rome while still at school and kept going during my student time in Berlin. Music genres varied from straightforward Techno, to harder and faster stuff I stopped liking at some point, to breakbeat, Jungle and Drum and Bass, and finally Electro. With time, my music slowed down, got more electronic, and broadened it’s palette of styles. Business stole most of the time I used to dedicate to music, that’s why a lot of my stuff dates back to earlier days. The advent of podcasts and streaming changed my consumption from active vinyl buying and mixing to more passive listening – unfortunately.

I enjoy Mendeleev Radio Show (a souvenir from nights clubbing in Moscow), De:Bug, DJ Broadcast. You can listen to some of my mixes on Mixcloud. Enjoy!

Professionally I’m an entrepreneur, advisor and investor in the consumer tech space. Past companies I (co)founded include GoReadyMade, CityDeal/Groupon, Blissbooker, Tarifas24 and Alpha Internet Ventures. I’m a venture partner with Global Founders Capital, and also worked at Jamba/Jamster and other tech companies in their early stages. I grew up in my parents’ publishing company in Rome (Italy). You can find me on LinkedIn.

Some time ago I wrote about business & political issues:

Nobody has the Intention to Raise a Wall around Catalonia, 09.11.2014

Letter to The Economist: Your article “The European Union – Europe goes to the polls”, 17.05.2014

Letter to The Economist: Your article “A slow climb – Business creation in Germany”, 05.10.2013