Our Team
We proudly present our wonderful team. Without our great employees, 22places would not be as cool, our work only half as fun and our motivation not nearly as great.
Jenny & Basti
The founders
That would be us. Jenny & Basti. We want to keep this section short, since this is not about us.
If you want to learn more about the two of us, open our About Us page for later.
Julie
Online Marketing
Julie is our first permanent full time employee. That never ceases to sound amazing to us. We are employers now. Hihi.
Julie is our right and left hand and supports us in everything we do. She especially handles our online marketing – basically the many things in the background that need to happen in order to show the outside world that 22places exists.
We not only share a love for traveling and photography with Julie, but also a friendship for many years.
Julie knew Jenny way before Jenny met Basti (sorry, Basti!), as they used to live together during their studies in Holland and Berlin.
After her studies, Julie worked for online marketing agencies in Berlin and Düsseldorf, until she realized: Hey, it’s way cooler with Jenny & Basti. Duh!
Useless facts about Julie:
Julie is the most patient person we have ever met. At least she never shows any impatience for a reaaaaally long time.
That is why she is the best in the world at untangling knots and our first go to when something needs to be done with patience and perseverance.
She likes to boulder, considers carnival to be compulsory and if you ask her which movie to watch, she always says “I don’t care, I’m going to fall asleep anyways”. And she (almost) always proves to be right.
Julie’s favorite travel destination:
Easy one: Canada
Julie’s dream vacation:
To see the northern lights in Canada! But to be honest, it’s mainly about the northern lights and she would be happy to see them in Norway, Sweden, Finland or Iceland as well.
Rebecca
Content Creation and Management
Rebecca was our first external author and taught us to trust someone with our work and that we do not need to do everything by ourselves.
During that time we fell so much in love with her that we did not want to give her up once she was done with her Italy articles.
And we are happy that she is now a permanent member of our 22places team.
Useless facts about Rebecca:
Rebecca lives in Berlin, in her heart, however, she is Italian. Well, not just in her heart, but officially as well. She is half Italian and used to live in Florence and Milano and still spends a couple of months in Italy every year.
When she is not in Berlin, you can find her somewhere in Italy. We are quite jealous when we think about all the tasty Italian food that she, her husband and her sons get to put in their bellies.
Oh, and also important to know: Rebecca has a fable for wide, uninhabited landscapes.
Rebecca’s favorite travel destination:
California
Rebecca’s dream vacation:
To travel with the Trans-Siberian railway from Moscow to Beijing. Why? Because you cross so many different countries and landscapes and because you stop in places that you would never see otherwise.
Nadia
Fairy Department
Nadia was our first employee ever and has been working for us since 2017 part time. Her tasks are not so easy to describe. But we will give it a try.
Nadia is our good fairy in the background: She adds and updates articles, so that they look good for you, helps us do research and takes care of the administrative parts of our 22places online photo course and helps us with all the things that occur.
Just like Julie, Nadia studied and lived with Jenny in Holland and in Berlin (again sorry, Basti).
Useless facts about Nadia:
If you ask Nadia where she is from, she has to take a deep breath.
The answer is not so simple, because she was born in the Philippines and grew up in Tel Aviv, Cyprus and Berlin. But actually her family is rooted in a small town near Cologne.
As you can see, Nadia is just right for our 22places team.
Nadia’s favorite destination:
Nadia’s dream vacation:
To walk in her own footsteps. Nadia was born in the Philippines, but she knows the country only from photo albums as she went on to the next adventure with her family when she was only 2 years old. Wouldn’t it be cool, to see all those places from the photo albums? Extremely cool, in our opinion!
Sarah
Content Strategy
Useless facts about Sarah:
Let’s start with the strangest one: Sarah is a real Berliner who is married to a real Berliner. This is almost like winning the lottery.
She loves winter sports, especially watching winter sports, and could probably do a better job commentating any biathlon broadcast than those who do.
Sarah likes to name her favorite things: Her racing bikes are called Pepe & Cat, her Vespa is called Karla, her camper Tilda and her son is called Emil.
And here’s something that kind of hurts just writing about it. Sarah loves cold waters (huh? how?). But no, not just to look at. She really jumps in: It’s winter on a beautiful Baltic island, it’s even colder on the Lofoten Islands in the Arctic Ocean – Sarah doesn’t give a damn and bam, she’s in.
Sarah’s favorite destination:
Scandinavia (Norway & Sweden), Austria and Portugal.
Sarah’s dream vacation:
Taking Tilda (her camper van) down the Atlantic coast to Portugal or up north to see the Northern Lights. Or with a rented camper across New Zealand.
Maja
Content Creation
Useless facts about Maja:
Maja started with us as a working student. But we got so used to her that we couldn’t let her go. Now she works permanently for us and has taken us up on our offer “You can work from anywhere in the world” and moved to Fuerteventura.
That’s where she enjoys the sun (for all of us) and has discovered a passion for surfing. And in between she works on her laptop for 22places, with sand between her toes.
Ordinary sports are way too boring for Maja. So besides surfing there’s also MMA and Krav Maga among her hobbies. Yup, we had to google that first. So that you don’t have to do so too: Krav Maga is an umbrella term for different civilian self-defense systems and MMA is Mixed Martial Arts.
Too bad we all work remotely. Maja is the kind of person you’d most want to have in the office in case of a zombie apocalypse.
Maja’s favorite destination:
Canada
Maja’s dream vacation:
Driving along U.K.’s west coast in a camper van – from down in Newquay all the way up to the Isle of Skye in Scotland. On board is definitely a surfboard, a very thick wetsuit and lots of warm coffee.
Julian
Content Creation Photography
Useless facts about Julian:
Julian is our very first male employee. He is a huge fan of bikes and cameras, loves to drink coffee and you can tell if he’s feeling good by his loud whistling.
We hope he whistles a lot during his work for us and at the same time we are glad that we work remotely and don’t hear his whistling all day long (haha).
We would like to briefly add something to the bicycle craze: At his peak Julian had 7 bikes (yes, one for every occasion) and he sold one of them to WDR (a German public broadcasting station). So Julian’s bike is famous! And in case someone from WDR is reading this – we’d like to add that he would like to buy his bike back!
Julian’s favorite destination:
Julian’s dream vacation:
Julian would like to head north and off the beaten track in a four-wheel drive camper with ground clearance and auxiliary heating: First to Scandinavia, and then to all the other not-too-hot countries in the world.
Oh – by the way, he’ll also take his cameras with him and earn money with beautiful landscape photographs. Sounds like a brilliant plan to us. What do you think?
Laura
Community Management
Useless facts about Laura:
Warning: If you read Laura’s segment here, you may run the risk of suddenly wanting to turn your life upside down. Because Laura’s story sounds like the beginning of a really good book.
Don’t say we didn’t warn you. Laura works for 22places from her camper – yes, sometimes from Portugal, sometimes from Sweden – sounds amazing, doesn’t it?
She quit her job, gave up her apartment, sold her car and is now traveling the world with her boyfriend.
Oh, and equally interesting is this: Her middle name is Giovanna. Laura Giovanna. Not exactly common. Good thing we love anything that’s uncommon. Her parents didn’t come up with the name by chance – they wanted Laura to share their love for Italy and if you scroll down to Laura’s favorite travel destination, you’ll see they hit home.
Laura’s favorite destination:
Definitely Italy
Laura’s dream vacation:
Laura would like to go backpacking to Asia and Australia (we can totally relate to that!) and make up for her trip around the world, which was actually planned instead of the time in the camper.
And if “backpacking to Asia and Australia” is too standard for you: Laura would also like to head to the desert in Morocco with her camper van, Elliott.
Sarah
Working student
Useless facts about Sarah:
Sarah is Jenny’s little neighbor. Except she’s been a few centimeters taller than Jenny for quite some time now. And that’s not all, she has a driver’s license, a car, studies social work and lives in a shared apartment. Crazy!
After graduating from high school, she lived in Bolivia for a year, speaks Spanish fluently and can teach us the Tinku dance at the next team meeting. Yes, we had to Google that too: The Tinku is a Bolivian cultural dance. We are definitely looking forward to it.
Sarah’s favorite destination:
Bolivia
Sarah’s dream vacation:
A backpacking trip through Central and South America to discover lots of breathtaking landscapes, fascinating cultures and interesting people.
Anna
Working student
Useless facts about Anna:
Anna is part of a dance guard. That’s nothing special at all in the area she comes from in Germany. But for us it is. She has been doing so passionately for 14 years.
In general, the “fifth season” (that’s what carnival in Germany is often referred to) is a must for her. She even makes the costumes herself. From our team, only Julie can relate to this; she also takes the carnival season very seriously.
If you want to make Anna happy, all you have to do is open a bag of Chio Chips Paprika, which she prefers to eat over chocolate. Rumor has it that even the rustle of a bag of chips puts a smile on her face.
Anna’s favorite destination:
The Greek islands (we have to ask again which ones of the 3054 islands she means)
Anna’s dream vacation:
Heading up north to see the Northern Lights. But then quickly going back to warmer and sunnier surroundings. She’d love to backpack to Bali or rescue sea turtles on the beaches of Costa Rica and Cape Verde.
Tina
Working student
Useless facts about Tina:
Tina is a real bundle of energy and is always traveling the world together with her running shoes.
When she’s not training for a half marathon, you’ll find her sizzling on the beach, hiking in the mountains or on the tennis court. Phew, pretty athletic!
Besides sports, Tina also has a passion for languages. And of course, she prefers to learn languages right on the spot and talk to the locals. She already speaks Italian and Portuguese fluently, and Spanish and French are next on her agenda. Her next trip to France is already planned.
Tina’s favorite destination:
Brazil and Italy
Tina’s dream vacation:
Backpacking to Southeast Asia, New Zealand & South America and feasting on the many different local cuisines (after her daily run, of course).
Joelle
Working student
Useless facts about Joelle:
As you know, we’re already pretty well prepared for a zombie apocalypse with Maja. But since Joelle joined the team, we don’t have to worry at all. She was a Girl Scout for nine years and is a survival expert.
But we’d be okay only getting to know her scouting knowledge when it comes to campfire songs. She knows them all by heart.
Did you know you can have a phobia of turtlenecks? We didn’t, until we met Joelle. She gets anxiety from turtlenecks. Luckily, she tends to travel to sunny places.
Joelle’s favorite destination:
Joelle’s dream vacation:
Discovering the world in a camper van. And once she’s tired of driving around on four wheels, she’ll travel through South America with nothing but a backpack. On the way, she’ll stopover in Cuba to be taught how to dance salsa.