Since I find time to always be in short supply which makes keeping more than one blog painful.. and because I would like to write about more stuff, like marketing, computers or programming I have decided to extend the current blog to include my writings about these other subjects and who knows what other things come to my mind.

I hope this will not disturb you or prevent you from reading TouristProfile in the future.

Thank you again and hope you will enjoy your stay.

Regards,
Zmurfu

Who collects information and makes a tourist profile?
Most commonly this type of study is conducted by national Ministries of Tourism, for example the Ministry of Tourism from Mexico made one study of this type to find out the Tourist Profile and Satisfaction Level.
There are other institutions that collect and analyse this type of information and make this type of studies, for example within the European Union and at EU level, which is not a state and as such has no actual Ministry of Tourism.

What keeps me on the road?
Besides the obvious, like pleasure, passion, hobby, the most important thing I find is the money for gas and lodging. If you can't get where you want to go you clearly have a problem; and than if you can't find a place or afford a place to sleep, a tent is not always viable, so that is also a big problem. In a few words, money keep me on the road.
But there is also a second, weather. Weather is very important for travel, if the weather is bad the roads can get impracticable, if you are driving on bad weather the tired get even more tired, you need more time to get to your destination and when you are there, you either can't properly visit it, you may not be able to visit at all some of the interest points you desire to see and your photographs will not turn out quite as perfect as you'd want them to turn out.

How long am I on the road?
So far this year, a lot, but it was very strongly segmented. We were on the road in Spring, for about two weeks, to Romania, it was ok but busy and did not get to do so much as we wanted to. Than we started going here and there on weekends. How much did we cover ? A lot. On weekends we managed to visit Paris, Versailles, Verdun and Metz in France. Nürnberg, Fürth, Blaubeuren, Triberg and various other places in Germany, from which the most impressive was Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the south of Germany, with the highest german village with its own church, called Wamberg. Also from Garmisch we took the mountain train and the cable cabin to reach Zugspitze, the highest peak in Germany, at 2962m.
I guess answering the question is not easy, but as long as weather is nice and the days are free and the money is there to cover the costs, we're on the road.

Do I mind getting a postcard from someone I do not think I know? No I do not, greetings are a good thing. It also triggered my curiosity and thus I found out that this is the name of the holiday which marks the end of the Ramadan. I know about this holiday, but I never knew how it was called.

What about the wishes? I think it is best to put here the image of the postcard.

According to Wikipedia "Eid Mubarak" is a traditional Muslim greeting reserved for use on two occasions, the festival of Eid ul-Adha and the festival of Eid ul-Fitr. Translated into English the phrase means "blessed festival".

Thank you and I hope to visit some day that part of the world and of course produce great photographs, this is where the title comes from, this is what the postcard triggered. (Than again I want to travel the entire world)

Eid Mubarak to you too.

What you have to do: take a photo of yourself, upload this photo on Flickr or somewhere else where it can be accessed and tweet a little tweet on Twitter with the #selfportraitfriday tag, you guessed it, on Friday. I hear you asking "Any prizes?".. no, no prizes, just a photo of yourself that lots of people doing the same thing and lots of people not doing the same thing will see.

That concludes the introduction to this (internet meme) thing. Now lets see how it turned out:

Photograph taken for SelfPortraitFriday

viewed 436 times at the time of this post,

winner of Self Portrait competition, on Friday, on Flickr ChallengeYou group.

I'm pretty satisfied. This photo is also my "About" page mug shot.

Firstly I am happy that you are reading my blog and I hereby express my thanks: Thank You! It would make me even happier if we would interact, if you would respond to my posts and I will, absolutely , one hundred percent, read all the comments (what am I to do the whole day in the office anyway?).

Secondly I want to tell you about the places I have already been as a tourist and which I will most likely revisit, because there is never enough time to see it all and you always find out something you did not know about and missed when you were there last time. So here is a little list of countries (not so many but I am working on that) I have already been to (and not just once):

• Austria - Wien and Graz [targets: Salzburg and Innsbruck]
• France - Paris, Versailles and Verdun [targets: Strasbourg]
• Germany - Stuttgart, Esslingen am Neckar, Nürnberg,  Fürth, Heidelberg, Augsburg, Triberg, others [targets: lots]
• Hungary - Budapest, Szeged, Balaton (lake)
• Italy - Venice and Jesolo
• Romania - a huge lot, I had plenty of time and oportunities so I just did

Thirdly you may wonder where I want to go and what my travel targets are and the answer for that is simple: The World. And with this the Hello world! post is done, fertig, finito so that both you and me can move to other things.

Thank you for reading.