Hi! We are so happy you are here! 

Have you noticed how this platform has changed recently? 

The early version of this website was launched in 2012. From its start until the end of 2018, it was a source of information on my professional music career in my home country, Belgium. 

When my trip around the world travel adventure started in 2019, I took a drastic decision and started from scratch. Originally that new website was intended as a personal blog/vlog for family and friends. 

Still, over the years, this website has slowly grown into the platform it is today: a medium for travel writing with a separate page for everything music-related. 

Yentl Doggen Playing Guitar
Yentl Doggen and Avalon Stones in front of Flinders Island Airport

As this platform incorporates my two biggest passions, music and travel, the main focus became inspiring and informing people.

On the music page, I regularly share music-related articles. Next to general tips and tricks, there is plenty of material to become a better drummer/musician, including my own written drum and rhythm books.
On the travel page, we frequently post travel-related articles. Next to our own blogs and vlogs, there are plenty of travel guides, travel tips and travel videos to explore. Did I say we?


Yes! Avalon joined our team in 2021 as a co-writer and content creator to ensure the travel page has up-to-date travel guides, tips, and recommendations. Since then, the website has been growing every month.

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During the summer of 2018, I booked flights for a 7-month trip around the world. I anticipated and needed a break from my music career and wanted to find some direction in my life again. It was super cliche, and I completely underestimated its impact on the rest of my life. I left Belgium on the first of January 2019. Little did I know that was the start of a life-changing journey. It is more than four years later, and I’m still travelling. Looking back, I overlooked many signs pointing me towards travelling. It was the direction my life needed to head. Travelling has allowed me to be the person I have always wanted to be and to live my life to the fullest. Honestly, the journey has been pretty fantastic. Let me tell you more:

Pre-travel:

When I was growing up, the only possible life direction I could see for myself was being a professional musician. Consequently, I pleaded with my parents to send me to a dedicated art school and have chased my dream ever since. Over the years, I completed four university degrees simultaneously, taught music in multiple schools, conducted various percussion ensembles, and played all around Belgium as a freelancer and with my personal projects. I worked my butt off to get my career started. And in fact, the goal of becoming a professional musician remained the same. I just no longer see it as the only possibility. It’s just that there is so much to do and see on this planet, and time is the most valuable resource we have.

When I finished my last degree, some of my music projects and my relationship ended. I became lost in what I was doing. On top of that, one of my essential music partners and I decided to split ways. We both had different ways of working and were chasing other dreams. Looking back at it now, it was a good thing to happen. It was better immediately after graduating than ten years into a career. Although, at the time, it felt terrible. I lost a good friend, and some of those music projects had been on my mind for over ten years. It’s not that everything fell apart. I still had other projects to support me, but all these events significantly impacted my career and personal life.

The Live ART Trio in concert, Yentl Doggen with Lucas Heytens and Jeroen Vanbever

Travel was the direction:

Yentl Doggen on a earlier travel trip to Venice, Italy

Alexander Graham Bell said in 1935, “when one door closes, another door opens; but we often look so long and so regretful upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us”. Instead of looking at the loss and failure, I decided to look for further opportunities. Luckily, I spent most of my school breaks travelling and hiking around Belgium and greater Europe, so I knew the solution was simple – travel! After years of busy schedules, having no and a million plans simultaneously sounded appealing. The idea of having no clue about which country I would end up in and all the people I would meet just kept me going. Five months before my trip, I started working as many jobs as possible while trying to say goodbyes to my friends and family.

Besides being terrified to start my solo trip around the world, I barely had time to make a proper plan. I had read some blogs, and my passport and vaccinations were on point, but I had run out of time. On the thirty-first of December, I still had to get my belongings into boxes and pack my backpack. I arrived an hour before midnight in my old student city to celebrate the new year and drove home at about 4 am. About 6 hours later, I took my first plane towards Moscow, where I, with some delays, barely got onto my second plane towards Bangkok. I was scared but armed with good gear and a passport. There was no way back, and my trip had officially started.

My first adventures:

The adventure started in Southeast Asia and brought me on a hectic schedule through ThailandCambodiaVietnamMalaysia and Singapore. After my first weeks, everything I had been terrified of was replaced by the joy of this lifestyle. I was slowly getting used to travelling life. Afterwards, I flew to Western Australia for a three-month journey around the country, where things started to change. I realised that Australia was too big to see in three months. Moreover, my passion for travelling had increased, and I already had anticipated that this journey could take longer than initially planned. Instead of flying to New Zealand, I applied for a working holiday visa in Australia. Although since I had to wait for my visa to be approved outside of the country, I flew to Indonesia for two months after randomly finding an Indonesian banknote on a hostel floor. 

 

On the first of July, six months after leaving Belgium, I flew to Melbourne to live and work in Australia for a year. Six months of work and six months of travel! Or, at least, that was the plan. Living and working in Melbourne for a couple of months changed all previously made plans again. I lived in a hostel for about five months and was constantly surrounded by other travellers. On top of that, staying longer in one place allowed me to see Melbourne and Victoria thoroughly. Suddenly, I felt at home abroad while still being a traveller. The objective of staying a year in Australia changed to staying on the road longer. My travel adventure wasn’t longer an extended holiday but became a lifestyle I wanted to pursue. 

Yentl Doggen in front of a quokka on Rottnest Island

Changing direction:

Yentl Doggen at the Shine Of Remembrance in Melbourne

Now, making travelling a lifestyle isn’t that easy. Firstly, there are various limitations to how long you can stay in certain countries. Secondly, after six months of travelling, my bank account wasn’t really in for a lifestyle as a traveller. On the contrary, my first job as a Barista in Melbourne paid me just enough to live a good life in a comfortable backpacker hostel. Indeed I have seen the insides of most Melbourne pubs and bars, but that wasn’t helping me in the long run. To extend my visa in Australia and to be able to save up for future travels, I had to do the famous 88 days of rural work. The rules are simple, you work in a remote place for three months, and the government grants you another year in Australia. The rules are simple, but finding the right job isn’t. 

My quest to find a rural job in Australia wasn’t easy. There are many stories of exploited backpackers, and I was not going to be one of them. The amount of research and job applications I did was ridiculous. I did more background research on them than they ever did on me. Through hard work and determination, I changed locations from Melbourne to King Island in November 2019. Making cheese for King Island Dairy for four months on a remote but picturesque island sounded like the perfect opportunity to learn new skills as a traveller and get up close with locals in Australia. King Island didn’t disappoint, although, by the time I finished my four months, Covid-19 had changed the world. 

Covid-19:

King Island was the best place to get stuck in the world during Covid-19. With its tiny population of about a thousand people and limited flights to and from the island, we escaped most lockdowns. My travel journey would have likely ended without King Island and its need for workers. Instead, I had local friends on the island, a group of backpackers that stayed around, a full-time job and the chance to experience remote living to the fullest. Moreover, King Island’s remote character and the presence of a music studio opened my travels up to a different experience. Not knowing when Covid-19 would end, I decided to stay until the first of July, the start of my second working holiday visa.

When we got to the first of July, Covid-19 hadn’t changed. Instead, there was the realisation that this pandemic would be around longer than anticipated. However, over those months, things in my travels changed. Spending 7 months on King Island, the total duration I thought my entire trip would have been, I felt at home for the second time abroad. I learned how to ride horses, helped on dairy farms, hunted wildlife in the paddocks, explored the far corners of the island and started my local music project, Yentl As Anything. Besides, not much later, I also started a relationship. I decided to stay around for seven more months to complete the six months I needed to obtain my third year in Australia and get some extra savings. 

Cape Wickham Lighthouse - King Island - Sunset

Back on the road:

Driving on the Red Centre Way!

Luckily, by the start of 2021, things began to look better in Australia. It wasn’t possible to fly to the mainland yet, so I decided to continue my travels in Tasmania. I went camping all around the state and could do multiday hikes in Australia for the first time since my hike on the Great Ocean Walk during my time in Melbourne. Next to hiking in Freycinet National ParkCradle Mountain National Park, and the Three Capes Track in Port Arthur, I walked the South Coast Track. The SCT was a unique and remote experience that started my hunger for more and longer hikes. Although, the South Coast Track was also the first time I realised I needed a better long-term plan. Staying on the road longer than anticipated had been great, but it wouldn’t make my life easier in the long run. 

With a little stop-over on King Island to play a few concerts, I flew to Melbourne, where this adventure started. I met with friends and continued my experience in South Australia and the Northern Territory. I had finally travelled to every state in Australia! I hiked the Larapinta Trail in Alice Springs, a 260 km trail through the desert, and it gave me an even bigger hunger for hiking long-distance. Although the Larapinta Trail also strengthened the feeling of needing a long-term plan. I needed a project I could use on the road if I wanted to keep travelling, and that’s where I felt that this website could have more potential than I was using it. 

 

Creating a travel platform:

To focus a little more on creating this platform, I took a volunteering role on K’gari Fraser Island in Queensland. It had always been one of my dream destinations in Australia, inspiring me to form the basis for the website it is today. Although, some things were missing, and I was not saving money for further travel. In the end, I returned to King Island for six months. Here, I could work daily on the website, critiquing the SEO and re-write all the posts already on the website. Overmore, I was surrounded by friends, had a stable job and could play music. It was the combination I needed and where I needed to be at that point. 

Although King Island was only a short solution, the urge to continue my travels was still very present. Avalon and I had big plans. We would make a road trip from Tasmania to Darwin in the Northern Territory, revisiting most stops along the East Coast of Australia. We started on Flinders Island, took a road trip through Victoria, and my brother joined us in New South Wales for a few weeks. In Queensland, we went island hopping, attempting to find every hidden gem, always with the website in mind. Eventually, we flew to Darwin, where we met up with my mum and Gert, who joined us for a road trip through the top-ends national parks.

Flying over K'gari with Airfraser

Another subtropical island:

Tangalooma Shipwrecks with sunset

The initial plan was to travel from Darwin to Exmouth towards Perth and explore Western Australia again. However, during the months we were travelling, I was granted another extension to stay longer in Australia, giving me more options to make to best out of these years. So, Instead, I started a Dive Master Internship on Moreton Island, off the coast of Brisbane. Since my first dive at the start of this adventure, doing a Divemaster became part of my bucket list. After my internship, I was offered a job. Not only as a tour, diving and snorkel guide but also in the dolphin care team. Who would have known more than four years ago that my life would go this way? These opportunities allow me to save more and write out all the information we gathered in our six-month adventure.

After seven months on Moreton Island, we chose to keep our adventures going and decided to move on! Up first, in March, was a 2000km all around Brisbane, visiting 49 National Parks, climbing six mountains and camping all along the way in the car and rooftop we borrowed from our amazing friends. Next on the list was the opportunity to visit some of our friends on Moreton Island, Sydney and Melbourne. May 2023 is for a train trip all around New South Wales. How excited! We will keep you up-to-date!! 🙂

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Meet the team!

Close-up shot of Yentl Doggen on King Island 

Yentl Doggen
CEO

Welcome to the Yentl Doggen website. This website reflects on my travels throughout the world and my freelance music career. I am a professional musician from Belgium and started travelling the world in 2019. Since then, I’ve been striving to combine as much music as possible with my love for travelling. Or as much travelling into my passion for music, whichever works best 🙂

The Audience for the 60's and 70's night

Avalon Stones
Content Creator

Hello, I’m Avalon! I am a local King Islander (in Tasmania, Australia if you are not sure where it is), and bring a very different view and style to this website. Yentl and I met back in 2019, and from there I got into a bit of travel writing. Yentl and I have now hit the road in Australia, so be ready for many more posts from me!