I’m Richard Alexander, and I’ve seen a fair bit of Europe by now — some of it for work, most of it because I simply can’t stop finding reasons to go back. I spent years working in Amsterdam, which is really where this whole habit started: once you’re based in a city that sits two hours from half the continent by train, you stop treating a weekend trip to somewhere new as a big deal, and it becomes just something you do.
I grew up in the Bollenstreek, surrounded by tulip fields long before I understood that most of the world considers them a bucket-list sight rather than the view from a childhood bedroom window. I studied in Haarlem and later in Nijmegen, and these days I live in Zaanstad, a short cycle from the windmills of Zaanse Schans — close enough that I still notice, every single time, how the light changes over the water depending on the season.
People ask me fairly often why someone who’s travelled this much still writes mostly about a windmill village and a fishing harbour twenty minutes from home. The honest answer: the places I know best are the ones I can tell you the truth about — what’s actually worth it, what isn’t, and the small local details that most guides never bother to mention. That’s the standard I try to hold every guide on this site to, wherever in Europe it happens to be about.
What The Wandering Clogs Is About
Authentic Europe, hidden places, local experiences — that’s genuinely the filter I use for everything I write. Plenty of it starts in the Netherlands, since that’s the region I know most intimately, but the aim over time is to cover the same honest, on-the-ground approach across the wider continent: the places locals actually go, not just the ones that photograph well.
Beyond Travel
When I’m not travelling, or writing up the last trip, you’ll usually find me cooking or out fishing — both, if I’m honest, for the same reason I like travelling in the first place: they force you to slow down and pay attention to something real. A good stretch by the water and a good meal afterwards is, more often than not, exactly how I’d choose to end a day.
If you want to know more about a specific guide, or have a suggestion for somewhere I should genuinely go and check out myself, feel free to get in touch.