Travel Inspiration

Fun Facts

There’s something about every travel destination on Earth that makes it unique, or weird, or funny. Little ‘nice to knows’, sometimes serious, sometimes funny, but if you ask me, always interesting. Traveling Dutchie has collected some of these fun facts for you. Hope you’ll like them too!

Upon entry in Japan, you have to fill in a customs form, which asks you whether you’re carrying a sword. Of course! Who doesn’t? 🙂 It also enquires if you are carrying “obscene or immoral materials.” No definition is given.

In Iceland a person’s surname is the father’s first name with the addition -son or -daughter. Which means that brother and sister have different surnames. This is also why Icelanders address each other by their first name; even in the phone book the names are listed alphabetically by first name.

Australia is the only island that is also a continent and the only continent that is also a country.

The Portugese empire was the only one governed from a colony, Brazil. The king of Portugal liked Rio de Janeiro so much that he made it the capital of the colony and moved his entire court there.

The local currency in Laos is the kip, which sounds funny to Dutchies because kip means chicken in Dutch. 🙂

Luxembourg is the only grand duchy in the world, a constitutional monarchy with a grand duke as head of state. In the past, Finland and Lithuania used to be grand duchys too. (By the way, don’t confuse duchys with Dutchies…)

New Zealand owes its name to a Dutchman who never set foot there. Abel Tasman discovered the South Pacific islands, stopped his ship off the coast, but when local Maori arrived to see who they were dealing with, Tasman thought he was being attacked and took off.

Canada is so big, it’s east coast is closer to Europe, which is on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, than to Canada’s west coast.

Okay, that’s it for now. More fun facts will be added, so please do come back!

Share: