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  • Destinations
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Nairobi Tented Camp: A city safari to kick off your Kenya trip

in collaboration with Magical Kenya (Advertisement | Press trip)

A winter’s tale: Skiing holidays in Schladming

powered by Falkensteiner Schladming (Advertorial)

Bacalar: Mexico’s newest eco chic destination

A stay at Habitas Bacalar (Press invite)

One week in Normandy

A comprehensive travel guide (Advertorial)

THE #FEMALETRAVELBLOGGERS ROAD TRIP PT. 2

powered by Mercedes-Benz Austria (Advertisement)

12 unconventional experiences in Dubai

Dubai unplugged: Discover an unexpected side of Dubai

Unconventional places to stay & eat in Dubai

Dubai unplugged: Hotels and restaurants with nature & history

Lake Weissensee: Staying in Austria’s first vegetarian hotel

Strandhotel Weissensee (Advertorial)

Prints for Wildlife is back: Raising 1 million for conservation!

A fundraiser for African Parks

An Italian icon, a Tuscan retreat

Belmond Castello di Casole

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marionpayr

Travel photographer and storyteller. 📷🖋Empowering womxn to explore & create. Engaging in acts of travel, photography & conservation. Vienna based. Member of @bellcollective. Co-Founder of @printsforwildlife.

Chinatown Kuala Lumpur: Mini travel guide 🇲🇾 We’v Chinatown Kuala Lumpur: Mini travel guide 🇲🇾 We’ve stayed in Chinatown during two of our three visits to Kuala Lumpur, and it never loses its charm. If you love heritage architecture, mosques and temples, vibrant street markets, and old shop houses, this is the side of KL for you. Here is a quick mini guide to some of our favorite spots: 📍 Photo 1: Guan Di Temple A view of Guan Di Temple on Jalan Tun H.S. Lee from above, taken from the pool deck of Else Hotel (@elseretreats). Definitely also visit the temple during the opening hours (7:30am-3pm). 📍 Photo 2: Sin Sze Si Ya Temple Inside KL’s oldest Taoist temple. You can buy incense and make an offering here—if you’re unsure of the rituals, the staff will gladly guide you on how to do it correctly. 📍 Photos 3–6: Pejabat Pos Besar Lama The newly reopened and restored former General Post Office. Dating back to the late 19th-century colonial era, this landmark features stunning Moorish/Indo-Saracenic heritage architecture. Today, it’s a lively hub packed with cafés, shops, and restaurants. 💡 Tip: Walk just a few steps further to Bangunan Sultan Abdul Samad, which shares the same architectural style and houses a museum. 📍 Photo 7: Niko Neko Matcha 6.0 Located right inside the Old General Post Office building, this is one of KL’s most famous matcha brands. 📍 Photo 8: River of Life The peaceful pedestrian path alongside the confluence of the Klang and Gombak Rivers, tucked right behind Bangunan Sultan Abdul Samad. It’s a lovely, shaded stretch for a quiet stroll away from the traffic. 📍 Photos 9 & 10: REXKL A transformed former cinema turned creative cultural center. Head straight to the top floor to explore the quirky, labyrinthine bookstore. Downstairs, you’ll find independent local brands, food stalls, and coffee shops—it’s a fantastic spot to pick up souvenirs (don’t miss O For Others!). 📍 Photo 11: The Hungry Tapir Our absolute favorite vegan restaurant. 📍 Photo 12: Our room at Else Hotel, which is the ideal accommodation for your Chinatown discoveries (@elseretreats). What is your favorite part of KL?
Pretending I’m a city person for a few days 😉 (Wit Pretending I’m a city person for a few days 😉 (With @elseretreats | Advertisement) By now I believe most of you know I love nature and quiet. Not exactly how I would describe Kuala Lumpur 😅 And yet there’s something about it. We were on our way to Langkawi and decided to plan a stopover in the city to acclimatize. Based in the wonderfully edgy and unpolished Chinatown we enjoyed a few days of just walking around the neighborhood at a slow pace and without any itinerary. We decided not to plan too many explorations (as we had already been to KL before and had „checked off“ the major attractions), but instead just live like a „local“ (I know it’s a cliché 😅). So we avoided the mid day heat outside, went to artspaces, cafes and restaurants, night markets, local shops and temples. All of it in walking distance of our hotel @elseretreats. We stayed here during our last visit as well and loved the relaxed atmosphere, thoughtful design and historic architecture. And the location smack in the central part of Chinatown doesn’t hurt either. Save this hotel if you’re ever planning a trip to Kuala Lumpur and appreciate small design hotels with a creative à la carte breakfast menu and spacious rooms in a preserved historical building that is an architect‘s dream. 📍Else Kuala Lumpur (@elseretreats) 145, Jalan Tun H S Lee, City Centre, 50000 Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Sin Sze Si Ya Temple, Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia 2026. Sin Sze Si Ya Temple, Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia 2026. I just returned from three weeks in Malaysia, a trip returning to some of my favorite places from the last visit three years ago. And a chance to rediscover the fascination I felt the first time here. I think it’s the amalgamation of different cultures, religions and backgrounds that makes Malaysia so interesting to me. There’s something about it, its tangible, but hard to describe. An openness maybe. A curiosity towards—rather than a fear of—the unknown, the unfamiliar. I will always strive for pockets in the neighborhood that feel like this temple. Where aunties and uncles are unpacking a delivery of thousands of incense sticks, while locals come for a quick morning prayer and a grandma is falling asleep sitting on a bench. If you ever make it to Kuala Lumpur, yes—the modern districts, the skyscrapers, the malls are fascinating—but don’t forget the neighborhood temples, the shophouses of Chinatown, the unpolished corners of the city.
Final set from Hungary on assignment for @experien Final set from Hungary on assignment for @experience_balaton365 (Advertisement). Six days, countless liters of sweat (it was hot!), but also many wonderful meals and hours spent in nature kayaking, sailing and swimming. Locations: Photo 1,4,5: @villakabala Photo 2: @sazu_____balaton Photo 3: Szentbékkálla Photo 6,7: Kis-Balaton Photo 8,9: Hévíz We will be back, Balaton! The full travel guide for the region can be found on www.thetravelblog.at.
Moments from a sailing trip on Lake Balaton, Hunga Moments from a sailing trip on Lake Balaton, Hungary. (@experience_balaton365 | Advertisement). I‘m behind on posting since weeks, but I’ll try and catch up in the next days as I’m back home—so bear with me please 😅🙌🏼 May and June are always some of the busiest production months in my calendar and this year it extended well into July. Now I’m back in Vienna and will work on edits and selections for a few weeks before the next productions start. Speaking of editing and selecting—this will also be the topic of my upcoming workshop for Nikon Female Facets this week and I‘m looking forward to this session a lot. Curation is a huge part of the work. Above post consists of a few slides—carefully selected from a large selection of photos—all shot aboard the @sirocco_75 sailing boat on assignment for Balaton tourism. There’s 220 photos that I edited from this sailing trip (which means I probably took more than 500 😅). Editing those down always takes some willpower and mental work—which is generally the unseen work of a photographer. I also don’t use any culling tools or external software or help for this, as I believe my point of view cannot be automated or replaced. I will often go for the crooked, the blurred, the underexposed shots. The imperfections are what draw me in—and no culling software could learn that from me. Therefore editing is a large part of the process and one that sometimes takes more care than the actual photography itself (at least in days of digital photography, where you CAN actually a little carelessly shoot 500 photos on one trip 😅). If I were to shoot analog I’d probably be way more intentional about when to actually press the trigger. Anyways, here’s to days on boats, sunsets and the smell of the breeze.
I honestly didn’t expect Hungary to surprise me li I honestly didn’t expect Hungary to surprise me like this (again). 🌿 (@experience_balaton365 | Advertisement) Bee-eaters over wetlands. A roe deer standing chest-deep in a lake. A canoe ride into the sunset. Water buffalo shaping a restored landscape. Tiny houses tucked into volcanic hills. Michelin recommended sustainable food. And a wooden sailing boat on lake Balaton. This is just 3 hours from Vienna, by the way. Hungary has a wild side and I loved spending some time there. You might have never heard of the Balaton Upland national park, but spend a few days here intentionally, and this place quietly gets under your skin quietly. A new blog post is up now on thetravelblog.at. 🔗 #Balaton #Hungary
NEW TRAVEL GUIDE: Balaton, Hungary’s wild side 🌿 ( NEW TRAVEL GUIDE: Balaton, Hungary’s wild side 🌿 (@experience_balaton365 | Advertisement) Lake Balaton is Central Europe’s favourite summer escape. But if you venture beyond the beach crowds to the volcanic hills, ancient wetlands, and nature reserves of its northern shore, you’ll find something unexpected: one of Hungary’s most ecologically rich landscapes. 📍You can find the full travel guide on www.thetravelblog.at now (link in bio). Why go? The Balaton Uplands National Park stretches across nearly 57,000 hectares of protected land, and it’s the kind of place that rewards slow, curious travel — rare wildlife, ancient geology, and a growing scene of thoughtful ecotourism that most visitors simply drive past on their way to the lake. What to expect? A beautifully layered destination where lava fields meet lavender, water buffalo roam restored wetlands, and bee-eaters flash turquoise above the reedbeds — with excellent food, ceramics workshops, and a sunset sailing trip on a historic wooden boat woven in between. Range of activities? Wildlife watching, canoe tours at Kis-Balaton, cycling the Tihany Peninsula, jeep safaris at the Kápolnapuszta Buffalo Reserve, fine dining at Villa Kabala (@villakabala), and floating in the world’s largest biologically active thermal lake at Hévíz. When to visit? Late May to June is the sweet spot — lavender in bloom, migratory birds in full swing, and the landscape at its most lush, before the peak season crowds arrive. Where to stay? Two tiny houses made this trip: SAZÜ in the Káli Basin for a wine estate experience rooted in the landscape (@sazu_____balaton and @sazu_____wines), and Slowood Cabins in Balatonszepezd for forest cabin stays with real design soul (@slowoodcabins). How to get there? It’s a straightforward 3 hour drive from Vienna — which makes it one of the most underrated weekend escapes for Austrian travellers. #Balaton #Hungary #Ecotourism #NatureTravel #BalatonUplands
Our cabin in the woods at Lake Balaton, Hungary 🇭🇺 Our cabin in the woods at Lake Balaton, Hungary 🇭🇺 (@experience_balaton365 | Advertisement) Tucked into the canopy of Balatonszepezd, just a stone’s throw from the shores of Lake Balaton, you’ll find six cabins in the woods. They’re beautiful, sustainably built cabins, but since the property is quite small they are built a bit closer together than we would’ve liked. We can however recommend the Harmony and Peace cabins, which offer a bit more privacy. We loved waking up to the sounds of the forest around us and although we had no chance to use it, it’s worth mentioning the cabins have their private jacuzzi. If you’re exploring the Balaton Highlands, the Káli Basin, or just need a quiet, nature-based sanctuary to recharge your creative battery, this little pocket of Hungary is a great tip! 📍 Slowood Cabins, Hungary (@slowoodcabins) 💡 Save this for your next European hideaway escape.
Our tiny house in the vineyards of Hungary 🇭🇺 (@e Our tiny house in the vineyards of Hungary 🇭🇺 (@experience_balaton365 | Advertisement) At the very end of the village of Mindszentkálla there’s a path that leads into the vineyards. A small sign says „SAZÜ“ and points to a sketchy road that looks like its definitely illegal to drive on. But when you follow the path it will lead you deeper through the vineyards and lastly on a hidden forest road until you finally reach the destination: @sazu_____balaton. There’s two tiny houses hidden away here in a secret corner of the Balaton uplands—both scenically located overlooking the rolling hills and typical vineyards on the volcanic rock. It’s ancient land. At night you’ll see hares and foxes stroll around the garden. Green lizards roam around the bushes, their shiny colors peaking out under lavender plants buzzing with bees and bumblebees. We stayed only two nights, way too short if you ask us.
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