About Ramon Stoppelenburg


Ramon Stoppelenburg was born in The Netherlands in December 1976.

He grew up as a little kid in Jakarta, Indonesia, and ended up living in The Netherlands when his expatriate parents returned home. Always wanting to travel more, infected by the travel bug at an early age, he would already spend entire summers on the Costa Brava in Spain, working as a propper (somebody who does the promotion of clubs), instead of getting a regular summer job at home during his high school years.



During his endless journalism study at the Windesheim University in Zwolle in the Netherlands, Ramon was one of the founders of "Smoel" ('mug' or 'big mouth' in English), an absolutely popular non-profit student magazine. And with the blog of the magazine, Ramon was one of the first bloggers in the Netherlands in 1996.



As an creativity addict, he created Letmestayforaday.com for the internet in 2001: as a website where he asked people to invite him over at their home, so he could travel the world for free. In return for their hospitality he reported daily on all experiences and events.

In 2002 he won the prestigious award of "Internet Personality of the Year" from the British Sunday Times.

His columns Iedere dag ergens anders (Everyday Somewhere Else) was his tribute to all his fascinating adventures he experienced through Letmestayforaday.com, appeared weekly in the second most-read newspaper Sp!ts, in The Netherlands. This was syndicated with various German, French and British newspapers.

Ramon had been a regular on 3FM's national radio show Giel! with Giel Beelen in the Netherlands, occasionally spoke in Holder Overnight with Peter Anthony Holden on Montreal's CJAD in Canada and with The Fatboys on Australia's Sunshine Coast Sea FM.

In May 2003, when Ramon was still roaming through Canada, he turned down an invitation to be a guest on Jay Leno's Tonight Show, as it would give just a wee bit too much publicity, which wouldn't be very much that useful during his travels.

After finishing this internet project Letmestayforaday, he has also personally travelled to France, Turkey, Italy, Germany, Cuba, Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Indonesia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Vietnam, Australia, Georgia, Morocco and Portugal.



In 2004 the Dutch publishing house Nijgh & Van Ditmar published his book Letmestayforaday - Zonder Een Cent op Zak De Wereld Rond, a 264-page collection of his most unique travel experiences in Dutch.



Because he could easily talk everybody's head off about his travels, he was offered to host the travel show Weg Met BNN on Dutch NPO Radio 1 and while doing that he was a commercial model for Max Models.

Since June 2008 he organize treks up Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, with his  own Expedition Kilimanjaro, offering an adventures of a lifetime to anybody else.

He has since that all been active as a travel writer, radio host, newspaper columnist, bar manager, commercial model, published author, tour operator, life coach, speaker, massage therapist, cinema operator, cup caker, professional translator, and on ongoing internet marketing specialist.

As a passionate globetrotter, his travel pieces appeared both as columns and features in Dutch newspapers and magazines. His travel destination stories have appeared in USA Today, the Cairns Post, The Sunday Times and The National Post.



From 2011 to 2022 he resided in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where he ran three art house movie theaters for ten years. A certain pandemic and the financial downturn that followed made him try a stay in Georgia and Morocco after that, but finally decided to reside in Lisbon, Portugal.



In 2018 the website Letmestayforaday.com was designated UNESCO Digital Heritage and to be stored forever at the Dutch Royal Library in The Hague.

In 2020, he was among the final 50 candidates out of a total of 2,400 applications for astronaut candidate program from NASA. He did not make it to the final 24 candidates.

He is currently mostly active as a writer, translator and tour operator. His Expedition Kilimanjaro celebrates its 16th anniversary in 2024.

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You can follow him on his website Here I Go Again On My Own, his Dutch blog, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and on Mastodon (Dutch).