User:Schau99

Schau99's Wikimedia accounts:
Commons	Wikipedia	Wiktionary	Wikibooks	Wikivoyage
Wikisource	Wikiquote	Wikiversity	Wikispecies	Meta

Hello! I edit Wikivoyage as Schau99.

My interests sit at the intersection of travel, wildlife, nature, archaeology, anthropology, history and cultural heritage. I especially enjoy working on destinations where several of those subjects come together — national parks, wildlife reserves, archaeological sites, forests, mountain regions, culturally distinctive communities and places that are still poorly covered by travel guides.

Academically, my background includes psychology and anthropology as well as analytics and artificial intelligence. That combination probably explains why I enjoy both the human and data-oriented sides of travel research: understanding the history and culture of a destination, while also trying to make practical information such as transportation, fees, access, geography and safety as accurate and useful as possible.

Some of the subjects I am particularly interested in include:

• wildlife and biodiversity
• national parks and wildlife reserves
• conservation
• archaeology and human origins
• anthropology and traditional cultures
• ancient civilizations
• mountains and forests
• beaches, islands and marine wildlife
• hiking and nature travel
• museums and historical sites
• rural and remote destinations
• border towns and overland travel
• unusual landscapes
• zoos, aquariums and wildlife rehabilitation
• birds and birdwatching
• culturally important religious and heritage sites

I have a particular interest in destinations where travellers can learn something about both the natural environment and the people who have lived within it.

I spend a lot of my Wikivoyage time expanding articles that are missing practical information or creating destination pages that do not yet exist.

I particularly like working on sections such as:

• Understand
• History
• Landscape
• Flora and fauna
• Get in
• Get around
• See
• Do
• Stay safe
• Go next

For nature destinations, I try to explain what makes the ecosystem distinctive rather than simply listing animals. For archaeological and cultural destinations, I try to balance history with information that is actually useful to travellers.

I also work on:

• Wikivoyage listings
• destination maps
• page banners
• identifying missing destinations
• updating outdated transportation information
• checking entrance fees and opening arrangements
• improving safety information
• expanding very short destination articles

A selection of places I have worked on or researched for Wikivoyage includes:

• Bwindi Impenetrable National Park
• Mikumi National Park
• Gonarezhou National Park
• Ol Pejeta Conservancy
• Samburu National Reserve
• Buffalo Springs National Reserve
• Laikipia
• Mount Kenya National Park
• Koure
• Saiwa Swamp National Park
• Pian Upe Wildlife Reserve
• Nyero Rock Paintings
• Namanga
• Lake Natron
• Sirari

• El Pilar
• Benque Viejo del Carmen
• Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve
• Caracol
• Xunantunich
• Actun Tunichil Muknal
• Cahal Pech
• Caño Negro Wildlife Refuge
• Corcovado National Park
• Playa Hermosa on the Osa Peninsula

• Monte Verde (Chile)
• Amazônia National Park
• Emas National Park
• Ilha do Mosqueiro

• Tumling

• Arnarstapi
• Malampa

This list will probably keep growing.

Wildlife is one of my strongest travel interests.

I enjoy researching everything from great apes and large African mammals to birds, marine mammals, tropical forest wildlife and endangered species. I am particularly interested in places where conservation can be explained in the context of the surrounding landscape and local communities.

Some subjects that especially interest me include:

• primates
• elephants
• rhinoceroses
• big cats
• giraffes
• marine mammals
• tropical birds
• endangered species
• rainforest ecology
• human–wildlife coexistence

For wildlife articles, I prefer explaining where animals live, why they are there and what threatens them rather than simply creating a checklist of species.

I also have a strong interest in archaeology, anthropology and human history.

That includes:

• Maya archaeology
• ancient Egypt
• Indigenous cultures of the Americas
• African history and cultures
• South Asian history and traditions
• prehistoric humans and human evolution
• ancient settlement and migration
• traditional ecological knowledge
• museums and archaeological landscapes

I especially enjoy archaeological destinations where visitors can understand not only monumental buildings but also the everyday lives, environments and food systems of the people who once lived there.

My ideal trip usually includes some combination of:

wildlife + scenery + history + local culture + something unusual to learn.

I enjoy major attractions, but I am also drawn to places that receive relatively little international attention — small archaeological sites, forest reserves, rural communities, border settlements and protected areas that may have only a few paragraphs written about them online.

That is also one reason I enjoy Wikivoyage: an obscure destination can benefit far more from a well-researched travel article than a place that already has hundreds of guidebooks written about it.

I am interested in travel photography, particularly:

• wildlife
• landscapes
• coastlines
• forests
• archaeological sites
• architecture
• museums
• cultural heritage
• unusual natural features

I also enjoy finding and preparing images and page banners that make Wikivoyage articles more visually useful.

Where possible, I prefer freely licensed images from Wikimedia Commons so that photographs can be reused throughout Wikimedia projects.

When expanding an article, I try to ask the same questions a traveller would:

• How do I actually get there?
• Is the road paved?
• Do I need a guide?
• How much does it cost?
• Can I visit independently?
• What is genuinely worth seeing?
• What should I bring?
• Is the information online outdated?
• Where can I sleep?
• What risks are specific to this destination?
• Where would I logically travel next?

For destinations in developing or remote regions, I think practical details are particularly important. A beautiful description is useful, but knowing that the final 20 km are on a rough road, that there is no fuel available, or that a supposed attraction has closed can be much more valuable to someone actually travelling there.

I also try to avoid presenting uncertain information as fact. Entrance fees, transport schedules, road conditions, borders, volcano alerts and wildlife attractions can all change.

Outside travel writing, my interests include:

• biology and natural history
• psychology
• anthropology
• artificial intelligence and data science
• mythology and folklore
• languages and writing
• music
• world history

Many of those interests eventually find their way back into the places I research.

If you notice something incorrect, outdated or poorly formatted in one of my edits, feel free to fix it or leave a message on my talk page.

I'm always happy to learn more about Wikivoyage formatting, policy and destination coverage.

Happy travels — and happy editing!