Tilbage til De Berejstes hjemmeside

Information on the Travellers Guild of Denmark.

 

Travellers Guild Denmark (De Berejstes Klub, DBK) is a non-profit club without political or religious ties. Its purpose is to stimulate the desire for travel among the members and to spread information on travel life and foreign countries and cultures in general.It was founded i 1996 and is open to everyone who meets the admission criteria.

It is not possible to give simple rules about who is widely travelled and who is not. Some people like to travel fast through a lot of countries, while others prefer to spend months on end to become absorbed in the local conditions, some members even choose to settle abroad. Some choose the comfortable and safe way to travel, while others seek the thrill of travelling around the world on fifth class. Therefore the club has decided to establish a double entrance system based on two very different though closely related principles:

A) Either you should have
 1.visited as many countries as you are old (in years), with a bottom limit of 30
 2.visited at least two new countries every two years
 3.visited at least four continents
 4.crossed the Equator.
 
or
 
B)
 		 You should have travelled or lived for long periods in (preferably) third world countries and hereby have acquired a wide knowledge of foreign countries and cultures.
 
- - - - - - - - - - - - -

The first of these sets of criteria (the original set) demands you to have visited a lot of countries - at least a number equal to your age - plus a couple of things more. On the other hand there are no specific restrictions on how you have chosen to travel or what you have experienced. You may have walked through Tibet, or you may have participated in a chartertrip to Italy. It's all up to you.

If you enter through the second quota (the 'adventurer' quota) there are less strict criteria on how many countries you should have visited and things like that, but you must have had travel experiences somewhat out of the ordinary. In a way this corresponds to the 'second quota' at the Danish universities.

This double system makes room for both the speedy business man with cravings for big cities and luxury and to the less fortunate backpacker who chooses to camp in the countryside and maybe spend longer time in each place. The fact that the club attracts both types of travellers shows that the system functions, and the variation in itself is a extra bonus.

Because of the strict entrance rules the Travellers' Guild is not a club that everybody can enter, but a forum for true addicts to travelling.


Registration of countries and places

The club maintains a registration of the achievements of the members. We count the countries, territories, megacities, big islands and continents of each member and track their most northerly, southerly and highest points on the globe. Most of this information is gathered from the postcards that the members send back from abroad.

By the way: members are expected to continue their active travelling life after they have been admitted. Membership normally terminates if you don't continually visit two new countries every two years,but you can stay in the club if you travel at least 8 weeks during the two year period, including at least 4 weeks outside Europe. The other registrations are not critical for membership.


Countries

It is an open question when somebody actually was in a country. In the Travellers' Guild we have decided that at least 24 hours nonstop in the country are necessary (though you can stay aboard a boat for some of the time). Making a short daytrip and a return before sunset is not enough, and transit stays in airports are irrelevant whatever the duration. You can always discuss whether this principle is the best, but that's what we have chosen. And the same rule applies to territories and continents.

Eralier members could have 'defunct' countries like the USSR and DDR on their country lists, but now the lists are based on the current world map, which means that you can clai a country, if you have visited its current area, even if your visit took place before the country proclaimed its independence.

It is of course a matter of definition when a country is a country, but we have chosen to accept all members of the U.N. (so far 191 countries) with 2 additions: Taiwan and the Vatican. The most recent additions are East Timor and Montenegro. Due to lack of international recognition for instance North Cyprus is not accepted as a country.

In these turbulent days the list cannot be final, but has to change with time. For instance DDR was a once an independent country, whereas neither Bosnia nor Tadjikistan existed 15 years ago. Right now we accept 194 countries, and no Dane has so far visited all of them. Right now around a dozen of our members have been in more than 100 countries, and they are exempt from the rules that demand visits to new countries, - but that has not made them stop.


Territories and continents.

What is a territory? Territories are possessions outside the geographical or political mainland having some special status. Good examples of territories are the former British and French colonies in the Caraibean, the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean (e.g. Martinique, The Falkland Islands or Moruroa) and the Danish territories Greenland and The Faroe Islands. Antarctica is counted as one territory (as well as a continent)

The continents are easy to count, their number being seven: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Europe, North America (including the Caribbean), Oceania (Australia and New Zealand with surroundings) and South America. The risk of sudden changes here is obviously minimal. We define Europe as the area from Iceland to Ural and Caucasus. Asia Minor, Cyprus and the South Caucasian countries belong to Asia and so does the whole Island of New Guinea. The Canary Islands and Madeira belong to Africa, and North America includes both Central America and the Caribbean Islands. The committee will make the decision in borderline cases.


Activities:

All activities are voluntary, and in principle you can be a member of the club for years without participating in anything (though that would be boring and we don't recommend it). The more activities you participate in, the more you profit from your membership.


Membership meetings.

The main activities in the Guild are the membership meetings which are usually held monthly on the 18th on Zealand (mostly in greater Copenhagen) and approx. every two months in Jutland. The majority of these gatherings are held as private evening meetings at one of the members´s home where usually some 10-15 members attend. Furthermore weekend arrangements and informal meetings are held from time to time.

The agenda for the evening meetings can vary but will typically begin with a "tour de table" where everybody tells a bit about their travel experiences since their last meeting and about future travel plans. New members or members who recently has visited a particularly interesting place are granted prolonged time to present their stories.

Every meeting abounds in food and drink of many kinds and for this reason all participants generally pay 50 D.kr. (approx.8 US$) to cover the expenses (participants should bring their own drinks).

The highlight of the agenda is usually one or two slideshows where members entertain with all their more or less crazy experiences. These might include climbing Kilimanjaro, a pilgrimage to the source of the holy river Ganga, a visit to Darwin´s Galapagos Islands, a crossing of The Sahara on bicycle, wintering in northeast Siberia at –55 C or other exciting experiences from familiar or exotic corners of our planet.

The rest of the evening is naturally spent socializing and exchanging travel experiences. It is almost impossible not to be overwhelmed with the urge to travel after hearing all those tall tales from the other members. In case you forgot to ask some question, every member regularly gets an updated membership list with telephone numbers and e-mailadresses of all the other members.


Informal meetings

Apart from the monthly meetings there are informal meetings approx. once a month. At these meetings you can buy drinks, but there will not be a large meal. Therefore the entrance is free for members, and prior notification is generally not necessary. The informal character however does not mean that nothing happpens: at one meeting we had invited a professionel fotographer to tell us all about how to make good pictures, while other meetings may have a theme elucidated by some of our own members.


Committee meetings and General meeting

Apart from ordinary meetings a committee meeting is held approximately every second month. Here decisions are made on unsolved details or questions raised by the members, in so far they weren´t resolved at the annual general meeting. The committee meetings are open to all even though only committee members have the right to vote.

And finally every year in November there is a General Meeting to which all members have (free) access. However only members from 15 years and up who have paid their subscription before January 31 have the right to vote. The details can be checked in the statutes of the club.


Sources of Information.

About four times every year the members receive a magazine ("Globen") with stories from past and present as well as practical information. It has gradually grown in to a major publication of up til 60 pages, in our own humble opinion one of the best club magazines in Denmark.

The club has several times published a who-is-who with a lot of practical and interesting infomation about every member. This book has now been integrated in the home page.

Since 1998 the club has even had a homepage (.. well, apparently you knew that!). We expect to se a lot of activity here in the future.

With so much travel experience among club members it comes as no surprise that the club also serves as a forum for people who can serve a good lecture and/or slideshow, for instance to a school or a club. Furthermore the guild has - in spite of its short life - acquired a reputation as an authority on travelling. Several members have had their say in the media, either with articles or as experts in some special field. This includes radio and television.


Subscription

Subscription to the club costs 400 DKR annually (approx. 60 US$), but 100 DKR for family member nr. 2,3 etc. on the same address. If you join after April 1 the price is 300 DKR, 200 DKR after July 1 and just 100 DKR after October 1. You can become a 'passive' member and receive our magazine for 300 DKK for one year. New members pay a 100 DKK fee to cover our processing expenses and the issue of "Globen" which is traditionally given to new members. 'Passive' members who become regular members are exempt from this fee.


The official address of the Travellers' Guild is:

De Berejstes Klub
c/o Café Globen
Turesensgade 2B
DK-1368 København K
Denmark


Last opdate: 4/3-2007


Statutes of the guild (in Danish)
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