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The end of the world is near!

Actually only a stone's throw away.

For some, it is currently within a 15-kilometer radius of their place of residence.

My world has its limits within a two-hour drive from Berlin: far enough to reach lonely nature without having to spend the night - but no further than the guilty feelings about CO2 emissions allow.

More than ever before, I wish for another end of the world.

Of course, I could travel there virtually: at least 50 films have it in their title - from a “Tatort” to “Pirates of the Caribbean”.

Jim Knopf and Lukas the engine driver landed in a desert with this name.

Or I'll work my way through literature with the end of the world on the cover in the next few weeks of lockdown, reading Jules Verne, Haruki Murakami, TC Boyle, Upton Sinclair.

The "End of the World" is also a classic of travel catalog prose.

Depending on the layout, you can find it in the mountains behind Lake Garda - or you have to hike into the Mongolian highlands for it.

Sometimes I was happy to have found it: on the deserted Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, for example, in a newly established national park in Patagonia and on an islet in the Tasman Sea.

The “end of the world” often turns out to be an illusion

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How contemplative and secluded do the few people at the end of the world have to live?

But the romantic idea turns out to be an illusion when you look at the map: The Finistère in Brittany was only for the ancient Romans

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, the end of the world - today it is a highlight for outdoor fans.

“Fin del Mundo” on Tierra del Fuego - the end point of the popular tourist route through Patagonia.

“World's End” in South Africa is one of the most visited viewpoints in the Drakensberg.

And Cabo Fisterra in Galicia is even the destination of a pilgrimage route for hikers for whom Santiago de Compostela is not far enough.

The British seem to have a special relationship with the end of the world: There are half a dozen places called World's End - perhaps as a premonition of Brexit?

But where do you still feel like at the end of the world - that place of longing that stands for loneliness and emptiness, wildness and originality?

Call to an expert: Rus Margolin, formerly a stockbroker, now a globetrotter, belongs to the exclusive club of those who have visited all countries in the world without exception - even in the crisis year 2020 he toured 48 states in the USA and across Ukraine, visited Polynesia and the Antarctic.

Unusual plants like these bottle trees thrive on the Yemeni island of Socotra

Source: Getty Images / Rod

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“For me, the end of the world is a place that I have dreamed of for years, that is either extremely difficult to reach or inaccessible for political reasons,” says the man in his mid-fifties, who has not taken a travel break for years.

For him, this includes the Yemeni island of Socotra with its bizarre flora and fauna, the Kuril Islands belonging to Russia, the Ethiopian Omo Valley or the volcanic landscapes in Kamchatka.

It's all on my bucket list now.

The Kamchatka Peninsula has the highest density of active volcanoes in the world.

Here you can see the Maly Semjachik with its turquoise acid lake

Source: Getty Images / Kelly Cheng

Now I have invited Rus Margolin to the real end of the world.

One he has never seen before.

Because recently I was sitting all alone for an hour on the banks of the Oder, away from all hiking trails, on a tree trunk frozen over with thick ice, only the gurgling of the current in my ears and the nagging of a flock of birds.

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You could spend weeks here without any globetrotters passing by.

The end of the world - it's closer than you first thought.

Oliver Gerhard from Berlin also writes on kanada-blogger.com.

Many countries only want to allow vaccinated people in - Sweden and Denmark are planning digital vaccination records

In view of the corona mutants spreading in Europe, the 2021 vacation is on the brink.

Some countries want to introduce a vaccination certificate so that vaccinated people can travel freely.

And some airlines only want to take vaccinated people with them.

Source: WELT / Christoph Hipp