Nicoo Schaal — Author

From West Berlin to New York, Miami, and beyond — a life shaped by travel, languages, people, and places.My diverse career experiences and the many countries I have called home have made writing about travel, culture, and trivia feel natural to me.I grew up in West Berlin, where I began my professional life with an apprenticeship in food retailing. At 17, I briefly traded city life for an adventure as a fisherman and sailor out of Cuxhaven before returning to Berlin to enter the hotel and restaurant industry.This experience eventually led me to France, where I spent four years—two in Provence and two in Paris—learning the language and immersing myself in French life and culture. My travels expanded further when Club Med hired me in Paris and sent me first to Tunisia and then to Martinique.In 1973, I made the most significant move of my life by settling in New York City. After a brief and unsuccessful attempt to find my fortune on Wall Street, I returned to the hospitality industry. In 1978, I earned my New York City tour guide license and discovered the profession that would become my passion for the next two decades.What began with sightseeing tours and day trips evolved into a career as an international tour director. I traveled extensively throughout the United States and Canada, leading everything from local excursions to cross-country tours, with occasional trips to the Bahamas.Eventually, I moved from New York to Miami, where I lived until 2001. Florida's growing popularity among European visitors provided me with more opportunities to work with international tour groups, allowing me to draw on my knowledge of North America as well as my German, English, and French language skills.In 2001, I returned to Germany and continued working in the international travel and hotel industry until I retired at 70.However, retirement did not mean I was done with travel. I realized that decades of experience on the road had given me valuable insights worth sharing. This realization led to my first book, Tour Guiding USA & Canada, a practical guide based on my own experiences in the profession.From there, I created my first travel quiz, originally intended as entertainment for passengers on longer motorcoach journeys. One quiz led to another, and today my Travel & Trivia collection includes 29 quiz books in both English and German.In many ways, my books bring together everything that has come before: travel, languages, people, places, history, culture, and a lifelong curiosity about the world.I hope you enjoy discovering them.My books are available worldwide on Amazon in Kindle, paperback, and hardcover editions. You can explore the complete collection at Nicco's Books.