Every traveller enjoys telling travelling stories from their experience. And I am no different. I can almost always connect a conversation to something that happened to me somewhere on the other side of the planet.
Exactly two years ago I was in Montevideo, Uruguay – the second country I was about to visit in my 8-month-long trip through South America. You’d think in all of this time, I have managed to see everything I planned. Wrong! I remember a friend who only had one piece of advice for me before starting my trip:
“You won’t see everything you plan to. Make your peace with it because if not you’ll be very frustrated very fast.”
Yeah, right. I thought he has no idea what he was talking about. And boy, was he right! And this actually works for trips in general. Speaking of trips in general, you can imagine I collected quite a few of them in my travels. I won’t share them in a specific order, but they all are as vivid in my memory as they happened yesterday.
Spending one afternoon on an empty beach
I was a student in Istanbul, Turkey for 4 months and my favourite place to go to was Princess Islands. Unfortunately, I lost most of my photos from that time because my hard drive crashed. I was never able to recover anything from it. But the memories of that awesome afternoon will always stay with me. And no, back in 2011 didn’t know about backups.
Going on a 20 km hike by mistake
I was living in Iceland at the time and I decided to join a friend on a hike. It’s usually a rather easy hike, but he had other plans. Normally it’s just a one-two hour hike up to the viewing point and back. And so I ended up going through snow, rocks and dust, a total of 9 hours with all the breaks. By the end of it, I was in a very bad mental place. But in the end, it was all worth it, and it was one of the very important lessons I had to learn.
Hitchhiking by myself through Patagonia
Are you looking for advice regarding hitchhiking through Patagonia? I actually wrote a little more about it in a different article. But I have also talked about it.
Getting lost on a hike in New York
I did a very small portion of the Appalachian Trail. And I managed to get lost not once, but twice during the same hike. And one more time, you can see what was that like on the YouTube channel. What makes it funny? Well, I didn’t even realise how dangerous could have been until I was back in NYC.
Going over a man in a bar restroom in Tunisia
I also lived in Tunisia for five months. As you can imagine, I have a lot more travelling stories from that time. But one of them is going to a bar. That’s it. That’s the story. Not really, but might as well have been. Women are usually not allowed to go to bars. So I thought I am being brave. I was with a male friend should been a bit safer. But at some point, I had to use the restroom. And then it hit me there were no female toilets. And so my friend joined me and I went to the only toilet. For men. But when to open the door, it was not locked and there was a man peeing. Good thing he was with his back to me. I don’t wanna know what would have happened if he knew there was a woman in the bathroom. And then I held it in until I made it safely back home.
Lost the train in Tampere, Finland
This was back in 2010 when I was invited to visit a friend in Finland. My plane ticket was Bucharest – Milano – Tampere. She told me exactly how to make it to Mikkeli, the town where she lived. So I adventured in the unknown. Except I didn’t know how to take the correct bus back to the train station from the airport. And I arrived there way too late. And so the train station was closed. Forgot to mention it was March so it was very snowy and cold. And dark. Shortly, I still remember a homeless woman showing me how to warm up. She was talking in Finnish so had no idea what she was telling me but I simply imitated her movements. I went to a gas station and against all odds, I fell asleep with my head on the table. I ended up taking two buses, changing them in Helsinki. And in that bus station, a drunk man kept making conversation with me. And when I started ignoring him he yelled. Eventually, he left, and luckily nothing worse happened.
During the same trip, I lost my passport in a nightclub. And on the way back, I had the same layover through Milano. Except for this time I spent half a night randomly on the streets of Milano. and a Polish guy cursed me because I didn’t accept his watch as a present. I do not want to know what he thought I would give in exchange. And this was my third time making it outside of my country. Talking about travelling stories! Haha.
Giving an interview in Ireland
I went on a simple weekend getaway in Dublin. I had green hair back then, and I guess I was easy to spot. The couple that interviewed me were two Australian travellers that were doing short interviews around the world. I loved the idea of their project and I am very happy to have been part of it. You can still see it on the internet, check out 365 docobites. But please excuse my English, it improved a bit since then.
Flying in a 2-person plane
I really wanted to try this one out. I managed to get a 50% discount and so I went for it. The weather was beautiful and when I got onto the plane the pilot asked me. ”Where do you wanna go?” I panicked and I chose Esja. The mountain I mentioned in the other travelling stories. I have no idea what would have been the other options. You can see the incredible views below.
First time seeing the Pacific
I was on a work exchange in San Diego for two weeks. Eventually, made it to one of the known local beaches. And so I was beyond happy when I soaked my feet in the Pacific Ocean for the first time. And as you can imagine, I have the video of it.
Sleeping in an event hall in Chile
Hitchhiking was not always easy in Patagonia. For example, making it from Ushuaia to Punta Arenas took me a very long while. And that’s why night approached and I had to improvise. I was already in the middle of nowhere, well sort of. I arrived in …. with the last boat so no more cars were passing by there until early morning. The only building with a light on as belonging to the Chilean Army. And so I rang the bell and I begged the guard to give me any shelter possible. He said it was forbidden, but in the end, he felt pity for me. So he let me sleep in a room with chairs and tables. It was in a different building. More about it here?!
These are my 10 most memorable travelling stories so far. What are yours? Share it down below or tell me what would you have done in some of these situations.
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