may 18th, 2025 – day 48 – 2.367 km
May to June 2024, exactly one year ago, I spent 30 days (yep, a whole month) meandering through the Balkans.
The idea behind this trip was twofold: 1) Discover Romania (lol, you can read more about how that went here), and 2) test-drive a month of solo travel to see if I could handle a year of it.
My logic went something like: “If I can be alone for a month, I can be alone for a year.” Yes, I know. Cute, right? Some would even say it was a silly way of thinking, but I was also kind of serious. And yet also kind of not. I think it was my way of dealing with this low-key fear of doing this thing for real.
But! Surprise! It kinda doesn’t work that way now does it.
Remember when I fell for Salzburg? And yes, you remember, don’t act like you don’t. It wasn’t just the scenery. It was the fact that, for the first time in weeks, I was able to spend a few days around the same people. I didn’t have to drag myself out of my comfort zone again and again to offer the first hello, explain who I was, what I was doing, and try to create a connection that I knew would likely vanish within 24 hours. Instead, I got to continue conversations. I got to relax, and just exist, without introducing myself for the 127th time. It reminded me how much I missed real, ongoing human connection and interaction. It was a time filled with reassurance for the near future, something to hold onto. Since, apparently, I love to hold on to things, be it an agenda or a conversation.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve met some beautiful people along the way. People I still talk to. People I’m thankful for. People I can see being a part of my life for the unforeseeable future. But Salzburg was the first time I could actually exhale and not feel like I had to earn every moment of interaction. There was a calm there. A kind of softness I hadn’t realized I needed.
But, as it tends to go, I had to leave. And that’s when the cracks started to show. The further northeast I traveled, the less English was spoken, the fewer conversations I had, and the more I got stuck inside my own head. It’s an interesting place to be, but it can be a very daunting place as well. Combine that with some really shitty May weather and I found myself… kinda over it. Like, deeply, irrationally, fucking over it.
Which felt weird. Because I wasn’t homesick, I wasn’t done with traveling. As a matter of fact I was still in love with it. I was thriving in the parts where I could just float through time and space and couldn’t care less whether it was a Friday, Saturday or Sunday, with all their accompanying feelings and little routines. It was the freedom I’d dreamed of. And yet—I felt awful.
And somewhere in all my loneliness, I caught myself wondering why it’s so damn hard to admit when we’re not okay, not even to ourselves. Especially when you’re in the middle of this incredible, maybe once in a lifetime journey. Social media, travel blogs, all these curated little windows into “living the dream” make it feel like you’re not allowed to be anything other than ecstatic. Like I felt like a spoiled brat to say: “Actually, I feel like shit right now.”
And this is the part no one prepares you for. The part where your dreams start to feel heavy. Where you start to wonder if you’re just not built for this, which is maybe the worst feeling I’ve experienced in my life yet. And I’m well aware how thirty-something-white-privileged-boy this sounds. I’m not sharing this to ask for sympathy or check my phone for “You okay?” texts. I’m sharing it because maybe someone out there needs to hear that it’s entirely fucking okay to feel like absolute garbage sometimes. No matter where you are or what you’re doing or how lucky you’re supposed to feel.
If you feel the need to cry, cry. If you want to scream, scream. I don’t condone violence, but if you want to hit stuff, do so, just don’t hit people. Feel what you feel, and then figure out what you need to move forward from there.
For me, what I needed was to get out of Eastern Europe. –It’s not me, it’s you. We just weren’t the match we hoped to be. I think it’s best if we start seeing other countries.- So I got on a bus. Stopped in Budapest. Then headed for Zagreb. And just like that—I let go. I left it behind.
So this is where my journey picks up again. I’m back in the well traveled and familiar territory of Southern Europe, heading into the Balkans once more. It took a while to admit I wasn’t happy. It took even longer to act on it. But deciding to listen to myself, to put myself first, has probably been the best call I’ve made so far.
And, as if life isn’t being poetic enough, it handed me a travel companion: Rodrigo, my Argentinian friend who’s doing more or less the same slightly ridiculous thing as I am. And it brings joy in my heart to share that I can start feeling alone, together.
I know we’ll eventually go our separate ways, but that doesn’t scare me like it used to. Because now, I know myself better. I know what I need when the days feel heavy. And I’m grateful—truly, deeply grateful—to be out here, figuring myself out, one kilometer at a time
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with love