As crazy as it is, I’ve been traveling for a month now. There’s a lot of times that I can’t believe that it’s been so long and other times where it seems that it’s been longer.
Overall, I’ve been having a blast! I missed this, missed exploring and wandering around. Missed walking around without a plan. Missed immersing myself in another culture.
Will I admit that there are times where everything seems very ‘American’? Oh definitely. The thing about being a native English speaker is so many people know at the very least the basics of English, and when you’re in the bigger cities, it’s easy to find people who are fluent in English, easy to find menu’s in English, easy to just fall back on things that you would do at home.
And I keep reminding myself that that’s okay. As long as that isn’t all I do. I don’t want to make my entire trip the same as if I was home – for me that defeats the purpose. For some, that’s exactly what they need/want. So while it’s easier to find hostels in the cities, easier to get to them for cheap, easier to navigate them – I’m trying to sprinkle in other stops as well that are a bit more off the beaten path and that give me more of the taste of the local culture.
One thing that I’m doing with this trip that in future trips to Europe I want to do differently is that I’m visiting a lot of different countries. And that’s what I want out of this trip – I want to see a variety of places (and eat my way through them). But the next time I do this type of trip in Europe, I want to set up shop longer in one place. Maybe not to the extent many slow travelers do, but I do want to spend more than 5 days in a place, get out more. Do more cooking and really setting into place a bit more than I am doing right now. Do some day trips but have a base of operations to go back to.
For now, I’m enjoying myself. I like not knowing where I’m going next, even as I annoy myself with not wanting to make the decision on where to next. It would be cool to meet up and briefly travel with someone/a group – but I honestly haven’t met anyone else doing what I’m doing yet. Or even anyone doing what I’m doing with a plan in place. I’ve met a lot of people who are on what in America we would call an “extended” vacation (aka it’s more than a week or two – one guy from the UK that I met here in Poland is doing 6 weeks, his job was like “sure why not!” when he asked and he works for the government). But those are still short term, those are still people who are on vacation and currently most everyone I’ve met has a plan in place. I think there’s only been 2 that are semi winging it for the time they’re traveling.
At the same time, I’ve seen a lot of remote workers – digital nomads – but I haven’t really talked to any of them yet. They’ve mainly been working while I’ve been active and then out on the town when I’ve already settled in for the night. Since I’m not working and doing this based on savings right now, it’s still different than them. A lot of them do the slow travel thing with their work so they set up shop in one place for an extended amount of time so they can get into a rhythm with work. They eventually move on but so far I haven’t met anyone that is constantly moving around.
That’s not to say I’m not meeting people obviously – it would just be nice to meet others who are in the same situation as me. One of my next steps I hope to since I’ll be staying at a hostel built by and for backpackers! From what I read, it tends to attract more people that are traveling like me. I’ll keep you all updated though because I won’t know for sure for a bit!(And it did! Check out my post on Slovakia coming up!)
Alright – I think that’s all for today. I’m waiting on my bus back to Warsaw after spending the day in Lodz, and I’m so tired between limited sleep (had a bad snorer in the dorm last night) and walking close to 20k steps in Lodz today to explore the city. Hopefully I’ll sleep really well tonight since I leave Warsaw in the morning.
