A year of solo travel. Thoughts and reflections of a backpacker

When I took the Luftansa flight to Havana last January 2011 I could imagine everything except that a year later I was still on the move but on the other side of the globe.

It must have been 6 months, no more, before fulfilling what was then my big dream: move to Berlin.

Yet what happened to me and what I know is common to many other travelers is that the travel bug took hold of me, who has always been known for having a suitcase packed and one foot on a plane. I was easy prey and no one was even that surprised when I declared that I wouldn’t be back in time.

It all actually started a long time ago. In fact, I remember the day of my graduation when my friends gave me suitcases telling me that they knew I would use and destroy them, or going even further back in time I remember when at 9 years old I wrote travel stories and told about places I hadn’t been to. never been but they seemed real.

At 14 I took my first trip alone, I went to England for a month, the classic study trip but still a 3-week trip, and so on the following year and for the next 2 years.

Il Travel has always been a constant in mine life and yet I have never noticed it more than now. I always thought I never had the passion for travel.

I have flown over oceans, I have had the privilege and joy of getting to know a good part of Europe, I have learned new languages, I have lived abroad and I had the crazy and brilliant idea of taking my life back in hand and choosing to do what I my instinct seems to have been telling me since I was a child: travel.

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My journey, I say the world Tour it began to Cuba continued in Jamaica, Panama, Costa Rica and on through the much feared Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala.
In June 2011 I was in the fun and colorful Mexico where between a few parties, a glass of tequila and people with contagious joy I had the intuition that continuing was what I really wanted.

12 months after January 21, 2011, I find myself in Laos.
In the last 4 months I have been in contact with Buddhist countries for the first time, I ate the original spring rolls, I saw and touched elephants and I traveled thousands of kilometers on buses.
I have a year of travel behind me and almost another year ahead and the enthusiasm has not diminished, the desire to discover is still massive but what matters most to me is that in this year above all I have rediscovered myself and I have seen myself perhaps for the first time as a person who likes each other. One you really like.
Courageous and strong, sometimes extreme and reckless but I was able to gain my independence, I created a life that adheres exactly to my personality.

Today I look back and… I do not regret anything, not even the many hated years in London, the difficulties and the little money. Those dark years brought me here, they made me hit rock bottom and open my eyes, they reminded me that that wasn’t the life I really wanted.

With a perhaps drastic choice I have made and am continuing to do what I have always wanted, what I am perhaps suited to and which makes me feel free like never before.
I always have a smile on my face, a sometimes I’m tired but it’s that tiredness that makes you fall asleep in the evening excited about waking up, because you don’t know what awaits you the next day.

Every day is a gift and a surprise that never disappoints me, every person I met was a figure that colored my path, every human exchange I had was a personal growth.

One unconventional lifestyle perhaps to remind myself and remember that life must be lived as one sees fit without doing or saying what others expect of us.

Io I chose to travel, it was my dream and ultimately no one was actually stopping me from achieving it. The only wall to overcome was myself with my beliefs of what was right and sensible and what wasn’t. I revolutionized my way of thinking and living, at least for a while.

What I expect from the future? I don’t know and I don’t even want to know. What matters is that in this year of travel I have made a great achievement.
I understood and above all I demonstrated that with a lot of work, firm determination, a good dose of positivity and self-esteem and just enough luck, dreams can become reality.
Making decisions means taking on your responsibilities and accepting the risk/possibility that things don’t go the way you hoped. But without risk where is the beauty?
I took a risk and I really think I won, at least this time. For now I just want to enjoy the coveted prize. I’ll think about the future tomorrow.