Europe
-
Traveling Latvia: Turning 23 in Riga and the Birthday I Thought I’d Spend Alone
Technically, this was not my first birthday outside Portugal. I had already spent my 18th birthday in Andorra, but considering how badly that one went, I had apparently erased it from memory. By the time I was 22, I was backpacking around Europe and already knew I would spend my next birthday somewhere away from home. I just imagined it would be somewhere more familiar, maybe Italy or the UK. Latvia was definitely not on my birthday bingo card, and I never expected that traveling Latvia would end up giving me one of the most random and memorable birthdays I had ever had. Somehow, I ended up turning 23 in…
-
My First Trip Abroad: Turning 18 in Andorra and Learning Who Not to Travel With
April 2010 — Pas de la Casa, Andorra 2010 was the year I finished secondary school, and like a lot of students in Portugal, our Easter break meant one thing: the long-awaited senior trip. At the time, rhythmic gymnastics was a huge part of my life. My team was basically my second family, and some of my closest friends were the girls I trained with every week. The problem was that the senior trip to Andorra fell exactly on my 18th birthday. At first, I did not want to go because turning 18 felt important, and I wanted to spend that day with the people I was actually closest to,…
-
Visiting Monaco With No Plan: How One Morning Became Country 48
Europe and I have a complicated relationship. I want to visit every country in the world, which unfortunately means I cannot just spend the rest of my life traveling around Asia where everything is cheaper and I am generally much happier. So every once in a while, I come home, look at the map of Europe and think, Fine. Which countries can I somehow combine without financially destroying myself? That was basically how Monaco happened. I was back in Portugal for a bit and decided it was time to count a few new European countries. But because Europe is expensive, there was absolutely no chance I was flying somewhere just…
-
I Paid 35€ for a Tiny Dorm Bed in Nice — Was Hostel Ozz Worth It?
Nice is expensive. There is no nice way to say it. I’m so used to traveling around Asia, where I can get a really good hostel for a fraction of the price, that paying European summer prices again genuinely hurt. When I was choosing where to stay in Nice, Hostel Ozz Nice kept coming up because it had really good reviews, looked modern and was one of the most reviewed hostels in Nice on Booking.com. The prices were painful basically everywhere, so I eventually gave up trying to find some magical cheap option and booked a bed here. I paid around 35€ per night for a bed in a 4-bed…
-
18 Things to Do in Vienna If You’re Not Here to Spend 3 Days Inside Palaces
The first time I arrived in Vienna, I had just come from Bratislava. That was probably already a problem. I had loved Bratislava. It was small, colorful, easy to explore and exactly the kind of place where I could walk out of the hostel and just see where I ended up. Then I got off the train in Vienna and immediately got lost trying to find my hostel. Everything felt huge. Everything seemed far away. I was tired, annoyed and staying in this dark hostel with terrible Wi-Fi, wondering why I had left Slovakia. The funny part is that Vienna eventually became memorable for me, but not because I suddenly…
-
Vienna Itinerary: How I’d Spend 2 to 5 Days Without Wasting Them All in Vienna
The first time I visited Vienna, I had just come from Bratislava during my 80-day backpacking trip through Europe. I had loved Bratislava, so arriving in Vienna was a bit of a shock. Everything suddenly felt huge, busy and far away, and I managed to get completely lost just trying to find my hostel. The hostel itself was dark, the Wi-Fi barely worked, and somehow that terrible Wi-Fi ended up being one of the best things that happened because everyone actually had to talk to each other. I met two girls in my dorm and suddenly Vienna became much more fun. We wandered around together, went to a food market,…
-
Vienna Guide: Everything I’d Actually Want to Know Before Visiting
The first time I visited Vienna, I had just come from Bratislava during my first big solo backpacking trip around Europe. I had absolutely loved Bratislava, so Vienna was a bit of a shock. Everything suddenly felt huge, busy and far away, and I managed to get completely lost just trying to find my hostel from the train station. The hostel itself was dark, slightly weird and had terrible Wi-Fi, but somehow that terrible Wi-Fi ended up being one of the best things about it because everyone actually had to talk to each other. I met an Italian girl and an American girl in my dorm, and the three of…
-
My Experience Backpacking Austria Solo: What I Really Thought of Vienna
Austria was one of the countries I visited during my first big solo backpacking trip around Europe, when I spent 80 days traveling entirely overland. I arrived in Vienna from Bratislava, and that probably couldn’t have been a worse combination for Vienna because I had just fallen completely in love with Slovakia’s much smaller capital. Bratislava had felt easy. It was small, colorful, quiet and the kind of place where I could just wander around without thinking too much about where I was going. Vienna felt like the complete opposite. It was huge, busy and much more overwhelming than I expected, and my first few hours there were mostly spent…
-
Backpacking Slovakia: Country #10 in My Journey Around the World
I didn’t go to Slovakia because it was high on my bucket list. Actually, I barely knew anything about Bratislava before I went. I was in the middle of my first big solo backpacking trip around Europe: 80 days, entirely overland, moving from country to country and figuring everything out as I went. I had just been in Budapest when I realized that going through Bratislava before Vienna was cheaper than heading straight to Austria, so that was basically the entire decision-making process. I booked one night. That turned out to be a terrible decision, because within a few hours of finally making it into Bratislava’s Old Town, I was…
-
3 Days in Porto Solo: The Trip That Made Me Want More
I spent 3 days in Porto in 2014, before my first long solo backpacking trip around Europe, and that little trip ended up meaning much more to me than I expected. I hadn’t traveled for around eight months because university and work had taken over, and I was desperate to go somewhere again. I finally had four days off, so Porto became my little test before the much bigger solo trip I was planning. At that point, even traveling alone within Portugal still felt like an adventure. Getting somewhere without getting lost, figuring out public transportation or simply finding whatever I was looking for felt like a small victory. Those…
