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, not with school friends I never really felt completely comfortable around. But at the last minute, I called my mother and told her I had changed my mind.

I was going to Andorra.

Looking back, I am glad I went. It was my first trip outside Portugal and the beginning of a much bigger travel story, but it was also one of my first lessons in how much the people you travel with can completely change an experience.

My First Trip Outside Portugal

The journey itself already felt huge to me. It was the first time I had left Portugal, the first time I had done a bus journey of around 21 hours, and only the second time in my life that I had really seen snow.

We stayed in Pas de la Casa, and I shared an apartment with the group of girls I usually spent time with at school. They were very close to each other, but I had always felt slightly outside that friendship group, and that feeling followed me all the way to Andorra.

At 18, I still cared far too much about fitting in and being part of a group, even when I did not really feel like I belonged there. I think that was part of what made the whole trip hit me the way it did.

The Ski Day That Went Completely Wrong

One of the main activities on the trip was skiing, and I quickly discovered that I was terrible at it. I spent more time falling on my ass than actually skiing, which would have been funny if one particular day had not gone so badly.

At some point, the girls I was with left me alone at the top of a difficult ski slope. The fog was so thick that I could barely see more than a meter in front of me, and I had absolutely no idea how I was supposed to get down safely.

So I basically started making my way down on my backside, alone and crying.

Eventually, a man on a snowmobile found me and took me down. It is still one of those travel memories that sounds almost ridiculous now, but at 17, almost 18, standing alone on a ski slope in another country with almost zero visibility did not feel ridiculous at all.

That was probably the first moment of the trip when I really realized that the people I was traveling with were not necessarily the people I could rely on.

Turning 18 in Andorra

My 18th birthday happened during the trip, and the girls organized a dinner for me. On paper, that sounds really nice, and technically it was.

The problem was that the people I actually got along with best at school were not invited because the girls I was staying with did not like them. So I ended up spending my 18th birthday surrounded by their friends instead of mine.

I remember feeling incredibly sad. I had imagined turning 18 surrounded by the people I loved, and instead I was in another country feeling strangely alone in a room full of people.

That was probably one of the first times I understood that being surrounded by people does not necessarily mean feeling less lonely.

The Night I Ended Up Alone in Pas de la Casa

One of the final nights of the trip, we went out and drank far too much. I still do not know exactly how it happened, but somehow I ended up walking around Pas de la Casa alone in the middle of the night.

I was lucky because my gymnastics teacher from school happened to find me and took me back to the apartment. When I got there, the girls I had been out with were already inside.

Once again, I had somehow been left behind.

At the time, I was angry and hurt. Looking back now, I mostly see it as another very early lesson about trusting the people you travel with and paying attention to who actually looks out for you when things go wrong.

I do not think I understood the lesson properly at 18, but I definitely remember the feeling.

What Andorra Taught Me

I do not regret going to Andorra. I regret going with the wrong people, and there is a difference.

That trip gave me my first experience of leaving Portugal, my first ridiculously long bus journey, my first proper taste of traveling somewhere completely unfamiliar, and my first time realizing that being away from home could feel both exciting and uncomfortable at the same time.

It also taught me that choosing who you travel with matters. A lot.

Sometimes the wrong people can make a beautiful place feel miserable, and sometimes traveling alone can feel far less lonely than traveling with people who make you feel invisible. At 18, I did not know yet that I would eventually travel alone across dozens of countries, sleep in hostels around the world, cross borders by myself, and become completely comfortable doing things alone.

Back then, I was just a girl on her first trip outside Portugal, trying to fit into a group that never really felt like mine.

Andorra was not the perfect first trip. It was messy, emotional, uncomfortable, and very far from what I had imagined for my 18th birthday. But it still became an important part of my story because it taught me something I would carry into so many trips later.

I would rather be myself and risk being alone than change who I am just to feel included.