28/04/2024
2017, August, Europe
Can you spend a month traveling in Europe with 100€ in the wallet?
After a successful running season I had one month of rest and during that time my cousin and I decided to make a first huge trip around Europe. Back then I just turned 17 and we both didn’t have a lot of money so we decided to bring two backpacks with a tent and clothes and we hitchhiked all the time. We decided to travel that way because we wanted to have a real adventure and we wanted to meet a lot of new people.
In this journey we didn’t have a clear plan, because when you hitchhike you never know where you will end, but we wanted to visit Paris and the religious community of Taize so our trajectory was France. Like everything, the most difficult part was to start and to get the first ride. Luckily the first car stopped quickly and with the first ride we were already in Poland. In the second car, we were taken by one Ukrainian guy who just bought a car in Lithuania. He was driving super fast and we thought that our journey would end the same day of the start. He didn’t speak English, but when we shared our plans he said ‘’Eto ni hardcore, eto pizdec’’ and I think this is a good summary of all the trip.
Everyday brought us new people and new situations that we had to solve at the same time. In total we changed 62 cars, we traveled a distance of 6000 km only relying on the kindness of strangers. From the 26 days of travel, we had only 6 nights under a real roof and the rest was spent outside or in the tent. It was mostly stealth camping behind the gas stations or somewhere in the rural areas. 3 nights in a row were spent sleeping on the beach, 4 nights at my friend's apartment in Paris. We only had one emergency situation when the rain was too strong and we were near a nice hotel in the Italian Alps. That room was half of our budget spent on the trip, but we appreciated it more than ever.
Top things from this trip:
- Appreciate small things. There were situations where we were in completely remote areas with no cars, where we didn’t have any water left or our phone batteries were dead, but each time we ended up with something very nice after.
- Be part of a community. On this trip it was hard to be in any community, but we visited a small village of Taize in France and when we arrived, it felt like being in another world. Everyone is saying hello to you, everyone eats the same food, everyone does social activities together. We didn’t stay long there but the vibe there was great.
- The beach. I never had an idea that sleeping on the beach would be such an experience.
- The people. So many different stories. Since we had two huge backpacks, most of the cars that stopped were people driving for or to work so we met so many different professions.
It is very hard to put all the experience in one facebook post but this was the start of the traveling life. Right now my trips are different, but when I have a chance, I still hitchhike even today but not on the same level as here. I can also admit that this type of traveling is not for everyone, there were situations where we had to wait for the cars more than 10 hours, but overall we made our goals one way or another.
