diary of a gallivanting girl🌎
chapter 31: one month of revisiting familiar places with new friends, (fan) cultural immersion, and exploring new countries solo
Hello from week 5 of the European leg of my sabbatical world tour! I’ve had hectic blurs of days where it felt like waking up in a different country every morning was my full time job. I’ve also had calm periods of staying in one place for a full week with no real plans, just going with the flow and relishing time with friends.
August felt like a month where I lived 9 lives, perhaps because those lives took place throughout 9 different countries: I revisited Budapest, Vienna, London, and Paris with friends, while solo traveling through Bratislava, Luxembourg, Helsinki, the Åland Islands for the first time.
Then, the first week of September found me on a solo tour of the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) that forever changed my worldview through eye-opening firsthand accounts of history.
Multiple times over the past few weeks, I sat down to write but had too much to say and not enough time to mold amorphous thoughts into coherent synthesis. Instead of scrapping those false starts entirely, I’ve decided to share them below as a collection of feelings and observations from gallivanting around Europe following my passions and intuition ☺️
🗓️ Tuesday, August 6
📍 London, England
How special it is to have a dear friend (and possibly the kindest person I’ve ever met) from an entirely different country and background as a result of fate randomly pairing us as roommates during our semester abroad in Singapore 6 years ago — and even more special to be able to continuously meet up in Europe every 1-2 years, always effortlessly picking right back up where we left off the last time.
As I sit in the kitchen of my former Singapore roommate’s new flat in London, we share a ready-made frozen meal fresh out the oven while laughing about silly dramas and sighing about bittersweet heartbreaks that have changed both of our lives in the year since we last saw each other.
Making close friends in other countries and subsequently keeping in contact with those friends abroad is a combination of luck and dedication. Being able to have a sleepover at a dear friend’s cozy apartment in a foreign country instead of checking into a sterile hotel is one of those simple pleasures where the priceless sentimental value far outweighs any sort of financial cost savings.
🗓️ Sunday, August 11
📍Budapest, Hungary
There’s a certain beauty and peace in re-visiting cities you’ve already been to. The “must see” items have already been checked off so you’re free from the tourist pressures of trying to maximize your time in a new place. On a second or third visit, you’re more likely to stroll around somewhat familiar streets without an agenda, reactivate your taste buds in favorite restaurants with regional cuisines you’ve yearned for, and just enjoy existing in that particular city — blending in with the casual behavior of locals moreso than the frenetic energy of a tourist.
Revisiting Budapest and Vienna for the second time after seven years had passed left me surprised by how some distinct elements stuck in my memory while others faded. I vividly recall the shocking Museum of Terror and the overbearing Soviet statue park in Budapest, but not the iconic Parliament building. I can recall specific details of a playful dining in the dark experience (like struggling to aim a spoon into my mouth), but hardly a single morsel of other Hungarian meals. The longevity of a memory seems correlated with how much it heightens your emotions.
On these subsequent visits, I’ve also come with brand new friends who paint the city a different hue than in my existing memories. Every memorable moment, whether in a new place or in a revisited place, deepens my sense of fondness and ease in places that feel increasingly familiar.
🗓️ Saturday, August 17
📍London, England
Sitting on the asphalt outside Wembley stadium, I’m surrounded by hundreds of girls with glitter on their cheeks, friendship bracelets stacked up their wrists, and cowboy boots accompanying a thematic outfit inspired by song lyrics from one of the most prolific songwriters of our generation. If you haven’t guessed, I’m in the queue to secure a front row spot at Taylor Swift’s final shows of the European leg of The Eras Tour.
“Culture” is so often associated with a particular country, but I’m in a different type of cultural immersion. People who may not share a common nationality, or even the same native tongue, do share something that transcends borders: a desire to sing well-loved lyrics in a crowd.
In just the past week, I’ve experienced how this transcendent fan culture can bring together hundreds of thousands of people from around the world for events like Sziget festival in Budapest, a cancelled Taylor Swift concert turned city-wide acapella karaoke night through the streets of Vienna, and now back-to-back concerts for the world’s biggest pop star in London’s most iconic music venue.
Tonight, the stadium is full of not just British fans but overwhelmingly Americans and fans of other European and Asian nationalities who traveled specifically for the concert — an ephemeral evening that if missed, would never have the chance to be re-experienced.
It’s always easy to break the ice with a stranger when you have something in common that you’re passionate about — and in my case, a decade of being a diehard fan of Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, and generally pop music is the common ground that has sparked friendships with fellow fans who I’ve now visited in their hometowns across England, the Netherlands, Spain, Slovakia, and Singapore.
After an evening of screaming and singing alongside each other at Wembley, I’ve made new friends whose homes are spread across half a dozen cities. I’m eager to keep in touch with these people of my similar fan cultural background — always able to draw upon our shared memory of being a mere few feet away from Taylor Swift for one magical night as a way to rekindle our friendship for years to come.
🗓️ Thursday, August 22
📍Chamonix, France
I’m blissfully laying under the sun in a grassy field, gazing up at the snow-capped summit of Mont Blanc in the French alps. I spent the past few days visiting a friend who I admire dearly for courageously living a fully nomadic, alternative lifestyle — which at the moment, finds us camping out of her van in the town of Chamonix, known as the adventure capital of Europe. For four days, we hike, cold plunge, paraglide, picnic, and share a zest for living life off the beaten path.
In a few days, I’ll be in Paris with another friend I deeply admire — who perhaps half-jokingly asked a few months ago if I might be able to meet up during her big birthday trip from San Diego to Paris.
My original plan to spend 3 weeks exploring the Balkans region of Eastern Europe fell through due to my desire to avoid a heat wave and my burgeoning craving for precious time with close friends amidst realizing l’ll spend the majority of the next year solo traveling. So, I ended up rearranging my whole schedule to fit in celebrating one of my favorite people on her golden birthday in the same city where I actually also spent my golden birthday (turning 14 on July 14th aka Bastille Day!).
Friends who make it abundantly clear that they appreciate your friendship and consistent dedication to showing up for them are the types of friends I’m choosing to focus on, moving away from people who only hang around out of convenience. On this little yearlong journey around the world of mine, intentionality is key to keeping in touch with the people I love most, which also means making sure my effort is only spent on those who express a reciprocal level of friendship and care.
🗓️ Friday, September 6
📍 Vilnius, Lithuania
I sit in a coffee shop in Eastern Europe that could very well be aesthetically confused for a trendy coffee shop in Williamsburg, New York. Skimming through my notes from the past week of eye-opening walking tours and museums, I feel lucky to now have so much firsthand knowledge about the oppressive Soviet era’s impact on the countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
No one in the world appreciates freedom more than those who have once experienced deprivation of freedom, like those who live in or who escaped from counties formerly occupied by the USSR. My time in the Baltics granted me deep compassion for border struggles and independence movements around the world, as well as a renewed sense of appreciation for the freedoms I’ve taken for granted most of my life being born and raised in the United States.
And, having spent the last week completely solo traveling for the first time in a while — I similarly have a renewed appreciation for my own independence, self-reliance, and ability to create my own happiness wherever I may be by tuning into my intuition and giving my soul what it needs.
🗓️ Sunday, September 9
📍Helsinki, Finland
It’s one of those days in transit — where getting to the airport, waiting at the airport, being on the flight, waiting on the layover, sitting on the flight again, and transiting from airport to city center takes up the entirety of the day.
I sit here in limbo, in a place between places. My mind wanders, as if to catch up with how much my body has wandered the past five weeks.
With nothing better to do, I open up my own Instagram profile and watch every single story highlight starting from 2017. I can’t help but smile while watching a visual recap of all the places I’ve been since I started independent traveling — to 89 countries and territories so far, to be exact!
Tears of gratitude moisten the corners of my eyes as I realize how many experiences that were once just a theoretical bucket list item are now part of the timeline of my life. And I didn’t do it alone — the smiling faces of my friends and travel partners throughout the years reminds me of how many dozens if not hundreds of different people have added their own perspective and color to my kaleidoscope of travel experiences.
Every choice and sacrifice I’ve made in my life to prioritize travel above all else feels undoubtedly worth it — nothing is more valuable than these memories, friendships, experiences, lessons, and evolutions of myself that have been facilitated by the highs and lows of my never-ending adventure around the world the past 7 years.
More than just posting pictures to show the world what I’m doing, I look back at my photos for my own sake to activate a part of my brain that connects a web of memories, laughs, mishaps, sound bytes, tastes, and sensations from that particular time period. I love digitally documenting my life for myself to look back on, and I’m glad that I get to share this documentation with you all too.
Thanks for being here and following along — click the ❤️ button below to let me know you’ve read the whole thing!
And up next… an epic sailing expedition in Greenland, #90 on my list of visited countries and territories 🇬🇱🎉
if u end up in lisbon anytime before october 2nd lmk :)