Howdy all! Well, time for another little reflective blog, reflecting on the first time I ever travelled solo, by myself. This really is the (brief… I hope!) story of how travelling became a huge part of my life. A post more about the lead up rather than the actual trip.

If you’ve closely followed my blog over the years, you may know that my first backpacking trip was back in 1999, my first solo trip, where I went around the world visiting over 20 countries in a 7-month period. It was an exciting, eye-opening and life changing experience, one I returned home from swearing I would never return to some of the places I’d been (spoiler alert, I totally did return to them, the main one being India, which I have returned to FOUR times since then). But the thing is, this round the world adventure started off as a very different dream.

Like a lot of people not just in Australia but all around the world I had a dream to visit one country – the USA. Yes, it may sound surprising but this was the goal. I left school with this dream and started an account back in 1996 or 1995 saving towards this goal. But it wasn’t until late 1997 or 1998 I turned my thoughts to achieving it. By this time I had a part time job and was saving as much as I could per week, and with little thought to going anywhere but America (perhaps the UK was also on my mind) I went to Flight Centre where I met a travel agent and we started chatting.

I’m not sure how it turned into such an outrageous trip. Honestly! I think I probably asked how to go about getting a ticket so that I could visit both countries, and he suggested a ‘round the world ticket’. I was such a novice, I had never heard of such a thing. He also probably asked me if there was anywhere else I would like to visit.

Star Alliance, I think, was somewhat new at the time and they offered what were incredible airfares. And just think – only paper tickets back then, not issued through email or anything, all the flights were in this little ticket book with duplicate copies. VERY cool. I would go home and think about it, ask for suggestions, think about what places I would really like to visit. I had India and Thailand recommended to me. I don’t know why – I had never thought of either as a travel destination, but then I was only discovering travel properly as an adult for the first time.

Russia, Egypt, Romania and Iceland came on the radar, in the end I wouldn’t go to Romania (this time), also I had family and family friends in Germany and France, and it seemed like the Eurail Pass Western Europe tour was a great idea too. I would go back with new ideas and my travel agent would plug them into the system. In the end the route was –

Melbourne – Bangkok – Delhi – Copenhagen – St Petersburg (train to) Moscow – Alexandria (explore Egypt) Cairo – Munich (Stay with family and explore Italy, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Czech Republic by train) – London – Reykjavik – Stockholm (explore Sweden & Norway) – New York City – Toronto – Los Angeles – Melbourne.

The original route booked was slightly different, from memory I had Chicago and Vancouver in there, but it was the end of the trip and I amended it whilst in New York as I was, well, pretty done by this point of the travel.

This ticket was somewhere in the vicinity of $3300 AUD. Insane value. Airlines used – Thai Airways, SAS, Lufthansa, United and Air Canada. So, all good airlines. Yes, apart from a trip at 3yo and 11yo with my parents, this was my first proper trip.

And the realities of travelling? Well, they hit straight away in Thailand – I was bleeding money! I realised I had packed way too much and gave away quite a few clothes. And the heavy Lonely Planet Guides – there was only one way to solve that issue. I would jettison the book once it became unnecessary to carry it. So I left or gave away the huge books as left Thailand, India especially as they were super big books. A little sadly I should as they were great books.

Whilst travelling I kept a diary. At first I was lazy to say the least about it. Until in India I met someone else working on a diary putting tickets for trains, planes and sights inside it and other things as they went along. This inspired me to do the same. I honestly thought the diary was going to be something I dropped because I would get to two plus weeks behind. Then I wasn’t writing that much. But once I got into it, well, I got better. Although throughout this trip it often got severely behind.

To this day I still do a diary – which is also a scrapbook of memories too. I write long entries, so long I am trying to make myself write less because I can write four or more A4 pages on a single day depending on the day. I put in whatever I can. I still hunt postcards because they can easily illustrate the places I visit, but they are becoming scarcer. As are proper tickets, you can be lucky to get a receipt style tickets these days, and in China at times my face was my ticket. Stamps, notes, coins, boarding passes, even back when I drank (a little) beer, I would sometimes remove the label of a local beer to put in the diary.

My second stop on that trip was India and it hit me like a cricket ball in the face. Out of four weeks there I spent 3.5 running to the loo if you know what I mean. Thailand also assaulted my stomach a bit. I never had to haggle before, I never was in an environment where I had loads of hassle to buy something, to take a tour, or to take a camel. I learnt how I could best cope with these kinds of things – because coping mechanisms are often different from person to person. What works for me – laughing it off, being nice but saying no, might not work for you. Or, for me it depends on my mood on the day. Sometimes I find all I can do is ignore. I always feel bad because I feel everyone has the right to be acknowledged. But sometimes I’m not in the state of mind for whatever reason to take it with humour – for example, I’ve had no sleep or I’m sick.

I returned home late September 1999 and another lesson was learnt, that of coming back to reality. This was hard, and thankfully I have never found it as hard as that first time. But also I was ready to commit myself in a direction in life that has ultimately led me to working in disability – I decided to undertake a Bachelor of Social Work which I started in 2001.

And here I am today! Still looking back and looking forward to travel. Either way – May the Journey Never End!