One of the first conversations I remember having with Michael when we met early in the pandemic was when I told him I had a dream of doing some long-term solo travel as soon as I could. And while I did not say, “I’m leaving and you’re not invited, sucker!,” I do remember talking about how much I loved solo travel and how I did not think I’d want to entirely give it up once I was in a relationship. And this, my friends, is perhaps NOT a thing to tell someone on a first or second date. But I remember it feeling important to share right away. I rationalized that if I sprung that on a person after we were dating, the message they might incorrectly interpret could be, “I don’t want to travel with YOU” whereas if I shared this while he was still a stranger, the message wasn’t personal and could therefore not feel offensive later. I told him about how empowering and freeing solo travel was to me, how much it taught me and how it made me feel brave and strong, and I told him about my long-held dream of this particular backpacking trip.
The truth was, I didn’t actually know if I preferred solo travel to traveling with someone else, romantic or not, because other than a couple of small trips with friends and some family vacations, I’d never traveled with someone before. From the time I left for college, almost all of the travel I did was alone. It wasn’t a sad thing or something I wished were different at all—it’s more that it didn’t occur to me to NOT go alone. I’m the type of introvert who would far prefer to be alone than in the company of someone I’m not 100% comfortable with for an extended period, and there isn’t a long list of people I feel that comfortable with. The idea of finding someone random to travel with just for the sake of having company gives me social anxiety to even think about. Between the ages of 18 and 26, I moved to 4 different cities without knowing one soul. I got used to it and even liked the anonymity. I’m far braver and more social when I don’t know anyone than when I have someone with me to lean on as a social crutch.
I imagine this could have been off-putting news for Michael to hear on a first or second date, but he didn’t run away. And at that point so early in the pandemic, international travel seemed far away anyway. The two of us ended up traveling together for the first time on a road trip to the Smoky Mountains and the Carolinas that fall, and it was Black Friday of that year that I woke him up before the sun rose and told him, “Hey, Travel Talk is having a 70% off sale. Do you want to go to Turkey with me??” In his half-awake state, he said sure.
Michael is a person who does not love international travel. It’s not that he dislikes it so much as that he loves hanging out with his friends more. Michael is even more aggressively extroverted than I am introverted. He has a seemingly endless pool of friends who he somehow actively sees and stays connected with. While I have a group of maybe 4 or 5 people I consider my closest friends, Michael has like 40. Where I think the epitome of excitement and joy is, say, writing in a treehouse in the fall foliage of Transylvania or watching the sunrise from a Greek Island, for Michael it’s having a crawfish boil and inviting every person he knows. Travel is fine for him, but not invigorating. At the point at which I started actively planning my trip, we had talked about it enough to know that we were both on the same page. I DID still want the majority of my trip to be the solo trip I’d spent a decade imagining, and Michael was nothing but supportive about it. And while we both suspected he would NOT like the kind of trip I was planning, there was also no way I’d flee for 5 months with a shrug and a wave.
We had a lot of conversations about how to navigate it, what would make us both happy, and what would logistically make sense. Turkey seemed like a great segment for him to join me for because that was the only portion of the trip that would be with a group tour. He’d get to meet people and socialize all he wanted. We ended up having to postpone the Turkey tour for a year, and in the interim, I devised an itinerary around the tour so that it would be right in the middle of my trip. We talked about where he might like to visit in addition to Turkey (“I don’t know, wherever, I’m just coming to see you!”) and where he didn’t want to visit because he’d been before (London, Paris, Rome, Prague). We decided he’d join me for a month at the mid-way point of my trip, and I encouraged him to do something that he’d always wanted to do (but that I wouldn’t like) for the rest of the time I was away. We both quit our jobs to make this possible, and a few days before I was supposed to fly to Europe, Michael headed off on a road trip around the perimeter of the US where he stayed with a million old friends (actually I just counted… I think he saw over 30 friends/family members. How can a person have so many friends???), and I… chickened out and didn’t get on my flight to Europe. Instead, I hid in my parents’ house and took a lot of baths for a few weeks (please see my blog post from July for further information about this less-than-captivating time). Once I finally made it to Europe, Michael was nearly done with his road trip, and we decided on a change of plans—he’d come two weeks earlier to meet me.
I think there were people who wondered if it was a red flag that I was going on the trip alone, even though Michael would join me for 6 weeks of the 5 months. But after all the months and months of talking about it and planning, I felt like he really understood why it was important to me that it still be a largely solo journey and how that did NOT mean that I didn’t want his company or that I wouldn’t miss him. I wish we could normalize continuing to do the solo hobbies you love most after starting a relationship and that doing so isn’t a form of neglect. I’ve met lots of people on this trip who have come on trips and left significant others and spouses at home not because there’s any issue but just because… they wanted to come on a trip. And why shouldn’t they? Why shouldn’t we embrace the things that maintain our independence AS WELL AS the things that connect us?
And so, in the middle of August, Michael flew to Budapest to join me. And honestly, I had some concerns beforehand. What if Michael wasn’t excited about the things that brought me the most joy? What if he realized he hated international travel? What if we annoyed each other and I had to push him off a cliff?
Traveling with someone is a big adjustment after traveling solo for a long time. Compromise isn’t something you’ve had to consider in a while, and you have to remind yourself of it. Our energy levels were quite different. Which is to say that my energy level is 90% higher while I’m traveling than when I’m at home and Michael’s is the same as when he’s home. Most mornings involved me hitting Michael repeatedly on the head telling him to wake up because we have to seize the day and that he’s not day-seizing. Michael walks twice as fast as me, but I was the one who knew where we were going, so he’d have to loop around to pass me up again. I was more willing to splurge on things like a tasty meal or an exciting activity, and Michael was more willing to just eat a loaf of plain bread for lunch. I explained to him that he was never to comment on the amount of money I was willing to spend on a baked treat (and he didn’t!), and I wrote in silence while he went on long runs.
But as we figured these things out, we also found a travel rhythm that worked well for us, and I realized there were a lot of things that were much easier with a travel partner. Things like always having to worry about the safety of walking around new cities after dark became non-issues when he was with me. I hadn’t even realized how much safety was an underlying thought in the back of my mind until he joined me. There were obvious pros that I expected like splitting accommodation costs so we could stay in nicer places and private rooms, but there were also things you don’t even think about like taking turns using the bathroom so you can watch each other’s luggage and like sharing phone data and helping each other with translation apps and navigation. And, of course, having each other’s company after we’d both spent a month and a half traveling separately felt like such a rare and special gift.
Budapest was a great starting point for us. It’s modern and western enough that we didn’t feel out of our comfort zones—we got to ease in before heading to the Wild West that is the Balkans. Budapest was one of the most expensive cities Michael visited, so everything felt excitingly cheap by comparison afterward. The history is rich in Budapest. Michael got to take his first-ever free-walking tour. The food was delicious. We stayed in the Lavender Circus Hostel Apartments which were out of my price range when I was alone but which were quite affordable for the both of us. Lavender Circus has these fanciful lofts that make you feel like you were in a high-class, vintage version of Alice in Wonderland, but in a treehouse. I adored this place. And then after a couple days of figuring out how to travel as a pair there, we headed into the great unknown—the Balkans.
Things not to miss in Budapest:
Go swim at the Szechenyi thermal baths.
A free walking tour to learn about the history AND the current political situation. The political situation here is complicated. They have a corrupt leader who the more rural parts of the country support but that most in the city don’t. As horrifying as their leader is, the people here don’t seem afraid to voice their opinions about it. I like their boldness.
Climb to the top of St. Stephen’s Basilica for an excellent view.
The shoe monument on the river is very powerful. It’s in honor of a group of Jews who were drowned in the river during WWII by the Arrow Cross (or Hungarian Nazis). The Hungarian government has recently tried to re-write their history to make it seem as though the Nazis came from Germany and did these unspeakable things to the Hungarian people. The Hungarian people won’t stand for that lie. They stand by the fact that it was a civil war, and that it was other Hungarians who did this to their own people. They want to make sure that history isn’t rewritten to cover this up. I’m telling you, I really like their sprit.
Go to Gelarto Rosa which makes gelato in the shapes of roses!
Try goulash. I always associated the word goulash with something tasteless that people ate in Russian gulags. But it’s actually a very delicious and slow-cooked stew of beef and potatoes and veggies
Thanks. I traveled with you as I read the post, and thought, “maybe I should visit that part of Europe.” It’s also good to read that the Michael I know is the Michael you know.