After seeing Bosnia, I thought that the rest of the Balkans would be similar to it—a wilder and more foreign version of the Europe I’d seen before. We were solidly in the land of mildly-sketchy public transportation, cash-only establishments…
War Scars, Sarajevo, and Falling in Love with Bosnia and Herzegovina
When I was in elementary school, I read a children’s chapter book about Scott O’Grady, a US fighter pilot who was shot down in Bosnia in 1995 over enemy territory and survived it. I must have read it just a…
Bad First Impressions and the Impossible Complication of Serbia
The entire idea for this trip started several years ago with a plan to backpack the Balkans. If you don’t know much about the geography of this region (and why would you if you don’t spend your spare time playing…
Budapest and Solo Travel vs. Traveling with a Partner
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…
Ukraine, Kosovo, and the Disappointment of Changing Itineraries
My original itinerary looked quite different when I began crafting it 3 years ago. It’s shrunk, expanded, shifted, and is still being altered by the day. But there were some alterations that were hard to let go of. In all…
Beautiful Krakow and the Lessons of Auschwitz
It didn’t make logical sense to go to Krakow. Michael was meeting me just two days later in Budapest, and I was conveniently a two-hour train ride from there. The route to Krakow was particularly inconvenient and out of the…
