Article #1

”Not all those who wander are lost” – J. R. R. Tolkien

— Oscar Wilde.

Paris and Italy had always been fascinating to me. I would always see it in movies when I was younger. One particular movie that made me fall in love with Paris was Midnight in Paris by Woody Allen. The mix of modernism and nostalgia added a surreal feeling to the beautiful city that was unknown to me. It felt magical and dreamy. It was always on my bucket list to visit Paris. Once I graduated I decided that it was my chance to do what I didn’t think I could do so soon, which was to travel to Europe. I didn’t know too much about Europe, as I’ve only lived in Asia and America. Europe was a complete foreign land to me. I asked some friends if they would be interested in joining me on this trip, but nobody wanted to go for such a long period of time. So I decided if I was going to go, I would have to go alone. This didn’t bother me, this actually gave me more freedom to choose the cities and activities that I wanted to do. My first step was to make a list of all the cities that I’ve always wanted to visit in Europe. If I’m going to Europe, I might as well go to as much as I can! Immediately I knew I wanted to go to Paris, Venice, Florence, Amsterdam, Berlin, Vienna, Barcelona and anywhere in Switzerland. So I searched up the map of Western Europe and mapped out the best possible route I could take. For this trip, I didn’t have a big budget. I knew I had to spend as little as possible. I didn’t mind not having a big budget, all I wanted to do was travel. I did a lot of research and found out the best and cheapest way to travel from country to country was with Flixbus. I could go to 5 different places for around 100 Euros (4,000 baht), which is an amazing deal. I contacted every friend I knew that lived in Europe and asked if I could stay with them. My childhood friend from Phuket was living in Switzerland and offered me to stay at her place and to travel with me around Switzerland and Germany. I saved a lot of money by sleeping on the bus while traveling for long durations to a different country and staying in the cheapest hostels for around 25 euros per night. I made a 40 day schedule for myself and then bought the plane tickets. I thought …”This is actually happening!!!”