80 days in Europe with a 7kg backpack:
~ 2 weeks climbing around Switzerland with my dad
~ A 6-day trek in Merano, Italy and hiking in the Dolomites
~ Volunteering as a teacher in Poland
~ Berlin, Amsterdam, Ireland, and Chicago

For me, travel is mostly about the people I meet. Sure, I love epic nature, great food, and sketching in museums – but meeting people is what really expands my worldview. It changes my ideas about what is possible in life. 

My (second) 80 day backpacking Europe trip has come to a close. After countless flights, trains, couches, hostels, and hotels, I’m so grateful to be home. Next time I might cap my trip at 60 days since I felt homesick for the last 20, missing everyday conveniences like having a kitchen, laundry machine, and not having to pack my 15 lb bag every few days filled with my dirty clothes.

Although I trudge through many moments of loneliness and solitude, I enjoy traveling alone. I saved money on accommodation by using couchsurfing, traveling for part of the trip with my dad, and visiting several friends (thanks Anne Claude, Klaus, Emer, and Natalie!)

Part 1: Road Trip with Dad in Switzerland

I have to thank my dad for passing on to me his sense of adventure – this was our 7th trip together! We’ve also trekked in Nepal, done the 4-day W trek in Patagonia, hiked the AV1 for 8 days in Italy, and climbed many via ferratas in France, Switzerland, and Italy.

We rode the Santa Barbara Airbus to LAX, flew to Vienna, Austria, took a train to Salzburg – Mozart’s birthplace – and, (twenty hours later), we taxied to our AirBnB. Paying homage to my great uncle Oscar Hammerstein (my great grandma’s sister married him) we opted for the Sound of Music tour the next day – I loved visiting scenes from the movie and singing on the bus, especially “Doe a Deer” (my nephew’s favorite!) and “The Lonely Goatherd” (yodelee!)

Next, we did my dads favorite annual activity: renting a car to drive around Switzerland. His specialties are via ferratas (protected climbing routes – we have our own harnesses!) and hot spring towns. I can recommend Bad Ischl – with dozens of pools of different temperatures and a warm lazy river.

We did an awesome via for the second time next to the Eiger! Starting with a hour long hike from Kleine Sheidigg (where my dad worked at the fancy Bellevue hotel for a winter season when he was 22!) to the start of the via, you make your way up a steep trail, part of it with ladder-like rungs in the cliff, winding up and up until finally you are on the top of a tall hill next to the Eiger – I borrowed someone’s binoculars to squint at the professional climbers ascending its face! At the top of the via I found myself with several other climbers. (I tried to unsuccessfully flirt with the single ones.) The descent is rocky and steep, and has ropes to lower yourself backwards down rocky outcrops.

In Leukerbad, Switzerland, we returned to our favorite hotel owned by friendly Chinese immigrants who remembered us from previous visits. They used to run a school in China but disagreed with the national politics and decided to emigrate to Switzerland. Their daughter is a champion skier! In Leukerbad, we took the gondola up the 2322m tall mountain and did the sporty via ferrata which includes some strange challenges like climbing across dangling logs. The next day I hiked Gemmi Pass (2.1 mi / 3074.1 ft gain) by myself – some insanely fit elderly Swiss grandparents passed me – then took the gondola down. My dad was having some knee issues so he went to the thermal baths instead.

My favorite via ferrata is in Kandersteg because it has a huge zipline across a waterfall. We climbed with our friend Anne Claude who used to Au Pair for my aunt Jeni Reiko in Santa Barbara 20 years ago. At this point I split up from my dad – ciao, papa! –  took a train to her house, and spent a few days hiking, biking, and swimming in the lake around Zug.

Next, I took a train and bus to spend a solo day visiting a beautiful, but freezing, river swimming spot in Switzerland called Bellinzona. I spent the night at a cheap hotel room with a single bed and the next day took a train to visit my friend Klaus. I met Klaus 4 years ago after he fixed a flat tire in my dads rental car while driving around the Dolomites. He’s a few years older than me, also loves via ferratas, and has a car – what a great friend!

Part 2: Northern Italy with Klaus

Here are some highlights from my 14 days visiting Klaus. He also visited me in California a few years ago – we drove from Santa Barbara to the Grand Canyon and hiked to the bottom!

6 day hike in Merano, Italy

This was the best part of the whole trip. You hike for 5 to 12 miles per day, sleep in fancy hotels and rustic cabins, with hot showers and delicious Italian food every night. We reconvened with my dad and his friend Mark, and the four of us made a great hiking team. Thanks a lot to Klaus for booking all of our hotels and mountain huts in advance! It was not crowded or expensive (compared to Switzerland!) – each night was between $40-60 per person, sometimes including dinner and breakfast! You carry a light backpack with just one change of clothes (so you have hiking clothes and sleeping clothes) a water bottle, and raincoat. It rained just one of the six days. I celebrated my 33rd birthday at one of the huts, and everybody sang me happy birthday in German!

7 Days in San Vigilio

Klaus lives in a house he built with his brother on the side of a mountain in a tiny town called San Vigilio, population of 1400. He speaks English, German, Italian, and Ladin, a language that only 30,000 people speak. We spent a day recovering from our hike, and then he toured me all around the Dolomites.

Highlights were:

• An easy but long via ferrata in Tre Cime that is more hiking than climbing, with incredible views of the pointy surrounding mountains.
• A hike to Lago Sorapis – the worn-down, slippery trail is next to a cliff and inundated with visitors, but well worth it for the bright turquoise mirror lake!
• A road trip to visit Grossglockner mountain including a hike in the mining tunnels and epic mountain views (but I got a little carsick on the winding roads)
• I took a Vespa driving lesson and was able to drive a 1955 BJ Vespa in Klaus’s driveway and backyard
• A 6-hour day hike to the Piz da Peres peak near his house

Klaus is also a fantastic cook and made pizza from scratch, and his mom made us several traditional Tyrolean meals including ravioli. We had dinner with his friends at the eccentric Hotel Al Plan. Thanks to the friendly owners Mauricio and for another wonderful visit!

Part 3: Poland

Klaus dropped me off at a train station in San Lorenzo, and I had to transfer 3 times to get to Bergamo where I had booked a suspiciously cheap hotel near the train station. There were drug dealers outside the door when I first met the organizer, a very tattooed and pierced young woman who advised me to turn left instead of right at the corner to avoid them. I walked about 5k to the old town (in the daylight!) and really enjoyed the cobblestone streets and pedestrian friendly city – I try to hit 10,000 steps per day (and often double this or more!) while traveling since I am not visiting a gym or playing ultimate frisbee which is my normal routine. By this point on my trip I had also started doing 50 push ups and a morning mobility/yoga routine most days not to lose my fitness.

From Bergamo I flew to Krakow where I had booked a hostel for a few nights. (I could have taken the train, I know sometimes I make choices that are bad for the environment – but it’s part of traveling, and I buy the carbon offsets… At least I’m mostly vegan.) Rooms at Greg and Tom’s hostel are mediocre and you have to share a bathroom with 12 people but the cons are heavily outweighed by the pros – free buffet dinners every night! A perfect way to meet other travelers!

Krakow has a beautiful old town with cobblestone streets and here is where I discovered my passion for doing walking tours in Spanish – after my 3 years in Spain and 1 year in Colombia I’m afraid I’ll lose my Spanish if I don’t use it! On the walking tour, I made a Mexican friend Arantxa, a solo traveler high school science teacher touring all over Europe. Nos vemos en México, amiga!

I also visited Auschwitz, a powerful and depressing place, but a must- visit just two hours from Krakow by bus.

After 3 nights in the uncomfortable but also social and fun hostel full of 20 year olds (am I too old for this?) I rewarded myself with 1 night in a fancy hotel – 70 euros per night – before showing up at the train station the next day to meet the other volunteers for the Angloville program. I heard about this volunteer program in Poland while teaching English in Spain, and signed up for a week-long stint teaching adults in exchange for free food and accommodation.

A funny travel moment: trying to cross a stream of thousands of runners in a 5k circling the old town (I was inside!) in order to get to the train station in time! I just joined the race and jogged across!

The hotel was in Bacheladowka, a mountainous region of Poland surrounded by green hills. During the day, volunteers converse one-on-one with Polish adults for about 5-6 hours with free time in between sessions to hike, use the pool, sauna, and hot tub, and I even got a massage one evening. Some of the conversations we had while walking outside, and one day we were all blessed with fresh snow! We also took a day trip to the Zakopane mountains. Any native English speaker is eligible to volunteer. Volunteers were in between the ages of 20 and 70 – check out Angloville.com!

Back in Krakow I spent another night at my favorite hotel near the train station, and got ready for the next leg of my journey…

Part 4: City Slicking

I flew from Krakow to Berlin – although in retrospect I wish I had taken the train to be more environmentally conscious- and took a bus to the train station to meet 2 Japanese friends who I had met while teaching English in Japan in 2014! Maki and Kaho now live in Dusseldorf, Germany. We shared a tiny airbnb and cooked okonomiyaki – o sashi buri (nostalgic moment!) Spending 3 days straight with them helped me brush up on my Japanese – sukoshi nihongo hanasemasu!

After the airbnb, I took the easy and wonderful Berlin public transportation (buses, trains, trams, bikes – you name it) to meet my new German couchsurfing host Christian. His apartment is smack-dab in the middle of Museum Island where the best museums in Berlin are located. Now that I have 53 references on couchsurfing.com, people trust me and invite me to their homes – I make sure to check that they have plenty of references before I visit! Christian showed me the city by bike (he used to work for a bike tour company!) and worked from 1pm to 11pm at a Tesla Factory, so during this time I visited museums, took another Spanish walking tour, and just spent some time relaxing and doing nothing in his apartment – I definitely felt tired and needed some down-time.

While carrying my (slightly heavier) 17 pound backpack I biked to the train station at 6am using the public bikes to catch the 10 hour train ride to Amsterdam, where I met my parents! They had just done a river boat cruise from Basel, Switzerland to Amsterdam, Holland. Instead of crashing in their hotel room (which I did the last few nights!) I stayed with a great couchsurfing host Sandor who had an inflatable mattress in a guest room (score!). He gave me a walking tour all around the canals and to the top floor of a 5-story local library with a great view of the city. I cooked dinner for him both nights – couchsurfing is not just mooching! I always try to spend time with my hosts, make meals for them, and give them a postcard from Santa Barbara with a nice thank you note when I leave. And clean up after myself, of course!!!

My highlights of Amsterdam were the museums – the Rijksmuseum with Vermeer’s “The Milkmaid” and the Van Gogh Museum – both of which I got to visit with my mom and dad! My lowlight of Amsterdam was almost getting hit by a bicycle while crossing the street. We also took a day trip by train to visit Harlaam, a quaint Dutch village with an amazing central cathedral and windmill museum.

After saying goodbye to my parents in Amsterdam, I was feeling really sad and lonely and wanted to see some familiar faces again. I flew to Innsbruck, Austria to spend a few days hiking and exploring alone until Klaus met me for the weekend. We hiked to the top of Gipfelbuch Gleirschspitze which is 2317m tall! Gondolas and funiculars get you very high up the mountain so it was only a 45 minute hike to get there from the top of all the public transport.

Then I took a train to Munich where I reunited with my high school friend Tessa Jacobs, a Californian who lives in Germany where she is raising her baby girl Artemis! The number of benefits she receives is incredible – she has a year long maternity leave that paid her full salary for the first 3 months and 60% for the rest of the year. She works for a university and is also an amazing artist. Walking around the city with her while she carried her adorable 6-month-old in a front pack, showing me her favorite cafes, stopping to change the diapers in pharmacies that offered free diapers and wipes, made me think that if I ever want kids, Germany would be a smart place to raise them. By contrast, some of my friends in the USA only got 6 weeks paid maternity leave! Horrendous!

Lastly, I finished off my Europe trip visiting my dear friend Emer in Dublin, Ireland. We met while teaching English in Japan in 2015, and she visited me in Santa Barbara last summer! Emer is sort of my Irish doppelganger, a super cheerful and active girl who is captain of a women’s ultimate frisbee team and also an elementary school teacher. Despite insane winds and wet weather she forced me to hike up several mountains, but we were rewarded with views of rainbows (and leprechauns!) We stayed a few days in Dublin and took a little road trip out to Galway and Clifden, and I tried to play my new Irish whistle with an Irish band at a bar downstairs from our Airbnb. I also joined 2 frisbee practices – thanks so much Emer! 

My final friend to stave off the loneliness of solo travel (and solo life!!) was Natalie in Chicago! We’ve known each other since junior high school, so staying with her in her posh Chicago apartment was comfortable and fun. I’m so proud of Natalie, who has a PhD in botany and was just hired as a professor at the Botanic Gardens!! You go girl! Chicago has world-renowned museums and we visited an entirely vegan grocery store!

Part 5: Take Away

Learning a new language is like growing a new soul, said someone at some point to me along my journey… and since I learned bits of German, Italian, and French on this trip, and also had a lot of opportunities to speak Spanish, I can feel my soul growing and expanding every time I travel.

I met so many fascinating and inspiring people along my journey. The American perspective is only one of many options that we have to live our lives. Especially as someone with privilege and choice in where and how to live, meeting these people gives me ideas of how to live in a more sustainable, interesting, and fun way.

Mother-daughter bikepackers:
At a public park in Innsbruck I saw some women pushing their heavily-loaded bikes filled with camping supplies – so of course I had to introduce myself to them. Turns out they are a mother and daughter team biking from Berlin to Spain over the course of 2 years and are just a few months in. 12-year-old Lotte is homeschooled during this time and doing all kinds of projects about sustainability, and draws and reads on her ipad. She is getting an amazing education! You can follow their journey on their instagram @giantleaplife.

Moving to Europe for social services:
In Munich, my couchsurfing host Mayur told me about why he decided to move to Europe at the age of 36 after 10 years in Dubai. His idea was that European social services are the best in the world – so he will be well taken care of as he gets older. I had great conversations with him and would love to reconnect if I ever visit Munich again – thank you so much!

Living somewhere where drivers licenses are unnecessary:
There are many cities in Europe (and some in the USA) where cars are unnecessary – 2 of my 40-year-old couchsurfing hosts, in Berlin and Amsterdam, didn’t have drivers licenses! Why are we so reliant on cars in the USA? Can we please invest in public transportation and consider people above cars?

Backpacking and traveling are fun, but I also miss being in the classroom. I want to continue my dream of living and teaching in other countries. I have started job hunting for a new international school, and hopefully in the fall of 2024 I will have a new class full of bright, inquisitive, creative kids who will have a lot to teach me, too!