Before I leave this blog on its own, there is one more entry I’d like to write. A sort of conclusion. I’ve been thinking about it for a while but I haven’t come up with anything smart to say. So, let’s just make it a set of answers to a set of questions about the trip people often ask me (or I ask myself).
Q: Was the trip worth it?
A: Absolutely.
Q: Wasn’t a year too long? Weren’t you sick of
traveling by the end?
A: No. At the beginning I was wondering if a year
wouldn’t be too long, but I must admit I still didn’t reach my limit of too
long when it comes to traveling. On the contrary, it was strange to come back
home even though I was so happy to see my boyfriend, Czech friends and family
again. Vojta even kept traveling on his own for some time after our trip.
Q: How much did it cost?
A: We spent more money before the trip than during our
life on the road. These are the most expensive things we paid for before the
trip:
- Vaccination (CZK 10 500, that’s about 430 EUR). In addition to the
“basic” vaccines against things such as tetanus, I was vaccinated against
meningitis, hepatitis, rabies, typhoid fever, and the tick-borne encephalitis.
- Health insurance (CZK 9300 / EUR 400). We bought it from a company called True Traveller. We also suspended the compulsory government insurance that every person must pay in Czechia, so we had no additional insurance costs. We have never used the insurance though.
- My sleeping bag (CZK 9200 / EUR 400). The brand is Sir Joseph and I can (still) easily sleep in it in negative 15°C.
- My tablet (CZK 9000 – 370 EUR).
The additional stuff such as medicines, GPS messenger, additional passports (in Czechia you’re allowed to have more than one Czech passport in case you lose one), clothes and camping gear we didn’t have already cost me additional CZK 20 500 (EUR 840).
So, in total, we spent some CZK 60 000 (EUR 2500) per person before the trip (in 2016).
During the trip, each of us spent some CZK 50 000 (EUR 2000) throughout the year. Out of it, visa and the ferry across the Caspian See were the most expensive (about 1/5 of the budget). The rest was mostly food and public transport in cities. We didn’t use any paid transport between cities (except the one ferry) and any paid accommodation (except one hotel in Azerbaijan we were forced to stay in for 3 days to get a compulsory registration in the country). So in total, the trip cost each of us about CZK 110 000 (EUR 4500) in 2016-2017. And yes, it’s way less than what we spend in our ordinary life in Prague. When we came back home in 2017, it took me just 3 months of an ordinary modest life to spend the same amount as during the travels (CZK 50 000).
Q: How long did it take to get used to everyday life
after coming back home?
A: I don’t know. It’s been four years since we’ve come back (including almost 2
years of Covid lockdowns) and I still don’t feel readapted completely. Finding
a sort of a job and settling down again wasn’t hard, though, technically.
Q: Did it harm your career?
A: It did, but it was worth it. I had to restart the
career, I was doing a lousy part-time job for 3 years after the trip while I
was trying to restore my network of contacts and get more experience in my
field (there was also the pandemic at the time). 4 years after the trip, I am finally
doing what I want to do (I work as a freelance translator and interpreter).
Q: What do you miss most about traveling?
A: My new friends from the countries we’ve been to. It’s actually hard to stay
in touch with people if you can’t see them in person. But I’m still trying.
Q: Are you going to write a book about your trip?
A: No. I don’t know how to write stuff so that people
want to read it, there are too many travellers who write stuff already, and
nobody cares about travel books anymore anyway.
Q: What was the trip good for?
A: The most important thing was that we had time to
talk with people and to really listen to them. We were through more engaging
conversations than ever. We were made think about things we usually don’t have
to think about and had to verbalize our fundamental views and values. Also, we
came across many things that we were not familiar with. So I learned many
things about the world we live in that I wouldn’t learn otherwise. Here are
some of them (they are not so deep, sorry):
- Some people believe traveling is a totally useless and meaningless activity and just don’t get why anybody would do such a thing without being paid for it.
- In general, people are good when you meet them. At least on a basic human level. When we were traveling, it was easy to be on good terms with everybody we met even though we didn’t know anything about each other and our values may have been completely different.
- Respecting law is not always a virtue. In some places, some laws are so unjust and harmful that breaking them is a virtue.
- Swimming is not a basic skill every adult can do.
- Nor is reading maps.
- Hiking is not a usual hobby. Actually, many people don’t do hobbies at all. They’re just too busy with ordinary life to do hobbies.
- Being a woman in most parts of Eurasia sucks. I knew that before but I found some whole new dimensions to it. Most of these things didn’t concern me personally, though, because I was a foreigner. Being a foreigner (from the West) overrides being a woman, so being a foreign woman doesn’t suck.
- Being gay also sucks. Everywhere. In some places, people even have hard time saying the word “gay”.
- In most parts of Eurasia, people were hospitable, generous, and friendly to strangers beyond imagination. I now feel I have a huge debt to repay to humanity. I was planning to host travellers as soon as the pandemic is over but now there is a stupid war in our backyard, so these days we at least host war refugees. In light of my experience, I’m just totally shocked by the war atrocities committed by people coming from areas I have such nice memories about. This makes me think there are no “good” or “evil” people – each of us can become both.
- Some people spend their free time driving around their city in a car and find it fun.
- In many countries, you can put up a tent and camp pretty much anywhere. It might not be allowed but nobody cares. After some time, it was hard to remember that in Western Europe it was forbidden and it mattered.
- Nobody cares about environment. Also, in some places there is no waste management at all. (But as the countries are not rich, they still use up less resources than Europe does.)
- In some societies, individuals don’t matter. It’s families what matter, and individual people are the instruments of their family’s good. The needs of individuals are secondary and striving for individual good is not seen as a virtue nor as a right.
- In many countries, strict rules apply to foreigners. In theory. The police don’t know these rules, though, so you often don’t end up in trouble for breaking them.
- Having a European passport is even more of a privilege than I thought.
- Many people don’t plan their time. If you ask somebody what they do next Wednesday at 4 PM, they can’t answer and find your question confusing. They vaguely know when they go to work but the world is so unpredictable that there’s totally no point in planning what you will do next Wednesday. On the other hand, if a guest shows up uninvited at any time, chances are high people stop doing whatever they are doing and will welcome the guest instead. They never say they are busy, even though they are.
- There are many people who are not familiar with the evolution theory or they have a very vague idea that something like that might exist.
- Most speakers of big languages don’t speak any other languages. Speaking a foreign language in big countries is considered as useful (and as valued) as knowing how to juggle. (I found out in the US already, but it’s true elsewhere too.)
- The idea of what things are considered nice or tasteful is very different in different places. I find most things considered beautiful anywhere in the Balkans or the Middle-East just kitschy, overdecorated, or just plain ugly, so I think there must be a very cultural background to this.
- The ideas of equality, rule of law, human rights, separation of powers in a state, free media, and separation of church and state are awesome, I love them and I want to live in a place that adheres to them.
Q: Where are you going to go next?
A: I don’t know. I’ve actually seen most of the places
I had always wanted to see. Now I just miss my friends from the trip. But it’s
difficult to see them again because of the pandemic and the political
situation. And it’s difficult to stay in touch with people without seeing them.
So I’d just like to go back to places like Georgia, Iran, and Turkey and see
the people again (if they still remember us).
