World Tour

Just a few days ago I got back from a month long excursion around the world; stopping at Shanghai in China, Siem Reap in Cambodia, New Delhi in India, Vienna in Austria, Barcelona in Spain, and Amsterdam in the Netherlands. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to be able to afford both the time and money to take this trip, and felt it would be worthwhile to both document it for my own sake, and to let others enjoy it in the five minutes they spend scanning the pictures in this post.

All the pictures from my trip can be found here.

General Solo Traveller Advice

I was initially a bit bummed I would be taking this entire trip alone, but it turned out to be really nice. It was pretty rewarding to prove to myself that I could navigate foreign subways and still read folding maps. Travelling alone forces you to break out of your shell which is something I’m glad I had to do, most hostels turned out to be perfect environments for this sort of thing.

Depending on the size of the trip you’re planning on, do it early. Like really early. I planned mine roughly 5 months before I left, which might have been a bit overkill, but it makes the whole getting tickets, rooms, and Visas a lot less stressful. Also really do the math for how much it will cost. I gave myself ~$100 each day (not counting hotels, plane tickets, etc.) and came out even.

I also had a lot of fun hitting locations with people that I met during the trip which I would recommend to everybody. It’s a fun way to meet someone and you can often shamelessly steal a lot of their ideas for things to do in whatever city you’re in. The best part about travelling alone is you always have the ultimate say as to how you execute the trip, although this can often turn into the worst part too when making these decisions with a hangover in bed. Anyway, here are some consolidated tips.

• Plan early, like months beforehand
• Do the financial math, twice
• Be the Gray Man
• Make an itinerary
• Don’t go by your itinerary (except when you have nothing better to do)
• There is almost always a student discount
• Don’t forget Visas and vaccinations

Shanghai, China

When I first planned my trip, I was deciding on either going to Europe for cities like Amsterdam and Barcelona, or Asia for cities like Shanghai but ended up just doing both because I knew I wouldn’t have many opportunities in the coming years. In total the flights came to under $2,000, which probably wasn’t much more expensive than just Asia and back.

The above picture is of “The Bund” and was one of the main reasons I had decided to go to Shanghai. It also happened to be very straight forward to get into with Shanghai’s new on arrival 144 hour visa. Shanghai was hot, filled with strange smells, and I didn’t know what I was eating the whole time except for this awful egg sandwich at my hostel, but still remained one of my favorite cities on the trip, and introduced me to China’s secret mountain paradise.

The Yu Gardens were the highlight of Shanghai. They were cheap to get into (~ $6.00) and were spectacularly gorgeous. They really set the pace for the rest of the trip. Shanghai Circus World was also pretty crazy and worth looking into, there is also a park nearby there that will probably be completed by the time you would go.

Advice for those who go:

• 5 days seemed a comfortable amount of time
• Check out the clubs, one has a shark tank
• Taxi drivers rarely speak english
• Google doesn’t work there, bring your own map

Siem Reap, Cambodia

I think I did Cambodia incorrectly. My hostel was a bit out of the way from the city (or really just far from Pub Street), and didn’t have the social atmosphere I found in most of the other countries. That said, I had initially planned the trip to have isolating breaks in somewhat remote hostels to really experience the city myself, but they really just ended up making me lonely. In some ways the breaks turned out to be necessary, because if I instead just partied in each city, I probably would have come back with nothing but blurred memories.

The first day in Cambodia I did a sunrise tour of Angkor Wat. How this tour goes is entirely dependant on the weather. I was lucky enough to have a reasonable sunrise, but it sounded like half the time it was just clouds or rain. The whole thing was a bit too touristy for me, as there were hundreds of people taking the same exact pictures of the things I was, but I’m still glad I went.

The rest of the day I had a guided tour throughout most of the temples. These again can be hit or miss depending on your guide; mine was very knowledgable, but couldn’t speak english well. The temples themselves are quite stunning and have some fascinating history, but after seeing three or so they begin to all look more or less the same. Ta Prohm was my favorite which has a bunch of huge trees growing out of it.

Advice for those who go:

• 5 days was too much, travel around Cambodia or SEA if you can
• Get a massage
• Stay near Pub Street
• Food is awesome and nearly free

New Delhi, India

India isn’t supposed to be super friendly to solo travellers, so I ended up booking a tour the entire time I was there. The most popular is around something called the “Golden Triangle” which hits New Delhi, Jaipur, and Agra and was what I went with. The majority of the time was spent driving city to city, but driving on the roads were almost more of an experience than seeing the UNESCO sites.

I had been to Thailand in high school, and was just coming from Cambodia, both of which had unlaned dirt roads cluttered with rickshaws, but neither had streets anything like those of India. They were absolute chaos. An empty street would almost be indistiguisable from one in the States, but they were never empty. The typical scene would be some kind of animal (usually a cow, donkey, sometimes a dog, then on rare occasions a pig or monkey) would be sitting in the road facing oncoming traffic. Although “oncoming traffic” turns out to be a bit loose of a term, as there were often cars driving the other direction in the breakdown lane. It was really a spectacle, and was unbelievable how unphased the cows would be in the face of blaring horns and quickly approaching vehicles.

As for the sites, I really like Jaipur which is known for jewelry and carpet making and has a sweet lake with a palace in the middle of it. They also had an old astronomical lab with the worlds largest sundial that was pretty cool. The Taj Mahal was nice, but a bit to commercialized for me.

Advice for those who go:

• Prepare your bowels
• 4 days was enough
• Be a jerk to people trying to sell you things
• I would recommend a guided tour for anyone going alone

Vienna, Austria

Vienna had free wifi on their trains and was a great way to return to the western world. My hostel was next to the Naschmarkt, which was a nice place to get breakfast and see almost everyone drinking beers at 9 in the morning. Vienna’s real allure came from it’s museums. I’m a huge fan of them and would especially recommend the Natural History Museum which had incredible exhibits on crystals, dinosaurs, and planets, and then also some stuff I wasn’t as into like a huge collection of taxodermized animals. The whole thing was only about $5 though.

Above is Belvedere Palace, which I liked a lot more than its larger relative Schonbrunn Palace. Inside was a museum with a bunch of Klimt’s works and some other crazy art installations including a room filled with busts making really weird faces.

If you could only go to two places in Vienna, I would say the Natural History Museum, and the National Library. The entrance to the library is a bit tricky to find, but well worth it. Emperor Franz Josef is a huge deal in Austria and is at least mentioned in every museum in Vienna. At the library he has a huge biographical exhibit where you can read really personal love letters he wrote to his wife and feel weird about it later.

Advice for those who go:

• 5 days was good, if you are into museums
• Naschmarkt was a nice hostel and location
• They call getting drunk food after bars “Chinky Chunky”
• The fudge squares are bad

Barcelona, Spain

If you are to go to any of the place I visited, go to Barcelona. It really has everything I could ask for in a city; great weather, beautiful beaches, rich history, stunning architecture, awesome nightlife, and serious mountains. If you decide to go, go to Hostel Paralelo One, they have a great staff and you are sure to enjoy yourself. Prepare for excessive amounts of sangria every night you are there though.

If there is a holy place on this earth, it is Montserrat. Driving along the roads and through tunnels at the elevation of the clouds was unlike anything I had experienced before. At the center of the mountain there is the church complex older than Angkor Wat (rumored to hold the Holy Grail) and a nice art museum that has works of Picaso, Monet, and a number of other big shot artists. It is absolutely worth a visit.

Costa Bravo is also super nice. I did a kayaking-snorkeling tour there that I would recommend, although don’t dive too deep or you’ll burst your eardrum like I did… There are really awesome rock formations, clear water, and octopus if you are lucky.

In my mind, La Sagrada Familia is to buildings what Montserrat is to mountains. Most people I know who went to Barcelona had just walked by the incomplete church, but never went inside because of the three hour line for tickets. The secret is ordering them online a day in advance, then just showing up at the time you got your tickets for. From the outside it’s definitely a striking building that looks much like the rests of Gaudi’s work, but the inside it’s an entirely different level. The whole thing is illuminated by these brilliant stained glass windows and supported by columns that look like spiralling vegetation. This one gets my highest praise.

Advice for those who go:

• 5 days wasn’t enough, but was all the sangria I could handle
• La Sagrada Familia and Montserrat are must sees
• Pickpocketing / robbery is very real
• $2 Sangria with the Chinese label does the job

Amsterdam, Holland

In Amsterdam I stayed at the Lucky Lake Hostel, which was about 45 minutes from the city center, but had a really nice lake. This was after I burst my eardrum, so unfortunately I couldn’t swim in it. I would recommend staying in the city center if you really want to experience Amsterdam, but if you have already been or are looking for a quiet getaway, Lucky Lake might be a nice place to check out.

I went to Amsterdam both to experience the city I had heard about, and for the M.C. Escher museum. The museum was about an hour train ride away in the Hague, but worth the trip if you’re a fan. It’s in an old palace so each room has little blurbs about what the room was used for, then sweet Escher paintings or carvings on the walls.

You can also rent a boat without a license which I never ended up doing but it sounded sweet. Other cool places to see are the Science museum, the free tours in the city center, and the nightclub “De School” which was an old school house made into a techno club that looked a lot like the beginning of this.

Advice for those who go:

• 6 days felt like too much, but it was after a month of travelling
• Stay in the city
• Get the train pass with the map on it
• Rent a boat

Conclusion

If you are considering doing something like this, you should. I think your twenties is the decade that gives you maximum agency and minimum responsibility. Know that the afraid voice in your head that tells you not to is what’s going to keep you alive and allow you to grow while you’re there. It is an incredible way to go broke.