There's No Path Until You (Run) It
Why traveling when I had no money was the right thing to do
UFO Observation deck - Bratislava, Slovakia (looking directly into the sun)
A few months ago, I found myself facing an ending I wasn’t prepared for.
A major chapter in my life was coming to a close. The excitement of my travel guide job had fizzled out, friends had come and gone, the company was struggling and I wasn’t making any money. I became seriously worried I wouldn’t be able to afford rent, and I considered flying home before my bank account ran completely dry. But I didn’t want it to be over.
A city that, when I arrived a year earlier, had seemed teeming with excitement and opportunity now felt colorless and mundane. I had succumbed to frailty—of both body and soul. I was embarrassed, angry, and sad for myself.
I was lost.
I thought about the person I was a year ago. That person made a conscious choice to be here, but my tired eyes were now blind as to the reasons why.
What am I doing here?
Then, remembering something, I rifled through my sock drawer and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Written dramatically among a list of goals, fears, and disorganized ramblings was the following:
“You’re here to live vividly — to collect moments, perspectives, flavors, loves, stories.
To feel things deeply. And eventually to turn all of it into something meaningful.”
I often say or write things that I don’t fully understand.
But it helped me uncover this truth:
I wasn’t in Florence to grow my finances—it was almost a guarantee that I would lose money. My mission was simple: to lead the most interesting year I could, trusting that I would learn from my experiences and allow them to influence my ability to write stories that moved people. In order to create dynamic characters with complexity and emotional weight, I needed a deep understanding of the world and the people within it. If I wanted to convey immense pain, or a blinding love for something or someone, I had to experience those things firsthand.
I don’t want my stories just to be read.
I want them to be felt.
How could I have lost sight of this?
I chose this path of uncertainty because I knew it would be unlike anything I had ever experienced. I knew I would have to adapt—to bite my tongue at times, and to speak more than ever before at others. I would try on different faces and wear different hats, knowing my reflection would blur and distort along the way.
There would be pain. And there would be beauty like I had never seen before.
I was never going to be the same person again.
And that was the point.
With a surge of energy I hadn’t felt in months, I knew I needed to get moving. I wasn’t going to end this year on a sour note.
One of my favorite quotes is simple, yet it has become a driving force in my life:
“A writer is the sum of their experiences.”
That was justification enough for me to go on an adventure.
Stop one: Vienna, Austria
By the next morning, I was running through the streets of Vienna.
I didn’t embark on this trip because I needed a vacation. I didn’t want to lay down and relax, I wanted to live with intention.
I would treat this more as an assignment, homework (the fun kind).
Recon.
I set three rules—non-negotiable.
Rule 1: Maximize the Morning
Wake up early.
Run.
Each night, I mapped out the places I wanted to see the next day.
That allowed me to plan my morning runs strategically—hitting landmarks on the outskirts, places that would be out of reach once the day filled up.
I covered more ground before the city woke up.
And I woke myself up in the process.
On my best days, I ran ten miles before most people had even opened their eyes.
By then, the momentum was already mine.
Stop two: Bratislava, Slovakia (1.5 hour bus ride from Vienna)
The beauty of solo travel was that I was on nobody else’s time but my own. And I did exactly what I wanted.
Take a detour to a place I didn’t know existed the day before?
Hell ya!
Stop three: Bucharest, Romania
Rule 2: Disconnect (from social media)
No stupid distractions.
Nothing that would pull me out of the present moment.
Disconnecting also stripped away the urge to perform—to show where I was or what I was doing. Scrolling through Instagram would have made it almost impossible to stay aligned with my intention.
So I didn’t.
Stop four: Sinaia, Romania (another detour)
Do your research (not a rule, but a reccomended habit)
One that deeply enriched the experience
Before arriving anywhere new, I read the Wikipedia page of each city or town I visited.
I skimmed first, then went deeper whenever something caught my attention—something I hadn’t known, something that surprised me.
That context mattered.
It brought the place to life.
It allowed my imagination to stretch—picturing what the land had endured, what its people had lived through, and how those layers of history still echoed in the streets I was walking.
I wasn’t just passing through.
I was arriving informed.
“Be a traveler, not a tourist.” - Anthony Bourdain
Stop five: Malmö, Sweden
Rule 3: Document
My journal went everywhere with me.
The empty space—waiting for food at a restaurant, sitting alone with a coffee—became time to write.
Journaling replaced the instinct to scroll.
It became therapeutic.
More importantly, it forced me to recall and preserve moments that otherwise would have slipped away unnoticed.
Stop six: Copenhagen, Denmark
Unforeseen beauty
As I wrote, I found myself thinking about the future.
About one day sharing these stories with my children.
Telling them about the time their dad traveled through Europe—seeing things that shifted his perspective, things that startled him, made him laugh, made him cry.
I smiled imagining them listening.
Imagining that maybe, in some small way, it would inspire them to take chances of their own—to follow their hearts even when it led them somewhere obscure, unexpected… like Bratislava, Slovakia.
Moments like that made me feel grounded.
They reminded me that I was living in alignment with myself—
despite the doubts that so often crept in, clouding my mind and blurring my sense of direction.
And that feeling alone made everything worth it.
Growth often feels like disorientation long before it feels like clarity
Only now, months later have I begun to give myself the chance to digest all that I’ve lived this past year. Many people never see anything of the world beyond the place they were born. By twenty-four, I’ve already seen more than my fair share.
That fact matters—but so does this one:
Experience does not automatically grant wisdom.
Seeing more of the world doesn’t mean your life suddenly makes sense.
It doesn’t mean clarity arrives on its own, or that understanding comes fully formed.
If anything, the more you experience, the more time you need to reflect on it.
Becoming requires space, strain, and silence.
I was straining without allowing myself space or silence.
I was moving, changing, adapting—without stopping long enough to understand what those changes meant.
It’s more than okay to try on different faces, to wear different hats.
In fact, it’s necessary. Growth demands it.
You may exercise muscles you’ve never used before.
You may begin to resemble someone you barely recognize.
But that doesn’t mean you’re lost.
It means you’re becoming.
Perhaps just at a faster pace than you can fully process.
And that, too, is part of the work.
Getting those steps in
Looking back, I can’t remember another year in which I lived more vividly.
I’ve collected moments I’ll carry with me forever.
My eyes have seen more than they can fully understand.
I’ve tasted the world’s flavors, loved more deeply than I ever had before, and felt things I still can’t begin to comprehend.
All that’s left now is to write about it—
and in doing so, I hope to turn it into something beautiful.
"Without volume we cannot hear, but only in silence can we understand"