How One Solo Traveler Visited 6 Countries in 2 Weeks to Follow Their Dreams
Plus, claiming your miles, shopping small, and a small Italian town saved by street art.
Hi everyone, and happy Thursday! I'm writing this to you via a voice dictation tool, as I still am struggling to get use of my hand back, but the good news is I'm recovering each day—so I'm hopeful I'll be feeling back to 100% in a couple months. But I'm nothing if not committed to this wonderful little community, so I wanted to make sure I'm continuing to share travel content as much as possible.
I have a close friend from high school who I really admire, Ahmed. He's very into theme parks (the same way some might be into, say, Disney or Taylor Swift), and he's recently taken his interest to the next level with a marathon solo trip around Europe. I was fascinated by how ambitious his plans were, and I've long been in awe of how he doesn't let other people's disinterest stop him from pursuing what he wants to do.
Today, I'm interviewing Ahmed about his latest trip across Europe and how he got comfortable with traveling solo, safety, and much more. You may think this isn’t relevant to women or worth reading for yourself, but I think there's something really beautiful in people pursuing their passions and not letting others stop them, and I wanted to share a travel-related story to that.
What originally inspired you to travel solo?
I think it all started out of a sense of frustration, or maybe impatience. Growing up, I'd always dreamed of the freedom that came with being an adult and finally being able to travel to places I'd always wanted to visit that my family didn't necessarily care for—mainly theme parks I'd stayed up late researching online.
I'd, maybe naively, assumed that my friends would also be free to join me on trips like these, but those opportunities were wildly rare. As an adult, it takes weeks, if not months, to plan a simple game night, let alone a multi-night trip. And even when a trip did make it out of the group chat, it felt like there was always a compromise, which was frustrating. Like everyone else, I'd spent a lot of money to be there, but wasn't getting what I wanted out of the trip.
That, on top of my relatively niche interests and realizing that I just tend to have a lot more endurance and energy than most, turned into me deciding to just go at it alone—I could do exactly whatever I wanted to do, whenever I was available to do it, and never had to worry about compromising or anyone slowing me down. Which is especially valid when I travel primarily to visit theme parks and might want to nerd out and ride the same roller coaster a dozen times over. I can be selfish without the guilt of, "Are my friends getting tired of this? Or of me?"
You're a cis man which is a little different from our traditional audience here, but you are a queer person of color. How do you remain true to your identity while also being mindful of safety in a new or unfamiliar place?
Funny you ask... One of my absolute favorite things to do when traveling to a new city is to explore the local queer scene. I feel safest among my own people, and I've been thus far pleasantly surprised with the pockets of queer community I've been able to find in unfamiliar cities.
Last year I did a little solo trip to the midwest where I based myself in Louisville, KY and I specifically decided to book an Airbnb in their "gayborhood", The Highlands—best decision I'd made that whole trip. Getting the lowdown on a city from the queer locals that have to navigate it daily is like a cheat code—also just the most fun way to do it.
Traveling internationally is obviously a little different, but living in NYC for nearly a decade now, I feel like I have an acute sense of situational awareness and I can generally tell if I'm "safe" or not in a given environment in a way that transcends language barriers. For the most part I always try to be true to myself and generally go about life with a "I dare you to try me" attitude—a privilege I know I have as a tall cis man—but I can tell when I need to code switch in order to protect myself.
You embarked on a major solo trip this summer, to a number of European countries to visit theme parks. Tell us more about that.
I was so simultaneously excited and nervous. I'd never planned anything like this before, and I wasn’t sure I wouldn't hate myself for it by the end, but I visited nine different theme parks across six different countries over the course of 14 days.
I didn't even bother to try to invite or include anybody else on the trip—it had to be solo. There were already so many variables when planning something this ambitious that I didn't want to complicate things any further by taking someone else's input into consideration.
I'd also never visited any of the six countries—Ireland, England, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, and Belgium—so I was definitely nervous about crossing a border every few days and experiencing round after round of culture shock, but that was a part of the fun! I also spent a vast majority of my time in theme parks that naturally catered to tourists, so it wasn’t that bad.
It was a fairly ambitious plan—how did you decide where to start? What resources did you use to help coordinate an itinerary this complicated?
I was about to answer that planning all of this took a month, because it felt like a month, but looking at the version history of my Google Sheet, the initial inception of the idea to even go on a trip like this was officially March 27th, and all major legs of the trip were officially booked by April 7th.
In late March, I came to a realization that I had a) not done any serious travel in a long time, and b) was sitting on a ridiculous amount of credit card points. That turned into the idea that I wanted to do some kind of theme park tour, and I had a few regions in mind: the midwest, Orlando, Europe, or Japan.
From there, I drew up lists of all the major theme parks I'd want to visit in every region, then determined the financial feasibility of each trip (flight costs, park ticket costs, hotel costs, etc.). It only took a few days to narrow it down to Europe based on the relatively inexpensive cost (especially compared to even a domestic trip to Orlando) coupled with the fact that I'd be seeing completely new things rather than visiting parks I'd been to before for just one or two new rides. And honestly, I really wanted to visit Phantasialand the absolute most.
Now the hard part—where else in Europe, and in what order?
I started with figuring out what the most economical cities to fly to/from were—this involved a combo of Google Flights (ballpark costs), airline websites (points costs), and credit card travel hub sites. The Daily Drop's transfer partners cheat sheet really came in handy here to see where my points could go the farthest. I would eventually settle on flying into Dublin and back out of Brussels.
Once those major legs were set, I had to narrow down the order within Europe. There were a number of factors to consider here, the most important of which being each park's operating calendar—that certainly helped narrow down when I could even visit each city to do what I came for—as well as any national holidays in each country I needed to be aware of so as not to visit these parks when they were packed. Luckily, some other theme park nerds built out this website that has a relatively accurate crowd calendar predictor based on those exact factors, Queue Times.
Once I'd narrowed down based on those factors, it was really down to just a couple possible itinerary options—I believe it was at this point that Poland replaced France—and I relied heavily on Rome2Rio to determine what routes were even possible between all of these countries, whether I should take a train or fly, and how much this would all cost me. Another fun thing I had to consider was whether or not I'd actually fit on those tiny intra-European planes (I’m 6’4”)—shout out Google Flights for making that easy to determine.
At one point, I realized I was overthinking it and the options I was waffling between meant a difference of less than $100, which could be the cost increase of a flight if I hesitated any longer, so I decided to just go with my gut and what I wanted to see and do the most.
Seven hotels and Airbnb bookings, six flights, five regional trains, and a rental car in England later, I had nailed it all down. And then of course double-checking that I had booked everything correctly the next morning because I did that all at 2AM and needed to make sure I didn't mess anything up (I did actually book one flight incorrectly and had to cancel and re-book).
How did you balance rest and the very active process of walking, visiting so many different parks, heading on so many modes of transportation? I know you just recovered from a broken foot!
This was also a consideration—I didn't want to visit any parks on crowded weekends as much as could be avoided, and so I strategically scheduled time to adjust for jet lag (and possible delays) with some extra time in Dublin the weekend I arrived overseas, and settled on the next weekend being an "extended" stay in Amsterdam to recover and do some laundry. Both Dublin and Amsterdam were the cities I was most excited to actually explore outside of theme parks, so it made sense in that way, too.
With my broken foot—when I started PT for it, the first thing I told them was that I was going on a two week trip across Europe and that I needed to be fully functional by then—I remember hearing "challenge accepted," and I'm happy to say that I'm 100% back to normal! I mentioned having a high level of endurance before; that I can attribute to city living in general and favoring walking everywhere, as well as a relatively rigorous gym routine that I put myself through to maintain that level of fitness. I think the only thing I was concerned about was staying hydrated.
What else do you want to share for people around solo travel/this trip?
This might sound corny, but traveling solo is not so much about finding yourself. For me, it's more so about becoming your own best friend. I think it's really important to have a good relationship with yourself especially as you get older, because it's really easy to feel lonely as even your closest friends settle into their own lives. Traveling solo allows you to be totally true to yourself and do what you want to do most—it's kind of the ultimate form of self care.
It can obviously be intimidating, and I don't recommend someone's first solo adventure to be something as ridiculous as what I'm doing here—start small with exploring your own city! Check out that local museum you've been wanting to visit but that no one wants to join you for. Go see that weird indie movie that none of your friends are interested in. Get a single seat at the bar of that trendy new restaurant in town that's hard to get a table at (Pro Tip: the seat at the bar is actually my favorite solo travel hack—people will always feel pity for you being solo and you'll almost always get a free drink or at least good conversation with the bartender out of it. They often know their city better than most and can give you great tips/advice!).
Life's too short to wait for others to do the things you want to do; just go do it yourself.
📚 Shop small and support local this Anti-Prime week with Bookshop! I just finished Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto which was beautifully moving.
✈️ On a recent Delta flight, I waited 40 minutes for my luggage, far exceeding their 20-minute guarantee. I was able to quickly claim 2,500 miles in minutes, and this rundown on how to do the same is a good reminder if you’re traveling soon or even for past flights!
🎨 This Italian town was revived by colorful street art—saving small businesses and local entrepreneurs alike.
❤️🩹 How to help the victims and survivors of Hill Country flooding.
🇬🇷 Bookmarking this post of the best times to visit the Greek Islands. I now have my eye on Sifnos as a destination!
Next week marks one year since starting this little Substack and now there are thousands of you here, so thank you so much for all of your ongoing support. It means the world to me. See you next week! —Henah x
Henah, I loved this issue! I’m so glad you’re recovering every day, and it’s great seeing how you are creatively problem solving to keep Departure in our inboxes each week. It’s something I really look forward to! Ahmed’s approach to life and travel is so inspiring! “Life’s too short to wait for others to do the things you want to do” is SOOOO TRUE! Now, I’m brainstorming how I can put that mantra to work in my own life - I didn’t realize that I’ve sorta been waiting around on others. No more! Thank you!!