East, West Home Is Best (Or not?)

Some people enjoy staying at the same place their whole life. They have their little cozy house in a little town or village, they go to work five days a week and in their free time, they spend time with their family, they care about the garden or go for walk.

I've never enjoyed this type of life.

I can't stay at one place for one time, I enjoy traveling from one place to another much more and I don't plan to settle in nearest future.

Traveling has been an important part of my life since my childhood. I "went" to my first trip in my mom's belly. Maybe that's why I feel more like home in Greece, than here in Czech Republic - that first trip was to Crete. My parents don't really enjoy pre-organized traveling and I'm super grateful for that. We would never visit as amazing places with travel agency as we visited by car. I would probably never fall in love with traveling so much if I knew only crowded parasol beaches, hotels full of Czechs and beaches in the bay, where the sea look like just like a big lake.

Traveling is not a complicated things these days. No matter if you choose to travel by car or an airplace, if you know the tricks, you can save a lot of money and travel the more and enjoy it much more than if you spent a lot of money on all-inclusive vacation in a hotel resort ...

 

I'm 19 and I've visited 20 countries with my family and my friends during school trips. This year I'm planning to go on my first solo trip and even though I have no idea where I'm gonna go and I have no idea how I'm gonna do that ... I know it's definitely worth it. While traveling, you don't explore just the country itself but you can explore unknown parts of your soul as well. When you're in a country where nobody knows you, where nobody udnerstands your native language, when you're thousands of kilometres from your home ... You can become literally anyone.

Traveling also brings great overview, it breaks stereotypes and fears which are often cause by media and people who share fake information from unverified sources. If I was just sitting at home all the time, I wouldn't know that:

• The biggest danger we had to face in Istanbul few years ago were the nosy vendors of diluted perfumes and fake Ray Ban sunglasses. These days, with the current situation in Turkey, I would be probably afraid of different things ...

• It's not propriate to sunbathe topless in Greece. If you feel like doing that and you don't want offended Greeks to yell at you, choose nudist beach or some place like that

• Muslims in Montenegro don't come to beach to blow bombs there. They just come there to have fun in the waves with their family as well as all the other people around. 

• It's not a problem to wear shorts and crop tops in Greek churches and Turkish mosques, because they'll (usually) provide you with propriate fancy outfit (that will cover everything that should't be seen) at the enterance.  

• If you want beautiful desert photos, you don't need to go to Sahara. Just visit the wonderful sand dunes in Poland. 

• There are so many beautiful places in Greece (Thassos, Crete, Mytikas ...) and crowded Olymp riviera or Chalkidiki aren't some of them.  

• When travelin around Italy, don't visit fast-foods to get cheap food. The food there is not cheaper at all and you'll be only sick. Rather try the traditional italian pizza or some of the thousands of types of pasta which often have the same price. 

• You'll look like a white wall if you use sun lotion with 50 SPF. Without it, you'll look like a tomato. Choose something in between.

• The main rule of the traffic in Albania: My car is more fancy that yours, so I have priority. 

• Do you want to speed up the traffic jam in the streets of Istanbul? Use the car horn as much as possible!

• Bosia and Herzegovina is not just "something next to the Croatia". The nature here is absolutely amazing, there are perfect conditions for water rafting and people here are super (maybe a bit too much) friendly.  

• Forget about your granny's jams, instant soups and canned meat. Rather enjoy the specialities of the country you're traveling to cause you won't be able to resist anyway. 

YEAR: 2018

AGE: 19

VISITED COUNTRIES: 20 (/21)

Are you a traveller or the home-type person? :)