Alternative title: should I post if I have nothing to say? If I'm not traveling?
I hate having my time wasted and I hate wasting other people's time.
But I feel like everything I read by (most) travel bloggers these days is just fluff. Meaningless #hashtag content. Like everyone is trying to fulfill their requirement of one Instagram post a day and two blog posts a week, nevermind if they even have new pictures or new stories to tell or new thoughts to share.
What bores me most about travel blogs is that people feel compelled to have a "point" for every single post. A long layover in the Netherlands turns into "How to Spend 24 Hours in Amsterdam". Visting a few cafes after a week in Paris turns into "The Best Cafes in Paris" as if they've had time to sit and contemplate them all.
I'm tired of everyone trying to have an angle.
Just tell me about your day!
I want to see hastily taken pictures in a museum before security tells you to stop, shots of a flower that you thought was pretty. What book did you read in that park you sat in for hours since your feet hurt and you couldn't bear the thought of walking one more kilometer to the metro? Were you having a nice day at a cool museum then, once you connected to the free Wifi, accidentally got into a text-argument with your best friend and now your thoughts of that museum and the artists you saw are tainted?
Believe it or not,
I don't read travel blogs for useful information. Sounds ridiculous, but I'm sure most people relate. If I want information, I use a guidebook or a tourism website. If I read a blog, I want to hear about your day. I'm sure I've retained information through osmosis of all I've read, but in my four-ish years of reading a few blogs a week, I've never actually, consciously
used any of it while traveling.
WHAT I'M TRYING TO SAY IS that I don't want to post just for the sake of it.
Because I don't want to bore you. Because you don't deserve to have your time wasted since everyone and their mother is trying to waste your time on the internet.
I've said all of that ^^^^ to preface this new information (although this info isn't new if you follow me on
Twitter or
Instagram):
I'm traveling again! Starting June 6th!
I will (hopefully) travel until late August or early September and I really don't have much planned.
The only definite is that I will be in Slovakia for a month, back at the hostel in the mountains that I ran back to last July
when I needed a break. (I really need to update y'all on that story. I only wrote one post about it and never followed up with a part II. Oops!)
After Slovakia, there's a strong possibility that I'm going to China (Beijing, specifically) with my school for two weeks because my school is paying for it, even though I graduated!, and over my dead body will I ever turn down a free trip.
From there, who knows! I might have a long layover in Dubai on the way back from China. I was wary of the idea at first, but now that I looked into fun and reasonably priced desert tours I'm extremely excited at the thought.
Once I'm back in Europe, I have no plans for a full month. I'm considering Moldova, Romania, and Bulgaria, but August in those countries might be too hot for me. That sounds like a dumb excuse, but last summer when I was in other south-ish eastern European countries, like Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia, I was so miserably hot I couldn't fully appreciate my days. Hence my exodus to the High Tatras in Slovakia. So I'm not going to let myself be miserable again if push comes to shove. Maybe I'll go to Slovenia and do some chill hiking, or Latvia and Estonia. Who knows! I'll probably let Ryanair decide my next move.
Near the end of August, I'm heading to London to meet Poppy, an Australian friend that I met last summer in Slovakia. From there we'll take a night bus to Scotland and do some hiking. I didn't expect to go back to Scotland this soon
after leaving last year, but Poppy has never been and suggested we go. Similar to free trips to China, I will also never turn down an excuse to go back to Scotland.
From there, I'll (hopefully) follow her to Sweden where she's starting her master's degree and just chill for a bit. For some reason, there are insanely cheap flights back to the US from Sweden compared to other places in Europe. How convenient!
That's my ~general plan~ but who knows how the next three months will unfold! I had a plan for last summer too and I set fire to that only one month in.
Whatever happens, I'm going to blog about it. In the most genuine, unselfconscious way possible. No forced angles to any of my stories. Not trying to pretend I'm an expert in anything, much less a city I've only spent a few days in.
I'm just a girl with a blog, standing in front of a Europe/China/UAE, asking them to love her.
