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Australia.
My time here was full of learning, ups and downs, and was different to any other section of this gap year so far. Just like my previous entry for New Zealand, this is probably going to be a decently long one!
When I first arrived in Sydney from Auckland, I knew I'd be spending a decent amount of time there. You see, when I was initally planning this leg of my gap year, I'd wanted to venture north from Sydney, up the Gold Coast and go to Cairns. However, I soon learned that this time of year (January/February) is the peak of the rainy season, and not the best time to head to northeastern Australia. Turns out I was sort of incorrect, but more on that later.
Anyways, that meant that I changed my plans, and would be spending a decent amount of time in Sydney, and heading south from there. I was still very excited for this trip, there's a lot to experience in Sydney and southern Australia. Plus, by missing out on the other parts, it gives me an excuse to come back here!
I figured I'd break up my stay in the city into parts; Sydney is huge, as I soon came to realize, and it's probably the largest city I've ever spent any decent amount of time in. The first hostel I stayed in was just off Bondi beach.
This area was a really great place to start, with a great vibe in the hostel. On the first night, going out with a friend from my room, we found a Vietnamese place that I promptly fell in love with, and I ended up getting food from them every night and eating it by the beach. The hostel also hosted its own walk on the classic Coogee to Bondi beach route, which had been strongly recommended to me back in New Zealand. The 2-hour walk along jagged cliffs with violent, dangerous ocean waves everywhere - which the Aussies from the hostel were completely at peace with - really cemented my image of Australia as a rough, risky place. That would soon change.
Not quite yet though, because the next morning I was in a coffee shop working on some planning and finance work, and I got into a long conversation with some locals. Amidst talks of cinematography and what I shouldn't miss in Sydney, they casually mentioned that there had been 3 shark attacks in the past 24 hours. I don't really keep any eye on the news while I'm traveling (maybe I should), so this was important for me to hear, because I'd been planning to take a beginner surfing course on Bondi beach later! They said that the volume of these attacks was extreme even by Australian standards, and they were caused by a large storm turning the waters murky, which attracted the sharks.
When a local tells you not to surf, I think you'd better listen. I was kind of bummed, but figured I could surf again sometime in Melbourne (more on that later), so I put it out of my mind. Overall, Bondi beach was beautiful, with good weather, and a good crowd. After only about 3 days, I moved to a different hostel in downtown Sydney.
Coogee to Bondi walk
I really like downtown Sydney.
So far on this second leg, I haven't really stayed in any true interesting cities (Auckland doesn't quite count). Sydney's iconic Opera House and Harbor Bridge were obviously highlights, but I found joy in just wandering the streets; it felt a little like I was back traveling Europe, at least for the first couple days.
On my first full day here, I took a ferry from the main wharf over the harbor to the Taronga zoo. I'd heard a lot about this zoo, and I figured that seeing classic Australian animals in the wild (a bucket list item of mine) wasn't entirely guaranteed, so I thought I'd be safe by seeing them at the zoo. The next best thing.
Now, I'd already been surprised and captivated by some animals in Sydney. There is an abundance of black swans, white ibis, and parakeets all around the city. I didn't know swans could actually be black! (Shoutout to the Black Swan hostel in Barcelona). The white ibis birds, with their long curved beaks, look like ancient dinosaurs, but they're basically just another trash-munching pigeon. And parakeets, dotting the tops of trees in swarms, can make a monstruous racket for such small and beautiful birds. But unfortunately, I hadn't seen any kangaroos in downtown Sydney.
At the zoo, it took a whole day to see everything. Among the standard African animals and seal dance shows and other things you'll see in most large zoos across the world, the Taronga zoo's section on Australian wildlife was special: cassowaries, wombats, platypus, emus, koalas, and of course kangaroos were some of the standouts. Also, writing this entry having finished my time down under, I can count myself lucky that my only interaction with one of Australia's classic huntsman spiders was behind a sheet of glass at the zoo!
After the zoo, I fell into a rhythm, like I was almost living in the city. Going to the same couple food spots each day, taking runs through the botanical gardens and by the harbor, seeing movies at a theater near the hostel (Marty Supreeeeme!), reading a lot, and exploring at my own pace. I even decided to try kangaroo jerky! It tastes identical to beef jerky, but costs about twice as much. I didn't feel very social at this time - a common theme across this second leg - but I found that these days in Sydney, I really didn't mind.
Huntsman spider
Emu
University of Sydney tree
Sydney, from the Taronga zoo ferry
Towards the end of my week in downtown Sydney, I signed up for a day trip tour of the Blue Mountains national park. Set tours like this are sometimes the only way to experience something, especially when traveling solo. In this case, it was super easy, the pickup was right by the hostel, and we got to hike and see a ton of what this region has to offer.
I got a good sense of the size of greater Sydney when we'd been driving west for nearly 2 hours and were still in some outer suburbs! In that sense, the Blue Mountains are like Sydney's adjacent back garden.
This day was during the peak of one of the heatwaves, and I've never experienced UV like it in my life. The Australian sun is no joke. The precarious hike down the stairs to Wentworth Falls, watching the Blue Mountains stretch for miles into the distance, and seeing the Three Sisters were all a great way to break up my time in the city. Plus, the people on the tour taught me a bunch of Australian slang, though I never did have the courage to use any in conversation later on.
View from the Princess Rock lookout
The Three Sisters
Wentworth Falls
After the Blue Mountains tour, I figured I'd take the 12 hour Flix bus journey down to Melbourne. I was all set and ready to leave, in fact, when I realized that the massive heat wave was worse down south, with bushfires across Victoria and outside Melbourne peaking on the day I was supposed to drive down. I eventually agreed with my parents that this didn't sound like the best time to be on a cross-country bus. So I delayed by an extra day, got an extra night at the hostel, and was feeling quite bored.
Everything happens for a reason though, because - I didn't realize it then - but staying one extra day would allow me to experience Australia Day! It makes sense that Australia would have a national holiday, just like our Fourth of July, I just wasn't expecting to experience it myself.
I was in the process of returning from the laundromat, laundry bag in hand, when I found a massive protest outside my hostel door, stretching down the entire main road. Photos don't even begin to capture just how large this protest was, there were people as far as I could see, off in the distance. I practically sprinted up to my room, throwing my laundry down and grabbing my camera, and made my way out into the street.
I didn't take many street photos on this entire second leg, but - as always with protests - I was inspired, and managed to capture a bunch of pictures I'm really proud of in the span of only a few hours. These people were passionate, angry, and rightly so. Australia Day is a holiday celebrating the arrival of the British and the culture that stemmed from there, shaping the modern Australia we know today. The protest deemed this Invasion Day, advocating for respect for the aboriginal peoples, because as time has gone on the rights and recognition of aboriginals has greatly diminished.
I didn't think I'd be writing these words again after my time in Europe was finished, but you can find those images on my Instagram.
Always was, always will be! Aboriginal land!
The most interesting part of that day was the contrast. Because, in the evening after the protest, I headed out to the harbor to catch the main Australia Day celebrations over the Opera House. Lights, fireworks, musicians (including an actual opera singer), it was an amazing and fun spectacle that fully blew Boston's Fourth of July fireworks out of the water.
It's amazing to me that such a joyous celebration could follow such a passionate, angry protest. Make of that what you will.
Australia Day celebration
Anyways, my next day was spent on the surprisingly pleasant all-day bus journey to Melbourne, full of nothing but trees and fields. There's absolutely nothing in between the large Australian cities, and that's one big reason why travel here has felt so different from my time in Europe, which is much more densely populated.
I spent just under a week in Melbourne. I quickly came to realize that surfing doesn't have the same infrastructure here as it did in Sydney - all the best surfing is along the Gold Coast - and so that was unfortunately off the table. Plus, after only about a day and a half, I'd seen all of the main sites and attractions of the central area. Just like in Sydney, I got into my own little routine, spending a lot of time at the Queen Victoria food market, the beautiful State Library (which had a cool exhibition about the history of literature), and the Fitzroy Gardens. Oh, and I didn't know anything about tennis before this, but the Australia Open was on, and the main square in the CBD would stream it on a large screen. I watched three matches, learning a lot more about tennis in the process, and randomly picking a player named Carlos Alcaraz to support, thinking he was an up and coming underdog. When he ended up winning the final I realized he was very much not an underdog.
As the days dragged on here, I got quite bored and realized I much preferred Sydney as a city. Days blurred, I didn't know what to do with myself, and I didn't feel like socializing at all. It really felt like I was wasting my time, and unfortunately because of this, it seems like I'm giving Melbourne a bad rep. It's a fine city, just marred for me by this series of consecutive off days.
State Library
Deep in the rut of my week in Melbourne's CBD, I booked a day trip tour of the Great Ocean Road. Getting out of the city was really nice, and the views were incredible, as advertised.
But man oh man, what a wild tour. Maybe a reason I found it so frustrating was because of my overall frustration with my time in Melbourne. Still, it was advertised as 10-12 hours, but ended up lasting 14.5. There was an initial mixup with pickup locations and I had to sprint to make it, early in the morning, only to end up sitting amidst a crowd of about 30 Chinese tourists for 3 hours before we even got out and saw anything. Oh, and my hostel outlet decided not to charge my phone the night before, so I didn't even really have the spare battery percentage needed to put my airpods in and listen to music. The tour guide had a thick Mandarin accent and spoke slightly broken English, which would've been fine had he not refused to stop talking. He droned on and on and on for the ENTIRE drive, in a pleasant tone but annoying nonetheless. It was honestly impressive, how much he managed to yap about nothing.
Each stop felt cut short. We only had about 20-30 minutes at a time before it was back to the bus for another hour or so. I don't know what I had been expecting, and I realize now that any tour claiming to drive the length of the Great Ocean Road in a single day was always going to be long and arduous. The stuff I did get to see though, was very cool, especially the 12 Apostles, a series of weathered rock pillars sticking up out of the Southern Ocean.
The highlight of this otherwise crazy, frustrating tour were the wildlife sightings. We pulled over on the shoulder of a road to try and spot wild koalas in the treetops, and I was amazed when we managed to find just one, sleeping in the canopy. By the end we'd seen three of them! Even cooler, though, was the group (mob) of gray kangaroos just chilling in a golf course. I felt a bit bad, in that moment, at having eaten kangaroo jerky back in Sydney.
This tour did know the spots to go to see wildlife, I'll give it that. I can tick off my childhood goal of seeing these animals in the wild!
The Great Ocean Road
Mob of kangaroos
12 Apostles
By the end of that week, I was so ready to leave Melbourne and get back to inspired traveling again. It had felt like I was really wasting my time, just existing in that city. I realize now that it wasn't that long of a time, it was a product of some poor planning on my part and of the different nature of traveling here than in Europe. Yet it was the most off I've felt across this whole gap year so far, even though I've gotten experienced by now at managing these emotions when they do happen.
Anyways, after a week I was finally on a flight to Hobart, the main city of Tasmania, which is an island about 2/3 the size of New Zealand's north island, off the southern coast of Australia. Interestingly, this is one of the farthest locations I could possibly be in the world from Boston.
Here, I joined a 5-day group tour with a company called Under Down Under that took me all across the island. I had found this tour randomly with my mom, while we were looking into my Australia trip as a whole. When I looked closer it seemed like something perfect for my situation, catered to solo travelers, with transport for your large bags and hostel accommodation included. So - back when I was in Sydney - I had booked the flights and the tour, at a pretty decent price!
I quickly realized, after Brendan the tour guide picked us up from the YHA hostel in Hobart, that this was going to be an amazing time. Brendan was also quite a contrast to the annoying Great Ocean Road tour guide from only a couple days earlier.
The first day featured a lot of driving and getting to know each other, making our way from Hobart in the southeast all the way to Tasmania's western coast. We went through the Franklin Gordon Wild Rivers national park, stopping to take a couple of short hikes to see various waterfalls. This was my first encounter with wallabies, which I assumed at that point to be a rare sighting, but later realized are sort of like Tasmania's equivalent of common rabbits. Anyways, this national park is the largest on the island, and over 40% of the land area of Tasmania is protected national park. There were some pretty gnarly eucalyptus trees here (though no koalas, they're just on the mainland), that grew upwards of 70 to 100 meters tall, and were the largest trees I've ever seen in my life.
We drove past Lake St. Clair and up through some old mining regions near Queenstown (yes, there's a Queenstown in Tasmania, too), passing through small towns like Gormanston, with a current population of 3, yet used to house some 2000 miners back in the early 1900s.
We finished Day 1 at the west coast town of Strahan, in an interesting hostel that felt quite like a campground.
Massive eucalyptus trees
Strahan sunset
The next day, we did a longer hike through some old growth forest that put me straight back in New Zealand, and ended up by Montezuma Falls. By this point, I was fully in the swing of being carted around and not having to worry about planning anything. It's quite nice, to be able to be fully present and know that there are tons of cool things to see, and you'll be taken to each one without having to worry.
That afternoon we arrived at the Hesky sand dunes, and everyone (including the two elderly couples on the tour) had to scramble their way up this steep sand dune. They get up to 30 meters deep in places, apparently, and have buried entire trees; we could see the tops of them poking out from beneath the sand. They were cool enough, but to get back to the van we had to return via the same scramble we arrived by. Brendan said, and then proceeded to demonstrate, that the fastest and cleanest way to descend sand dunes is to run. I'll admit, even I didn't believe him, but of course I ran on after him, and it works! Barely any sand in my shoes, and it was quick and controlled. You learn something new every day (the people that refused to run had to spend a while emptying sand from their shoes before getting in the bus).
We finished the day by Ocean Beach, one of the most beautiful and rugged beaches I've ever seen, stretching for 40 km along the west coast. There were even a group of motorcyclists that sped by us across the sand, like something straight out of an action movie. In that moment, us guys all wished we had motorbikes like those.
Montezuma Falls
Ocean Beach
The ascent
Day 3 was where it transitioned from simply cool to epic. We drove up from Strahan to Cradle Mountain national park, and spent the entire day hiking.
It would take many more hours and much more gear than we possessed to actually make it to the mountain's summit, but it was a pleasant hike up to the standard viewpoint, where we had lunch. Photos don't do this area justice, and I could've spent all day up there just looking at the view. Apparently these are all relatively new mountains (by geological standards), just like in New Zealand, which is why they're so jagged and rough.
Then our hike took us further, back down and winding through the moorlands, supposedly the preferred natural habitat of wombats. I'd been dying to see a wombat the whole time I was in Australia, they're basically walking teddy bears. Plus, their poop is cube-shaped. What's not to love? Anyways, we took this section super slowly, keeping our eyes peeled the whole time, but the best we got was a wombat-shaped blob in the distance, too far to make out any detail. That barely counts. We did, however, make friends with an echidna by the side of the path. Like hedgehogs but with long noses, they're quite cute as well.
The area we walked through that day is also the starting point of Tasmania's Overland Track, a 7-day hiking trail that instantly went onto my bucket list when I heard about it. You stay in huts and experience all types of diverse natural environment across Tasmania. Brendan claimed it was a life-changing experience for him, and that's all I need to hear.
We finished the day by driving to Launceston, the second-largest city on the island besides Hobart, and while passing through the dairy country, we stopped at Van Diemans creamery and processing plant, for some good fresh ice cream. Not quite to the level of gelato from Florence, but it was up there.
Cradle Mountain
The moorlands
Wombat Poo
Wombat Poo
We started bright and early the next day in Launceston, where we walked through Cataract Gorge. It's crazy to me that this whole beautiful nature preserve exists literally within the city. We saw tons of wallabies and even some peacocks as we walked through here, and it even has the world's longest single chairlift span (the distance between two support posts) of 308 meters over the water. It looked rickety at best, and there's no way would that be allowed to operate in the states. Would I have gone on it if we had time? Yup.
Day 4 really highlighted the diverse weather patterns and micro-climates on Tasmania. It was a beautiful day until we got to the Bay of Fires beach area, where it promptly grew cold and rainy. The rain seemed to last entirely for the window of time we had at the beach. Yet the beach in the rain was still beautiful, and you bet I still went swimming (if you're already wet from the rain, why not jump in?), and it created an even more mystical air when combined with the famous bright orange rocks. Orange lichen coats many of the rocks around this bay, creating some stunning formations, and which people mistake as the reason for the bay's name. It's actually - as Brendan pointed out - because early European settlers saw fires from the aboriginal people on the shoreline. I couldn't get a great picture of these rocks, unfortunately, so you'll have to use some imagination (or Google).
Then, only once we'd arrived in Bicheno, our spot for the fourth night, the temperature rose by about 10 degrees celsius and it grew very sunny. Classic.
A rainy Bay of Fires
Cataract Gorge
A balanced meal
The final day was also easily my favorite day.
I remember on one earlier night, while we were in a bar with the group, some guys came up to us and sort of interjected, saying that we HAD to visit Wineglass Bay. At the time, I remember us sort of laughing and explaining how we were on a group tour and it was out of our control.
Well, on this final day we headed into Freycinet national park, a large peninsula on the eastern coast of Tasmania, which featured none other than the famous Wineglass Bay!
The group as a whole had a couple options here, and most of the guys (including the tour guide!) chose the climb up Mt. Amos. While our hike on Day 3 was long and meandering, this one was a steep, straight-shot up the mountain. The rocks had eroded and smoothed out up here, and we were slipping and sliding enough as it was, so if it had been raining we just wouldn't have been able to do this. Luckily, the weather was perfect and we sweated our way up this mountain. Not quite rock climbing, but close in places.
The view from the top over Wineglass Bay was spectacular, and my favorite view of the trip, especially because of all the work we put in to get up there. My friend even brought his drone, which was cool, but you really didn't need it when this vista was right in front of you.
A good long lunch up here, followed by a half climb, half slide back down the track, and then we were back at the beach, where we spent a while cooling off.
On top of the amazing hike, this was also the day where the group was the closest its ever been. Once we'd driven back to Hobart and officially parted ways with Brendan and the bus, we went out for a big group dinner, all crowding into this tiny Thai shop. Brendan even came back and joined us!
Drone shot of us on Mt. Amos
Wineglass bay
The steep descent
Overall, Tasmania was an amazing surprise, and a hidden gem through and through. It really feels incredibly similar to New Zealand, in fact, I learned on this tour that people call it poor man's New Zealand. While I agree that maybe New Zealand boasts a slightly higher reputation for beautiful nature, Tasmania is quite a terrible place for a poor man. It's expensive there!
Anyways, these 5 days are easily the highlight of this second leg, and one of the highlights of my entire gap year. They opened my eyes to the world of multi-day, solo group tours. Most of the people on that bus were young solo travelers like me, and we all became a sort of small family, a product of being together all day every day. Some of my favorite memories of this tour were from the nights in between activities, just hanging out with these people.
This tour also highlighted how time is relative. While my week in Melbourne dragged on and on, these 5 action-packed days passed in a blur. I wish it worked the other way around!
After a great tour of Tasmania, as well as a bit of time on an extra day to buy souvenirs and things in Hobart, it was back to Melbourne again for my final few days before I left Australia. This time, I felt good and revitalized from the social-ness of the tour, and was determined not to fall back into the rut from earlier. For that reason, I left the CBD and stayed in the Roamer hostel in St. Kilda, the artsy, beachside area of the city.
There's a long walk you can do, from St. Kilda along the Melbourne bay to the Brighton Bathing Boxes, a line of colorful beach huts that are a popular tourist destination and don't have much else going for them. The highlights of this walk for me were the views of the spectacular Melbourne skyline over the bay.
St. Kilda is also near Albert park, a large green space with a lake that made for a great spot to go on runs, provided I didn't get lost amidst the construction for the impending Australian Grand Prix. It's a bit of a full circle moment, if you remember back to the first real entry I wrote, from my time in Amsterdam, when the Dutch Grand Prix caused some transport issues. It's a stretch, but I view this as a full circle moment that F1 is throwing at me.
There was also the St. Kilda festival one day, full of food stalls and concerts and the occasional professional volleyball match, as well as a Givēon concert I went to one night. Overall, these last days in St. Kilda were nice, and it's fitting that I finished my Australia trip just like how it started back in Bondi: reading by the beach, enjoying the warm weather knowing it won't feel like that back home, and being grateful for the opportunity to solo travel like this.
Prep for St. Kilda fest
Brighton Bathing Boxes
Now, I want to talk about my path through Australia. The original plan had been to go up to Cairns, getting my scuba diving certification and experiencing the Great Barrier Reef, as well as the Gold Coast along the way. I learned, however, that supposedly this time of year is the peak rainy season up there, and it can get pretty wet and miserable. It is a tropical area, after all. In hindsight, I have it on good word that I probably would've been fine, but in the moment - 2 weeks out from the trip - it felt like the smart move to shift, going south from Sydney and exploring around there. So yeah, that's just to clear things up. I really wish that I'd seen a bit more while I was here, though I did mostly enjoy the route I chose! There is so much more this country has to offer, from what I mentioned earlier to Uluru and the Outback to the entire west coast. Travel here has a different feel to travel in Europe; I now know that the easiest and most enjoyable way to see these things while solo traveling are with group tours. I'd like to come back and do some justice to the rest of Australia.
Also, while prepping for this trip my parents were worried about the various natural dangers of Australia, which definitely get a bit hyperbolized, but are very real things. Spiders, snakes, cone snails, jellyfish, riptides, etc, the list goes on. Yet, over the past 3 and a bit weeks, I've been in cities and in the bush, and I only ever saw one spider on a bush, no snakes, and no dangerous sea creatures. Maybe I was lucky, and I certainly kept a good watch out for them and always checked my shoes and took precautions like that, but I believe it's not as scary as it gets played up to be, and these things aren't a reason to avoid coming here.
Oh, and here's my "things I've learned" list from Australia.
I've learned:
What vegemite is (fermented beer sludge) and how to eat it (thin layer over buttered toast)
Australian firefighters get flown out to fight Californian wildfires and vice versa
Emus and kangaroos can’t walk backwards, that’s why they’re on the Australian coat of arms (symbolizing progress)
The Blue Mountains are actually tinted blue because eucalyptus trees emit an oil which creates a blue haze in the sunlight
Tennis uses the same hold/break system as ultimate frisbee
TimTams are worth the hype
A group of kangaroos is called a mob
Whales have be found as far inland on Tasmania as New Norfolk
What AFL is (cross between soccer and rugby)
Volcano skiing is a real thing
Burger King in Australia is called Hungry Jacks because there's already a place that had copyrighted the name - Wendy's has the same issue in the Netherlands
JetStar actually weighs your carry-ons
Just like in Europe, I've kept a detailed spreadsheet of all my purchases for this second leg, and just like I did in the Closure? blog post, I'll now go over the cost breakdown of this trip. First and foremost, it was actually much more apparent that the USD was depreciating this time. I remember noticing once that in the span of only like 5 days, the same 20 AUD purchase rose in price by 7 cents. That's wild.
Anyways, here's the breakdown.
Accommodation: $1622
Transport: $1045.77
Daily Expenses (including activity tickets): $3120.72
Other (clothes, souvenirs, gifts, etc): $320.62
Total: $6109.11.
46 days. $132.81 per day. It's interesting to look back at my stats for Europe, and compare. To me, this higher average cost per day makes sense; I was living how I did in Europe, with the same hostel and food choices, but there were many additional factors that raised the cost.
Firstly, the type of travel I was doing necessitated that I took a lot more flights this time, and those tickets add up. Aside from the initial (and largest) round trip ticket from the US New Zealand which my parents paid for (this trip wouldn't have been remotely conceivable without that gift, so thank you), I paid for every single ticket myself, and this is why I think I prefer navigating Europe. Trains and buses are just easier and more convenient, not to mention orders of magnitude cheaper.
Also, I did a ton more set activities, like day tours and adventure activities. There's the obvious cost of the Tasmania tour, which is reasonable when you break it down, but things like that still add up.
Most importantly, Australia is simply a more expensive country on average than anything I encountered in Europe.
I can safely say that I am fully broke now, as I return to America, and I'll be spending the majority of my time in Boston working as much as I can. After living so long with no real responsibilities and tons of free time, I'm actually pretty excited to fall back into a more disciplined routine.
So yeah, that's it for my time in Australia, and the second leg of my gap year as a whole. It's funny, thinking back to Europe, because this trip has felt both shorter and longer, with some weird time dilation thrown in there. My time in Europe was much more action-packed, on average, which makes this second leg seem less significant and shorter. Yet, with the extended time in these cities, it feels like I've lived more here, and that it really has been a long time. I also think that, if I had switched the orders and done this trip first, before Europe, that I may have risked falling out of love with solo travel. With the experience of Europe under my belt and my comfortability with the solo traveling lifestyle, this second leg was a lot more fun and manageable.
Looking back, I'm really happy I got to see this second part out, that it came together like it did, and that I got to see Australia (and New Zealand). Who knows when I'll be able to get back to this part of the world, so far from home, but I certainly intend to at some point! I'm so so so grateful for this opportunity I've had to travel while I'm young.
As for the rest of my gap year, like I mentioned above the majority of my time will be working, but I'm actually not quite done traveling this year! The bulk of it is finished, obviously, but I figured I might as well cram as much in as possible before I have to go to college and have a real life. Firstly, before I even make it back to Boston, I've got some stops in San Francisco (where I am now), North Carolina, and Washington D.C. to visit family and friends. Then in the later spring - ideally with a bit more cash in the bank - I'm going back to Europe for a few weeks, on a family trip and a friends trip.
Out of all these blog entries, it seems fitting that the final one I write feels the most daunting to create and fulfilling to finish. As I sit here in San Francisco, finally finished with this piece, I know that I'll deeply miss the feeling of satisfaction I get from this blog. To me, traveling and writing are now synonymous.
Having etched my memories, experiences, and thoughts into a concrete final product for the last time (for the foreseeable future, at least), I can safely and sadly say that this is the true ending of A Year in Between.
Thank you to everyone who's read and supported me on this journey.
Hope you enjoyed!
Mark
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