42 days of travel, 42 euros – is it possible?

For a long time we wondered if it would be possible to travel around the world with having a limit of 1 euro for 1 person to spend everyday. We thought that it would be very difficult, tiring, and stressful but during the summer we proved it wrong; we can’t say that it was easy but it certainly was doable!

Multiple times we heard from a lot of different people that they can’t travel because of their lack of money. After this trip a lot of people were jealous that we got to see 9 beautiful countries without actually spending anything. They often ask us how we managed to succeed with our plan. That’s why we decided to share our experience and knowledge about low-cost travelling.

We spent a lot of time planning this trip in order to make sure we come back before our university starts. Since we had a time limit we decided to visit only 9 countries, instead of taking a longer route like we originally planned. We had 42 days until our plane back to Poland from Stockholm; You can see all the places that we visited on the map below:

Before our trip began, all of us spend amazing time on Woodstock Festival in Kostrzyn nad Odrą (Poland). Woodstock is the biggest free music festival in Europe, with mostly rock and metal bands. A few days of camping, attending many wonderful workshops about travel, social issues, or LGBT+ rights. Great music accompanied us throughout the entire week and the whole event made us even more excited about our trip.

The trip itself started with just only two of us hitting the road as Laura had to stay in their hometown to finish their internship. We all met again in Cologne and after that we could finally explore the amazing stuff together.

We hitchhiked, dumpster dived, busked, and used couchsurfing in order to spend less money. But the most important part of all of those activities was making great friends and gaining new experiences. Some of them we found very useful, and decided to apply them to our ordinary lives.

Going out of our comfort zone definitely changed our lives, our personalities, and the way we see the world. We learned a lot, met interesting, helpful and great people, saw astonishing nature and beautiful cities, but also saw how much food is getting wasted everyday. It gave us more strength and even more love for travelling.

Since we are all queer, LGBT rights are extremely important to us and we love taking part in of all the events that people from this community organise, we planned our trip around a few Pride Marches. We’ve been to 4 during the trip (and some more in Poland before it) and each one was completely different. That’s why we also plan to focus on comparing all of those events.

For us using couchsufing wasn’t only a free place to stay- It was a possibility to meet new people and to see and explore their culture through their eyes by getting to know them. Without it we wouldn’t be able to see a lot of amazing, hidden from tourists places; or to be so inspired by their stories. Without all of those helpful people our trip wouldn’t have been as amazing as it was. We talked for hours, cooked together, shared our meals, dumpster dived, went for walks, played board games, learned how to juggle, attended prides and even did magic tricks.

Some days we had no problem getting from one place to another; but on some others we were stuck for hours in one city losing hope for ever getting a ride. One time we even had to spend the night on a petrol station. Most of our drivers were amazing people with great stories to tell, but not everyone was fine with us being members of the LGBT+ community; We usually tried to hide this part of us in order to not put ourselves in danger. Nevertheless, hitchhiking was and is always an adventure so we still use it as a way of transport.

Having a lot of stressful situations on the road and spending 24 hours together everyday for one and a half months can easily start conflicts. There were arguments; Sometimes those quarrels lasted for hours and we had to take a break from each other. But overall, our friendship has strengthened and we bonded. Now we are closer than ever.

The trip was tiring but definitely worth it so we hope our next holidays will be just as amazing as the previous ones. We will try our best to post stories from our travels frequently, focusing not only on story-telling but also on some practical tips. It will make us really happy if you happen to enjoy it.

You can read about our first stop – Berlin – here.