13 Lessons I Learnt Traversing across 13 European countries in 1 Year

2016 was an unplanned year of travelling to 13 countries in Europe. While I was travelling and checking things off the Lonely Planet list I discovered something completely new, I discovered 7 new wonders of the world, an unseen side of humanity, the beauty of mother Earth and I discovered qualities about me.

Living in London gives me a great opportunity to pack up every weekend and explore a new destination 2 hours away.

There are 30,000 days in your life. When I was 24, I realized I’m almost 9,000 days down. There are no warm-ups, no practice rounds, no reset buttons. Your biggest risk isn’t failing, it’s getting too comfortable. Every day, we’re writing a few more words of a story. I wanted my story to be an adventure and that’s made all the difference.

I started flying in February 2016, the flights during winter months are extremely cheap with average of £30 return for each journey.

I also decided to couchsurf this time around, though I had never done it before and knew only one other male friend who has done it in the past, I was a bit skeptical but I decided to give it a go and try something new, as I started contacting people I got more happiness out of talking to strangers than by even flying to so many different places every weekend.

It was one of the best experiences I have had in 2016 and something that enriched my life and kind of changed the way I look at life, at the end of it the destinations didn’t matter as much as the journeys did and the people along the way that made an impact in my life, that contributed to the book of my life, that helped me expand the spider’s web and knit a beautiful thread across Europe, there are 7 billion people on this earth, never in a billion years would we know all their stories, fear of missing out much? I thought this would be good way to at least meet a couple hundred and see how different people live, work, create, practice life.

Here are the 13 most important things I learnt while gazing under the sky to catch some northern lights in Iceland and delighting in the beauty of Tulips in full bloom in Holland.

1. New Year New Cause

   On average humans spend 50 years as healthy adults, with all the chatter about wanting to make a difference and trying something new, but not taking much action, coming up with new year’s resolutions and giving up after a week, what if we dedicated each year to a new cause and then taking smaller actions to fulfill that cause?

2. How to be a Story teller?

   These adventures make for interesting dinner table conversations- from people asking you for recommendations to keeping in touch with all the people who touched your life while travelling, it makes you a natural story teller.

3. Beyong the Textbook

   On average humans stick to one industry and 3–4 different companies and 2–3 different cities or countries in their entire lifetime. I met a chef, a mechanical engineer, a world travelling teacher, a Eurasian trader, an airlines manager, an IT consultant, an insect collector with a mini museum to support his love for all things crawly. If it wasn’t for my travels I would never have met such interesting people in varied professions with such different life experiences and lessons to impart.

4. The world is much bigger than you think

   we all think we know it all, but only when we start to travel do we realize how narrow our world is, our immediate environment is, no amount of going to the library to read books or watching documentaries and films will help open up that world until we don’t embark on what Columbus did and found a continent.

5. One man’s pet is another man’s answer to starvation

   I love horses and so do the Icelandics, I love mine in the outdoors, they love theirs on the plates, things you wouldn’t even imagine do happen and seeing different customs and rituals is a great way to stop yourself from being bound in an echo-chamber of sorts and to know other people’s views, play devil’s advocate sometimes and question your own views and ideas.

6. Different languages have different abilities to enhance the cognitive powers of the brain

   In a world dominated by English language there are so many parts of our brains that we don’t even simulate, the way we think and speak and comprehend has a lot to do with our language of choice too and allowing ourselves to practice a local language of the country we visit makes us realize the beauty of the human mind and capabilities.

7. We all speak one universal language

   no matter how bad the media portrays the world as going down the drains, people world over are compassionate, humanitarian and still speak the universal language of helping others in need, from the Danish who helped me buy a ticket from an ancient ticket machine just outside of the city centre when I was in Copenhagen to the Czech lady at the Museum in Brno who suggested the best things to do and the random person I stopped at in Barcelona asking for the best place to go and eat, or the worker in a store in Bratislava who pulled his phone out to translate what the vegetarian options were, language has no barriers, the colour of your skin or the make-up of your genes have nothing on humanity.

8. Everyone is changing the world in their little way

   From a medic student organizing free walking tours in Bratislava to show people her culture to the IT consultant in Stockholm helping an airline run smoothly, we are all making a difference and changing the world for the better in our own little way.

9. Universal Bacic Thinking

   George in Milan, Sebastian (Belgian) in Barcelona, and me from India (now in London) all have the same mindset and more data and information on our phones than the President of United States did in 1940s, the social media generation consuming the media has grown up with the same mindset and geographical boundaries no longer differentiate us or what we do and believe in.

10. Curry get Enough of it

    Almost everyone loves Indian food, with every 6th person on earth being an Indian now, the love for our food spreads far across from Iceland to United Kingdom and even Switzerland.

11. What Opportunity Does

    When people are given the right tools and opportunities they can go on to change not only their lives but their neighbours and the whole worlds. All these people I met along my journey realize their opportunities and have the chance to move around to seek better opportunities and thus help the community and society (the borderless utopia which not many get to enjoy in the rest of the world, is one of the biggest boons the previous generations enjoyed until Brexit and the terrorist attacks which have led to serious concerns about open borders, obviously when we spend most money on colonizing Mars not much is left to help people on our own planet).

12. The Return on investment

    The best investment you can make- investing in travelling and exploring new places and meeting new people is the best investment I have made for myself in the last 2 years, it has been the best education of my life too and history never seemed more interesting back in the text books than it did when I signed up for historical walking tours across all countries.

13. The overtaking of minimalist lifestyle

    I have never been a hoarder but after extensively travelling I have realized that collection of experience and memories over cluttering with materialistic things can be a great therapeutic experience which a lot more people should consider.

Due to a great adventure 2016 gave me I label 2017 as the year of Storytelling, I want to tell the stories of different people and get to know more people leading different lives out there. For that I have decided to travel to 7 different countries this year and meet as many locals as I can, I write this as I just got back from Hungary waiting to go to Amsterdam.