nobudgettravel

First ride

DAAAAMN!!! This is so awesome! The first day is going pretty good so far.

After getting ready this morning, my mom picked me up. She took me to the store to buy a new rain cover for my new backpack (I’ll explain this later). After that she took me to Hazeldonk. This is a truck stop and gas station. We said goodbye and there it was; Freedom!

I started off at the gas station. After putting down my backpack and grabbing my sign, it took the staff 2 minutes to notice me and tell me I wasn’t allowed there. This almost killed my dream. But that man wasn’t going to let that happen. He told me where I was able to stand and offered me coffee.

So after my coffee break I went on to a spot where I actually was allowed and started signing at drivers passing by. It took me about 20/25 minutes waving, smiling and wondering what people were thinking of me for a BMW 7 series stopped right in front of me. It took me a few seconds before I realized this car stopped for me.

I got in and met a nice businessman called Joost. He was on his way from Amsterdam to Paris and was happy to take me with him since he used to hitchhike back in the days.

Before I left, I promised myself not to get dropped off in the big cities. Although this looks like a lot of fun and is pretty easy cause a lot of people go the. It’s a pain in the ass to get away the next day. At least that’s what I’ve been told.

That’s what I told Joost as well, so he dropped me off about 40km before Paris. A little town called Senlis. But just a bit to little to have a good chance at a place to stay the night.

I checked my map and found a bigger town just 10km away. I decided I could start walking and switch to hitchhiking if I found a good spot. Which I did. And another 20 minutes later I got picked up by a nice car mechanic.

Not the best place to hitchhike due to missing pavements and cars racing by at 100 km/h

He dropped me off at the train station in Chantilly. Just across the station I found a nice pub where I asked If I could come in and write something on my laptop.

So, there it is so far. Now I’m gonna try to get some food and hopefully find a place to stay the night.

27-11-19 6:45PM

Here we go!

This is it then! Just woke up on the day I’m leaving everything behind. In about 2 hours I’ll get dropped on my starting point.

Yesterday I decided to start off in a southern direction. So that will probably be Belgium, France and Spain for the first days/weeks.

I didn’t have enough time during preparation to write down a full item list. It has been a pretty heavy week for me. Full of preparation, work and a lot of emotional time saying goodbye to everyone. So that list will be on here at some point, but I’m not sure when.

Alright, I’ll have to get myself ready now. Still got some small things to do before I can hit the road.

I want to finish this one with a big thank you! To all the people supporting me, giving me tips and tricks, caring so much and of course helping me.

This is going to be awesome! And I don’t think I could have done it without all the support.

Thanks!

1 more week

Today is the first day living out of my bag. And it’s going pretty good so far. Started the day with a nice hot shower, only to dry myself off with my travel towel. It feels kind of weird but it does the job. Now just wait and see how long it will take for it to dry.

After that I took a 2 km walk to my moms place to test out walking with the backpack on.

After that I went for a pedicure treatment. Followed it up with a short visit to my grandma and went on to the barber.

So, a lot of preparation going on today. De rest of the day will be mostly relaxing and some small projects that need attention.

Home in a bag

There it is, lended to me by someone special! My bag, my backpack, my everything on thist trip, but most of all, my home.

Why my home? Well, for the upcoming period it will be all i have. I will be literally living out of my backpack.

At this point my bag is almost fully packed and ready to go. But just to be sure, I’m starting to live out of it from now on. 7 days of testing, 7 days to see if all is there.

And whem I’m sure, I’ll be posting a full packing list of what I’m bringing on my trip. This will be somewhere around Monday.

The bag is an Ofsprey Farpoint 40. A 40 litre backpack with 4 storage compartments. I’ve got them set up as followed.

Main compartment
All the big stuff, clothes and toiletry.
Medium sized compartment
Electronics, chargers, raincoat and small things that won’t fit in the main compartment.
Slash pocket
Things I need to be eay to grab.
Dual mesh pockets
Water bottle and rain cover for the bag

The bag is not top loaded but opens more like a suitcase. Thats ideal for reaching stuff at the bottom of the bag.

Also it has a cover for the backstraps and an extra shoulderstrap you can add, so you can wear it as a sportsbag. Personally I don’t think I’ll be using that feature since it’s just to heavy for one shoulder.

Why and how?

Life is short, and we only get to live it once. I want to look back and say I did exciting things and lived life on my own terms, not say I spent my life reading blogs like this during my lunch break while wishing I was doing the same thing.

No one dies going “If only I had spent more time in the office!”

In this western lifestyle, you go to school, you get a job, you get married, you buy a house, and have your 2.5 children. Society boxes you in and restricts your movements to their expectations. It’s like the Matrix.

Well, I’m stepping out of the Matrix for now.

While society thinks traveling is something everyone should do at one point, it is only gap years after college or short vacations that are acceptable.

Everyone is told how to live their lives in a programmed schedule and money-based manor.

I just want a taste of not living my life like that. And if I like it, I’ll try to find ways to extend it as long as possible.

So now I’ve given you an idea why I decided to go on this trip. Now I’ll try to explain how I want to achieve it without money.

First things first. I won’t be the ‘homeless’ guy begging for food or a place to stay the night. I’m willing to pay for my daily needs and give back for what I get. Just not with money.

It might not be that straight forward, but that’s the goal.

I’ve got myself some backup money for emergencies. And if people really want to pay me money for my work, I won’t deny it. I’ll just use it to keep using my phone, save up for emergencies and maybe sometimes ‘take a day off’.

So basically I’m gonna try to work for food and accommodation day by day. Maybe sometimes for a few days, but I want to keep moving and see as many places as possible.

For the traveling part itself, I’ll be mainly hitchhiking. This might take some time to get good at, but challenge accepted!

I think there’s a lot to learn about myself, communicating with others and especially the world itself. I want to learn these things in my own way, at my own speed.

Simple things like:

How do I handle rejection?
Feeling more comfortable talking to strangers.
Different perceptions on life.
And most of all, really getting to know myself and what I want to be.

So there you have it. This is why and how I’m planning on going on a no budget trip around Europe.

I’m not quite sure for how long I’ll be traveling. I mean, as long as it’s fun and I’m still learning on a daily basis, there’s no reason to stop.

For anyone interested or hesitating:

Just live your dreams. Everything’s possible if you really want to.

10 more days of preparation

Yes! This thing is getting real. I’m so exited and just can’t wait to leave, but this will be a hard week. A week full of hard work preparing and saying goodbye to people. Definitely since I’ve been ill for the past few days. But I’m getting better by the hour now.

Today was the last day at one of my jobs. So 2 more days of work at my other job to go to really close that chapter and start adventure.

Although I’m crazy exited, I must admit I’m also a bit scared. Lots of people warning me for all the bad stuff that can happen kinda got in my head a little. And then there’s something called being homesick. I’ve never been homesick before and I’m not sure if I’m sensitive to it. But there’s only one way to find out.

Plans for the coming 10 days:

Dinner with friends
Final shopping
Fully pack my bag (probably 10 times)
2 days of work
Making as much music as possible
Dinner and making music with the band
Farewell gathering for family and friends

That’s it for this post. Coming up this week:

Packing list, photos of bag and dinners!

The road to nowhere

Everytime I visit a new country I’ll update this map. For now I’ve got The Netherlands and Belgium highlighted because that’s where I’ve been today.

The country’s in red are not likely for me to visit but we’ll see where this trip will get me.

Facebook page is up!

To make it all a bit easier to follow, I decided to also make a Facebook page.

It’s called nomoneytavel and you can access it by simply clicking the Facebook logo above ^

You can like the page if you want to keep updated.

Two weeks to go

Today in two weeks I’ll be good to go. Hopefully I’ll be on my way already. Picked up by a kind driver who’s willing to take me to my first stop.

For this post I’m going to try to put down some of my goals for the trip. I mean, it’s gotta be fun but I also want to make it something I can learn from and use as an experience for the rest of my life.

First of all, I wanna have a fun time. So even when things get rough, I’ll have to try to keep a positive mindset.
I want to meet a lot of different people who can tell me lots of awesome stories.
Music is my passion. So that means I want to add experience to that as well. Learn to play new instruments or just jamming out with new people/friends.
Overcome some of my fears. Maybe I’ll have to discover what my real fears are before I do this, but it’s something I want to do nonetheless.
Meet the cultures of Europe. Every country and region has its own culture. I want to see as many as possible.
And of course, be free! Although it sounds so obvious, this might be the hardest one of all. Since I’m pretty much depending on the generosity of mankind, I’ll have to watch out for not forgetting why I’m doing this.

Alright, that’s it for now. Stay tuned for more updates.

15 day countdown

In just over 2 weeks I’ll start my backpacking trip around Europe. At this point I’m just gathering all the stuff and information I might need before I leave.

I’ve already notified the people I wanted and I will share this blog from now on.

It’s kind of a scary feeling, knowing I will probably be gone for a good amount of time. But yet it’s even more exiting.

Since this is my first time blogging and this is my first blogpost ever, I’m not really sure what else to write here right now. But I’ll promise you guys there will be more. A lot more!