my travels

Near and far

About me

Hello!

My name is Anna, I’m over 40 and I’m a travel addict. This is my coming out at the very beginning of the story.

 

And now, in order. I was born in Russia, where I spent the first 30 years of my life: growing up, studying, giving birth to a son, working. In the first three decades of my life, all my travels came down to trips to the dacha, to my grandmother in the village and, God forbid, to the nearest suburbs.

 

Fortunately, there are many attractions close to St. Petersburg, and Karelia with its unique nature was a few hours away. I took my first flight abroad at the age of 30, and it was standard Turkey for 2 weeks with a five-year-old child. I still remember how I felt during my first flight. At that point I diagnosed myself with aerophobia. Over time, it turned out that travel addiction was a great cure for it!

 

In 2008, life brought me to Finland. I think I caught the “infection” around this time. My husband and I went on a belated honeymoon. In early November we took a ferry to Stockholm, then by car across half of Sweden, through Denmark to Germany. I was absolutely delighted despite the fall gloom, constant rain and cold! From the fact how much landscapes, architecture, people change. From how easy it turns out to cross borders when you don’t need a visa.

Everything was new to me and there was no plan prepared in advance. I wanted to see every town on the route and stop at every church along the way. Immediately upon my return, I began planning my next “dream trip”, subscribed to many travel bloggers and began replenishing my browser bookmarks with the most “useful” pages, and Google maps were full of stars and hearts – must-see geolocations. While my son was little, I had to take him along standard beach routes periodically, but the help of my family allowed me to start going to more interesting for an adult places without a child.

Travels enspire to live, life inspires to travel

Many bloggers count the number of visited countries. How to count them correctly? For example, should I count China if I was only in one city for one day – Guangzhou. Or Malaysia, where I was only one night in Kuala Lumpur. If we consider such short visits, then I can count 47 countries. Many of them several times. For instance Italy happened to me 6 times! I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been to Estonia.

 

In everyday life I am not much different from others. I go to work 5 days a week – I dream of one day changing this inconvenience, but I haven’t figured out how yet. I have a level of income at the lower end of the average – I dream of winning the lottery or receiving an inheritance from a millionaire relative who mysteriously appears one day – then I will make an epic trip around the world! I go in for sports as much as my body allows – orienteering, skiing, running (I even have marathons in all these sports). As for the bicycle, it has already become my faithful companion on many of my travels. I consider a bicycle to be the most convenient form of transport for immersing yourself in the real life of a country and for exploring it more deeply.

sign up for the newsletter

Fill this form if you want to be informed 

about the new publications in my blog.

Spread the love