When I was about eight years old, I had my dad take a picture of me and put me in his contacts; this was an age where I was obsessed by technology. I especially liked that you could put your career or description below your name when making your contact. I took some time thinking about what I wanted as my descriptor. I chose “Adventurist” because that was my dream for my future self. To me, that was what life seemed to be about…adventure. From a young age, tv shows and movies like Duma, Harry Potter, Narnia, Swiss Family Robinson, Johnny Quest, Walter Mitty, Journey, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Monte Carlo, Nim’s Island, and Free Willy were widely appealing to me. I couldn’t quite explain why they were, other than that they captured my attention and excitement

I had been chasing a feeling that I’d felt approximately two times in my life. The first time being sailing in a small 420 boat. I can still picture the sun that was beginning to set in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. The boat was keeling in the strong wind, and I had my feet hooked underneath the center strap as arched off the side. The official term is called hiking, and it’s one of my favorite aspects of sailing. There is something addictive about being on the edge of capsizing your boat, but if you adjust your sail and direction just right, you’re able to go flying across the water with overpowering the sail. In that moment, the tips of my hair were dragging in the Atlantic, the harbor seals swam somewhere below, the sea sprayed my tanned face, and my soul was consumed by joy.

The second time I experienced this kind of rush was after backing the Washington coast without a phone. I still don’t know the exact location—possibly near the Puget Sound—of where it was because someone else oversaw the map that day. We’d been hiking along the beach until we came upon a mass of rock that stretched from the edge of the forest, across the beach and out into the ocean. Instead of taking the easiest path over, we decided to venture up and out to the edge of the cliff overlooking the ocean. I had, and still do have, a fear of heights, but after climbing up the steep cliff all I could do was stand and watch the horizon. It sounds corny, but I remember standing there transfixed by the crashing waves and the grandness of the ocean. I distinctly remember how proud I felt of myself, and how thrilled I was by the world.

When COVID happened, everything seemed to be at a standstill. It made me reflect once again on what I truly wanted out of life, and I found that I still had an unquenchable desire to go adventuring. So, I waited. Three years went by. I graduated high school, started my first year of college, made friends, lost friends, mom got breast cancer, ate Wawa, swam competitively, mom recovered from cancer, realized I love writing fiction, taught people how to swim in the summer, started my sophomore year, quit my sport, took up ballet, decided my major, thought about getting a publishing internship, had coffee randomly with a woman, woman encouraged me to apply for a champagne house internship in France, applied to study abroad in Rome, was hired by the champagne house, was accepted to abroad program, went through the visa process, bought plane tickets, and before I knew it, it was time to leave.

Life is funny sometimes; for three years, I was in the same place with the same people, on a set path with occasional scares or surprises…and then everything changed, and I was in a different country by myself with entirely new people. I am still on my adventure.

So far, my journey has felt like three chapters: summer job in France, nine days in Croatia, studying in Rome. My time abroad has taught me many things, good and bad. It’s helped and hurt me in many ways. However, there are a few things I know to be true: I am capable. I am resilient. I am so privileged to be able to do this. I’ve contracted the travel bug. There is still much more out there that I want to see. I’ve also realized whatever issues that plagued you in your home country, don’t necessarily escape you across an ocean, but the experience may give you new perspective. In this article, I want to reflect upon my nine days in Croatia.

Going to Croatia was a last-minute decision. I was getting to the end of my internship in the champagne region of France, and I knew that I needed to leave the Schengen region before I reached my 90-day limit. I’d arrived in France in early June with no required visa—trust me I went through the gruesome battlefield that is figuring out all the visa, EU, Schengen rules—and had a visa for my study abroad in Italy. My abroad program would end on December 17, along with my visa, and that meant I had only a few days to appreciate Europe during the winter holidays; the problem being I wouldn’t make it to Christmas or New Years. Both holidays of which my family wanted to come to Europe for, so I needed to get out of the Schengen area to elongate the number of days on the back end.

The decision was between taking the Eurostar to London—a city that I’ve visited before and loved—and Croatia—a country that I knew next to nothing about but looked lovely, according to the photos. After some research and price comparison, I decided to book a flight to Dubrovnik. From there, I booked my first stay at a hostel, but since my planning was so last minute, the only availabilities were mixed dorms. I was nervous about this; I was a solo female traveler in a new country with no previous experience in hostel hopping, but more than anything, I had that feeling again; it was the same kind of feeling of adventure I once felt…the excitement of something new and unknown.

When I touched down in Dubrovnik, my first mission was to get Kunas, Croatia’s currency. I found an ATM in the airport, and when the machine asked me how much I wanted to extract, I drew a blank. The options ranged from 200 kunas to 1,800 kunas. I had no idea what the conversion was, and my phone hadn’t updated to my new location, so I didn’t have access to the internet. Once I connected to Wifi, I figured out that 200 kunas was equivalent to 25.81 USD. I took a shuttle to the Old Town.

*to be continued*