Eight years of traveling. Eight years of hostels, night buses, mountain trails, border crossings, new homes, many goodbyes, and even more hellos.

It all started with a Working Holiday Visa in 2018. When I first packed my backpack and went traveling all by myself. I learnt a lot during that trip: How to choose the right hostel, how to communicate with hands and feet, how to negotiate in local markets. I made many right decisions and quite a lot of risky ones too, until I slowly learnt how to trust myself in situations I had never been before.

Eight years later, I still carry the same backpack, exploring the world. Once you've seen and experienced things beyond your imagination, it becomes hard to get back to only one version of "normal". I've seen the most beautiful beaches across continents, I've been on mountain tops only a few people get to see and I listened to stories that felt like Hollywood movies.

Traveling is living life intensely and intentionally. In order not to forget how traveling inspired and changed us, HostelStories was created.