ABOUT ME
Dear Readers!
I’m Virág, Viri or simply V – my name means flower in Hungarian.
I’m writing this in the hope that some of you who are afraid to take the first step, will decide to take the first step after reading this.
Childhood
I grew up in Hungary, and after a difficult childhood filled with mental and physical abuse, I , a shy and reserved girl, found my tribe at university, where I studied Cartography.
The family holidays mostly took us to the lake Balaton, that we Hungarians like to call the Hungarian Sea.
We never went abroad, and it didn’t really occur to me that I could.
The first time I met foreigners and spent time with them was at the Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix, for which I got the ticket from my secondary school best friend. We were 16, and so excited to speak to Finnish and German fans, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
I got invited to an Eco Camp in Germany, and visited France twice with my secondary school choir. These experiences gave me a foundation for future explorations, but I still never thought I could travel alone.
University
At university I kept dreaming of walking a pilgrimage called the Camino de Santiago with my primary school best friend. We were 22 when we took the plunge. She could only come for 3 weeks, so I ended up walking the first 3 weeks alone, which I found super difficult. It was a trip of firsts: it was my first flight, my first time seeing the sea, and my first time doing something alone. I was scared. But I ended up coming home as a changed person. As a grown-up.
After successful applications for the Erasmus program from my friends from university, I decided to apply for a semester at a university in Porto, Portugal, and I got it. Back that time there were no direct flights from Hungary and I didn’t know anyone who had been to the country (that’s why I chose it!). It was a superb experience, I made friends from so many countries, and ended up visiting Morocco and Malta (with a 1 eurocent flight! love you Ryanair!) in my free time. That’s when I started using Couchsurfing too.
Before my last semester at uni, I embarked on another pilgrimage, this time a shorter, but more scenic one, called Camino Primitivo.
London, UK
I met someone special there who lived in the UK, so after my last semester I moved to London to be an au pair. That relationship didn’t work out, but I fell in love with the city, and started to work in London as a professional nanny.
Years passed by, I spent some of my holidays in Hungary, but I visited other places too, and I started to travel in an adventurous way.
I hitchhiked along the coast of Ireland and Scotland, I visited my uncle in Norway, and then in Sweden, and combined these trips with hitchhiking and wild camping.
After one of the families I worked for moved to Ghana, I visited them, and that was the first time I experienced extreme culture shock. I travelled alone around the country but I was glad I met a German girl, I felt better travelling with another person.
I kept visiting other European countries, Luxembourg, North Macedonia, Bosnia, Poland, mostly to visit friends, but also to travel solo. I didn’t really have time to go further…
Asia
…Until one day in September the two families I was working for told me that I would have two weeks off in July!
I was on google straight away searching for places to hike in July. That’s when I stumbled upon a picture of Kyrgyzstan. Mmmm… What? Kyrgyzstan? I didn’t even know that it was possible to travel there.
I spent the most amazing two weeks in Kyrgyzstan, I met lots of people who had been travelling for months and years, I was shocked. How could it be possible?
And, low and behold, one year later, when my contract ended, I set off on a journey with a one-way ticket to Kyrgyzstan. I didn’t know which way I wanted to go from there, I left it to fate. The only thing I knew is that I tried to not fly at all.
I ended up hitchhiking from Kazakhstan to Iran via Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, spent 3 months Couchsurfing in Iran, didn’t get the visa for Pakistan so I took a boat to the UAE, hitchhiked 3 weeks in Oman, flew to Sri Lanka (there were no boats), and walked and wild camped there for 3 weeks.
I volunteered 1.5 months in India, hiked in the mountains of Nepal, and that’s when I learned that Pakistan had introduced the E-visa. I found Pakistan more intriguing than South East Asia, so I went there, and ended up spending 3 months in the country! I fell in love, with the country and with my now-husband.
The rest is history! I kept on travelling in SE Asia, I bought a bicycle in Thailand and had great plans with it, but the pandemic came, and only got to Cambodia.
Hungary, illness
I flew back to Europe, spent lockdown with my family in Hungary.
In the autumn I circumcycled Hungary following the border, that was my first long cycling adventure.
In the spring I got very sick (long covid), and me and my now-husband, then-boyfriend seeing each other in the summer became a dream and a goal. We hadn’t seen each other for 1.5 years.
My cardiologist put me on a stationary bike workout training, I was so weak, she didn’t want to let me go to Pakistan.
Finally I got somewhat better, and I could go. Still, the 2.5 days that it took me to get there didn’t help my health.
Pakistan
I stayed 3 months in Pakistan, lived together with my then-boyfriend and his family, we went through a lot of arguments and misunderstandings as two people coming from different cultures, but we worked everything out and came out stronger.
In 2022 we got married in a small ceremony in my husband’s village. We were hoping to move to Europe, but for financial reasons we couldn’t.
This is when we get to the present times, I live in Pakistan most of the year, and work in England in the winter.
We have opened a guesthouse and we will be organising group tours around the country.
I travel with my husband, with friends, and I still love travelling solo: I hitchhiked from Iran to Hungary the last time I visited Europe.
I have a lot of stories to share on this page, and hopefully they will inspire you – if you’re in need of inspiration.
