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This story begins with a prologue, which quantifies the trip around the world I took when I was nineteen – how many buses did I take? How many flights?Chapter 1 begins with me returning home to Hawaii, and focuses on one story in particular of an eventful hiking trip. This chapter also serves as a self-introduction. Chapter 2 begins the Asia stage of the trip: Traveling in Japan, and staying with three friends in three different regions (Kansai, Tokyo, and Hokkaido). It includes stories of how I was filmed for Japanese TV eating melon pan, made gaffs with a traditional family, sang Irish folk-songs on a touristy beach, petted kangaroos, and experienced a friend-break-up. Chapter 3: My trip to Beijing and my accidental trip to Shanghai. Includes stories about being lost for two hours trying to find my hostel, climbing the Great Wall, a dinner party at a Szechwan restaurant, and getting detained in the airport for 13 hours. Chapter 4 is the last of the Asia sections, and it tells the story of my trip to Vietnam: the friend I made in the airport (then ended up meeting up with in his city), chilling with my host in Hồ Chí Minh City, and toursiting really hard on the Mekong River with some Welsh people.
The Europe section of the story begins with an eventful flight from Bangkok to Mumbai where I was accosted by a strange and charismatic woman who claimed to be the Buddha. Chapter 5 focuses on my time in the UK, both my adventures walking many miles a day in London and my time in Cardiff. Chapter 6 is the longest chapter, and concerns itself with my daily life in Paris, where I stayed for five months: the French school system, my program, my impressions of the city, and the interesting people I met when I was there. It’s about riding the metro and stumbling upon famous landmarks and avoiding dog poop. Chapter 7 is dedicated the particularly unusual happenings in Paris, and my trips to the rest of Ile de France, Alsace, Brittany, and Normandy. Chapter 8 tells stories of my travels in Italy, in Milan, Rome, the Vatican and Florence and the frustrations and joys of traveling with other people. This part of the story involves eating a lot of gelato, urban camping, hitchhiking at 5am, and trying on a 1000 dollar dress on a dare. Chapter 9 is stories from other countries I visited: how I ended up outside a train station in Brussels at 3am, why I went to Amsterdam in Budapest and the wonderful people I met up with there.
The epilogue is reflection on the 225 day adventure – the iconic sites I saw, the surreal encounters I had, the friends I made who I hope to keep for the rest of my life. This final reflection is a commentary on the gratitude I feel, both for the friends I already had who I got to meet up with and the strangers who opened their lives to me as well as for the opportunity to travel. What began as a wild idea turned into an adventure very different than I could have ever imagined, and left me hopeful for what’s to come.
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