Em and Sian’s year of adventure – Part one: Europe by train (and boat and bus)

Whilst Emily and I have been talking on and off for years about taking some time out to do some adventure travelling, big things (cancer, Covid, career decisions) kept getting in the way. But we’ve finally taken the decision to take the leap and go for it. The impetus is to spend some time with Emily’s family, to see some new parts of the world, experience different cultures and hopefully also do some volunteering along the way.

The first part of our adventure was prompted by three things:

1. Despite us living in the UK together since 2006, there are still many parts of Europe that we haven’t explored;
2. We wanted to get the boat to the USA but the first sailing was at the end of April and we didn’t discover this until after Emily had arranged her career break to start at the beginning of March; and
3. There was a Black Friday sale on Interrail tickets!

The contract on my job was until the end of March 2024 so I planned to work until then, which meant that I would be working for a month more than Emily. As our budget was already going to be very tight it was worth me sacrificing a month of adventure to round off my employment in a job that I’ve really enjoyed. Plus I didn’t want to let my employer down.

Then my Dad’s partner, Angela, very kindly offered for us to stay in the house she’s bought in Spain during March and the first part of our year of adventure was set: spend March in southern Spain with me working and Emily exploring and then travel back to the UK the long way – using trains, ferries and buses to head across to Greece and then up through the Balkans before taking fast trains across Northern Europe and the Eurostar back to the UK to catch the boat to America.

For those of you who’ve read this blog in the past for cycling adventures, don’t worry, there are some of those coming. Once I reach New York I plan to bikepack from there to Tennessee and a little later in the year we’ll be heading to Kenya for some more bikepacking. So maybe just ignore the next few posts if you’re only interesting in reading about cycling adventures.