Hello everyone,
my name is Alessio, I am 24 years old and I come from Italy. I am here thanks to the user @fatpandadesign. At first , I will give you a brief insight of my life story (1), then I will detail a bit my travels, where I have been and what my trips are like (2) and finally I will anticipate my future posts here (3). Enjoy the read and don't forget to upvote!
- I was born in Cagliari, the capital of Sardinia. At age 7 I moved for 4 years to the Limburg region, in the far south of the Netherlands. At age 11 I went back to Italy, but in a village in Lombardy halfway between Milan and the Swiss border. At 16, I moved for 2 years to Aix-en-Provence, in the south of France. From 14 to 18 I became very engaged in doing theatre, and played shows in Italian and English.
At 18, I moved back to the village in Lombardy to study Politics in Milan. At this age I also started, for 2 years, a collaboration on what was the only site dedicated to the Sardinian hip-hop scene: hiphopsardo.com . I was a record label manager and interviewed several artists that became relevant on the Italian rap scene. One of them is Kill Mauri.
When I was 20, I moved for 6 months for an Erasmus university exchange in Lille, a city in the north of France. This has sparkled my interest for travelling, questioned my life choices and gave a lot more meaning to my life. Currently, I am figuring out where should I move from Italy, finishing my studies and preparing my future trips! The picture below was taken in Yerevan, Armenia.
- In my life I have been in 35 countries. Most of them are in Europe, but I have also been to Asia (Turkey, Georgia and Armenia) and Africa (Morocco, Mozambique and a stopover in Angola). I started travelling solo in early 2014, as Lille is 3 hours from Amsterdam, 1 from Bruxelles, 2 from Paris and 1 from Calais, where the ferry to the UK departs. I started hitch-hiking in July 2014. Until that point I had only been to Western Europe.
On my 1st trip, I hitch-hiked from Italy through Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia (FYROM), Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Austria and Switzerland. On that trip, I never paid for accommodation and I spent 40 days on the road.
The first time I experienced culture shock was in December 2014, in Marrakech (Morocco). I overlanded the whole trip from Italy, by taking a bus to Aix-en-Provence (France), then a Blablacar to Cordoba (Spain), then a bus to Algeciras, hitch-hiking the ferry to Tangier then getting a train all the way to Marrakech. I went back by bus (excluding the ferry in Tangier) all the way from Agdz (5 hours south-east of Marrakech) to Ouarzazate, Marrakech, Casablanca, Tangier, Algeciras, Barcelona, Aix-en-Provence and finally Milan.
The trip where I hitch-hiked the furthest was in the summer of 2015, when I hitch-hiked almost all the way from Italy to Armenia, as it was the most distant country where I did not need a visa. (For the full trip,check the picture below) I travel by hitch-hiking, cheap buses and error-fare flights ( I spent 175 for a return flight Lisbon-Maputo!). I sleep in a tent, wherever it's safe (even on the side of the road!) or on somebody's couch. I usually spend a bit more money for eating, as I'm a foodie and do not want to miss out on the local delicacies.
This year, I spent New Year's in Switzerland, went on a Training Course funded by the EU in Transylvania (Romania), then a 10 day trip to Mozambique and a weekend in Lisbon, and one month ago I came back from a 40 day overland trip through Slovenia,Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Greece and Bulgaria.
- I intend to fund myself, and help fellow users, by posting some of my past travel stories and tips and tricks on how to get the cheapest tickets possible. I will start tomorrow by posting a small guide on how to get cheap flights from Europe, with a little insight on which airlines are cheaper for your destination. The picture below is my ticket Barcelona- Punta Cana and how much I paid for it.
