An Unthinkable 10 Year Return To Romania 🇷🇴: There Did It All Go Wrong

“Drowned in love ❤️ and false kisses; a gathering of no meaning” – Manic Street Preachers.

I never really thought I’d ever return to Bucharest, which capitals Romania. I mean, I was already here 4 times in the same month back in 2014. November 2014, I backpacked Bucharest 4 times that time. But Don’t Stop Living ain’t no simple blog, nor should its author Jonny Blair crave to be. Remember –

“An extraordinary guy can never have an ordinary day” – Noel Gallagher.

Let’s go back to 2014 to put things intill that there perespective…

Firstly, I landed in Bucharest, Romania after a standard textbook night of travel blogging. That was the culmination of a crazy journey back through England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 while my girlfriend (at the time) Panny had finally secured a visa for USA 🇺🇸 so naturally she backpacked “America” while I backbackpacked “Europe”. You don’t need to stick my tongue in any cheek, there, I’m a Northern Irish nationalist 😉 Back then, that trip included 2 Northern Ireland football matches, 3 Glentoran football matches and 3 AFC Bournemouth football matches.

But something went very wrong here, in Romania. And this blog post is NEW NEWS. It wasn’t in any of my Backpacking Centurion book series, it somehow missed the cut. By the time I got round to writing my This Is The Next Century series, the cut was over.

Firstly why was I even in Romania and what were my travel plans back in 2014?

Well, back then I was loving the freedom of backpacking 🎒 and travel blogging. I was a proper digital nomad. I had no flat, no home. Every day was an adventure from late 2012 to mid 2016. The only time I was “settled” in that period was in a temporary flatshare in Hong Kong (with a cumulation of James, Larne Neil and Melanie) and a summer spent writing in Panny’s flat. In that time period I also taught English for a few companies on short term contracts, the last of which was February 2014 to June 2014. Blogging on the move had become way too easy. I’m not sure that was healthy, in retrospect.

When June 2014 chimed into view, I had not only saved up a fair whack of money, but I was earning very well as a travel blogger and could just keep backpacking. I basically just travelled and worked everyday. From June 2014 to October 2014, I backpacked England, China, Hong Kong, Brazil (3 weeks for the World Cup), Guyana, French Guyana, Suriname, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, USA, Andorra, Catalonia and Northern Ireland!! It was a wild 5 months. Maybe my wildest…

Then after America Away, I decided to head to Eastern Europe again. Mostly because my jigsaw puzzle there was emptyish. In the former Yugoslavia, I only had Slovenia backpacked. My travel blog was bereft of the others, plus Romania, Moldova, Gagauzia, Transnistria, Bulgaria and even Mainland Greece were unbackpacked. I was a man on a blogging backpacking mission, I felt so young and vibrant.

Add in the fact that I was earning a lot from blogging, I was churning out 2 to 3 articles per day, all my accommodation and tours were sponsored and backpacking had became “a piece of piss”, easy.

And this is where it all went wrong. THERE did it all go wrong.

I landed in Bucharest on Monday 10th November 2014. That night I met up with Wandering Earl, a fellow travel blogger, who previously featured in my World Travellers Series. Top man, great blogger.

The next day, I headed north to Bucovina and was amazed by it. Romania was beautiful. I toured Cacica Salt Mine, Suceava, Sucevita, Moldovita, Ceramics at Marginea and slept in countryside at Dor De Bucovina. All was well and golden.

I returned by train back to Bucharest on the Friday morning in time for Northern Ireland’s away match v Romania in a Euro 2016 qualifier. I had nothing booked in advance after that.

We lost 2-0 and the next morning, instead of checking out of my hostel and heading to Moldova, I decided to stay another night. I was reviewing 4 hostels in Romania on that trip, so it was easy to move around. I was hungover and was put in a different dorm. I was properly hungover and my fruity peach brand (asshole company) broke for about the 10th time…

I had a promise to write two travel articles for a client that would bring in about £250. At the time, I priced a new laptop in the nearby shopping mall and it was about that price. I had to buy it. Because if I didn’t buy it, I’d lose the client and £250. So I now had a free laptop, kept the client and was stuck in Bucharest.

That night, after doing that job, I was in the hostel kitchen having a cup of tea… when in walked two girls. Again, in walked two girls…

One was sleeping above me in the dorm room. The other in the adjacent bed. They were about to turn my life on its absolute head.

We struck up a fast conversation about travels and life. I was mightily impressed because they lived in Bulgaria and had already backpacked mainland Greece and Northern Macedonia, a hat-trick I was missing at the time. The girls got impressed that I myself had backpacked 7 continents and 100 countries (Costa Rica had been number 100, though I hadn’t realised it at the time). So we started following each other’s journeys and I met up with them again in Bulgaria. I don’t know if I was just sussing if they were “real” or not…

“Does she keep the receipts for the guys that she buys? Ain’t it bittersweet, she was only just getting by” – Noel Gallagher, if he had backpacked Bucharest and Chisinau in both 2014 and 2024.

[photos unincluded due to request of fake people]

At the time, I thought backpacking was a total dream and just brilliant. But actually, this event 10 years ago was the start of my decline.

We can’t erase the clocks. As I board my flight to Bucharest today, 10 calendar years later, things have changed.

I’m not happy go lucky, I don’t churn out loads of travel blog posts anymore. But there’s a constant – Northern Ireland will play Romania away tonight, and I’m backpacking a hostel dorm.

You girls – Don’t meet me again, please.

You’ve ruined my life completely.

Over and Doubt / Over An Doubt.

“Drowned in love ❤️ and false kisses; a gathering of no meaning” – Manic Street Preachers.