Las reglas del juego (or "Off to see the world")

Tblisi international airport, 22 October 2026 

Con mi facilidad de hacer nido y conexiones decidí que debía poner reglas a mis ínfulas de viajera internacional. O quién sabe si me iría una vez que llegue. Ahora, mi pasaporte azul me da ingreso a 168 países, 108 de los cuales puedo ingresar sin visa. Sin papeleo, sin trámites logísticos y administrativos. Sin plata y sin hospedaje confirmado. Sin visas – ciudadana del mundo, casi. 

Green: No visa; Red: Visa (Source: https://www.passportindex.org/passport/australia/)

 

Nasi Goreng upon arrival in Bali, 27sep26

I knew I had to be in Ecuador in late December, so I decided that I will embark on a journey with that semi-final destination. I wanted to travel with a one-way ticket until then, but for insurance purposes I had to put an end date to my world wandering and have a designated arrival date in Australia. Taking the long way back to Ecuador, I decided to travel west until reaching Ecuador by the 15^th of December. In my paper map of the world, with eyes-wide-open I checked all what was available now.

I settled for Indonesia as my first stop. I needed someplace known, where I knew my way around, and Bali fitted the bill. I have been to Bali many times. It is cheaper and closer to travel there than to visit any other Australian capital city. I bought my plane ticket to Bali before I got my passport, to ensure I was doing what I said I was going to do. And there is Nasi Goreng.

Traveling on a whim meant that I could just go anywhere, yet my first rule was that I was to only travel west. West is where most of the world is in relation to Australia, or at least that is what the normal maps show, as most of them are printed with the Atlantic Ocean as the centre. As I had bought my ticket to Bali already, I decided that I could only go where I have not been before, and of course that had a no-visa regulation for my blue passport. Ironically, I had to pay for a visa upon entering Indonesia with either passport. A drastic change from pre-Covid time when Ecuadorians did have access to Indonesia visa-free. Now only Peru and Colombia have that. Tsk Tsk Tsk Ecuadorian diplomats!

The third rule came because of my limited funds. I had to find the next destination, going west that was the cheapest from my last destination. After Bali, luckily my next adventure became Sri Lanka. My dear friend Kamy, back from PhD days, lived there and Sri Lanka has been in my top 5 countries to visit. Ever. After Sri Lanka, traveling west was a bit of a complicated matter if I were to choose the cheapest flight. All cheap flights were bound east: Vietnam, Indonesia, Australia; or, to the middle east[1]. Neither of those choices fitted my current agenda nor the geopolitical one with wars sprouting by tantrums.

My cheapest flight going west became Georgia. The tiny nation in the Caucasus. Next to Azerbaijan. Between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. Luckily, I loved geography in school, and now I was living the dream of exploring this places that I had only seen in my schoolbooks. And finally, after Georgia, my next cheap destination was Istanbul. In the past two years, I – along with friends and family, had tried to make it there. Now was my time.

Once in Istanbul, which lies in both Europe and Asia, I decided I will go overland (i.e. train, bus, donkey) until reaching a big international airport in western Europe so I could go to Ecuador.  I wanted to spend most of my time in eastern Europe, and my first fancy went to Romania. The land of Count Dracula and Transylvania. Another of my childhood dreams to come true. A once-friend told me that it was childish to want to go to Transylvania; little she knew that I am indeed a child. After Romania, Budapest, Vienna, Prague, Berlin, Copenhagen, Bern, Amsterdam and ending my pursuit of happiness in Paris on December 15^th. I had organised myself 79 days of pure traveling bliss. With more, to be defined, after Ecuador. 

My first time ever as a backpacker, and I am “Off to see the World” as the poster of Garfield® in my bedroom at home had been announcing every morning when I woke up. The poster is long gone as I left my hometown in 1994. I asked ChatGPT to find me a Garfield® all geared up with backpack, hiking boots and compass and ready to travel to see the world, ‘it’ laughed at me saying that it was unlikely that the fat-lasagna-loving feline would ever be doing that. Little did ‘it’ know, as I am Garfield and I am indeed “Off to see the World”.

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[1] Nawal El Saadawi (Egypt, 1931-2021) criticized the use of the term ‘middle east’ as a colonial construct reflecting the European worldview. She once asked: “Middle to what?” as the region is in the middle only in relationship to London. London had positioned themselves as the centre of the world when organising the global geography (i.e. printed maps with the Atlantic Ocean as the centre).  Nawal El Saadawi preferred using west Asia.