Crossing Paths

I have on many occasions, both in person and elsewhere on this website, testified to the underappreciated and undervalued experience of staying in hostels. They act as hubs in which travellers gather to rest, share stories and simply have fun. These hotspots of social life are especially important for solo travellers who, like myself, enjoy the freedom of travelling alone but still seek social interaction. It is here, in the space of just a few hours you often chat with strangers as if they are long lost friends; sometimes this leads to a long-lasting friendship, others you simply leave the next day and never see each other again.

At least that is the assumption, until a week and several border crossings later, you recognise a face when you enter your new hostel or in a quiet local bar. The thing is with travellers, as unique and adventurous as we all believe ourselves to be, we are often treading very similar paths. There are certain attractions that are on the vast majority of routes which, combined with the constant sharing of stories and advice, leads to these places becoming focal points of unanticipated reunions.

Just one example of many was with Jacob, an American traveller I met in Dusseldorf. At the time I had lost my phone charger and he had come to my rescue. We struck up a friendship and we explored Dusseldorf together; we also ended up in Cologne immediately afterwards as our plans briefly overlapped. After a few days we went our separate ways; him heading in the direction of France, me - with a new phone charger acquired - heading into the Lowlands.

As I have said in other posts, Ghent is one of my favourite cities and whilst I rarely revisit cities I had allowed myself this exception. I recommend Ghent to many people and clearly Jacob was one of them as there he sat when I arrived at my hostel. Ironically, in the week since we had gone our separate ways Jacob had lost his charger and it was my turn to come to his rescue.

Like I said, this is not so uncommon to the point where I wouldn’t even suggest that it is coincidental. Often, even if you don’t know anyone at the hostel, there is a good chance you have met the same people along the way as the people you meet. It is simply a way of life amongst the community of backpackers.

One extreme example of this however occurred when myself and my friend Conor were travelling through Croatia. With the pandemic still causing restrictions, we were accustomed to not seeing many fellow travellers, consequently when we did we could generally spot them pretty quickly.

Heading to the beautiful Plitvice National Park we had spent the night in an apartment near the park. Within the entire grounds of the accommodation was one other couple who we only saw from a distance. Unsurprisingly, given that it was the only attraction in the area, we saw the same couple in the National Park. Fair enough.

After finishing our visit we changed our plans at the last minute and instead of staying in the area decided to move on that same day. A quick look at the map and we settled on Zadar, a coastal city two hours drive away. On the drive there we recognised the car of the Polish couple and joked about the coincidence that they may be going to the same place.

Arriving in Zadar we immediately set out for food. With neither of us wanting to spend too much money we settled on a small kebab place a short walk from our hostel. The place had only two tables and whilst we ate the second was occupied by who at this point seemed to be our stalkers from Poland. We acknowledged them with a polite smile and soon left to go to a nearby bar which was playing live music.

Not long after we spotted our Polish ‘travel companions’ arriving and park themselves a few tables over. The odds were becoming astronomical. In a pandemic when almost no one was traveling, in which we had taken an unconventional route of going direct from Plitvice to Zadar and then spent the night in two small establishments in a town overflowing with bars and restaurants, we had crossed paths at every turn. Both amazed by the coincidence and encouraged by alcohol we called them over to our table.

It was then we finally met our ‘followers’, Pawel and Justyna, a Polish couple from Łódź (like many Polish cities, pronounced entirely differently to how one would expect from a British viewpoint). Both were students with little actual studying to do during the pandemic and, like us, were road-tripping without any real plan or direction.

We drank until the bar closed. It only being 10pm (covid restrictions) we bought some bottles of beer and headed to the coast. There, despite rain and dangerously strong winds we spent many hours in a night that involved a lot of drinking, learning how to dance the tango, and Conor jumping into the dangerously rough and stormy sea to rescue my sandals that he himself had thrown in there.

We became good friends and after Conor and I had parted ways I met them again in Split and even visited Łódź when passing through Poland a few months later.

Posted: 18/06/2021
Written by: Tom Taylor (@tomtayloor)

Note: In the time since I wrote this post I have been working in a summer camp in Romania. On a day trip to Bran - a small town, famous for being the location of Dracula's Castle - I bumped into a former student of mine from my time teaching in Zaragoza. What are the odds?!