Igor and Dominika Osvald are travellers that travelled for 7 years. On their trip they got to know themselves and each other and realized that it’s better to live humbly. There are absolutely no regrets that they went on the trip. They kindly accepted me in their home and offered me cake and coffee and answered all my questions.
You went around the world. Why?
We actually never travelled around the world and we didn’t mean to. We just wanted to travel for a long distance of time. Why? To escape from everyday routine, from going to work every day from 9 to 5 and then work from home.
What was your life like before you left?
It was definitely different, we had very little time for ourselves and for each other, there was no time to read a good book, to stop and enjoy life.
Was it hard to leave everything that you built in Slovenia and simply leave?
It definitely wasn’t easy, we had our careers, savings a house, we were familiar with our surroundings, we had a good job, but there was this tiny voice inside our heads saying ‘’what if?’’. And then you see a routine that you’re in and that you can’t run away from and you tell yourself that you are going to leave even though you will leave your family. And then you just leave. It takes a moment to step on the other side where you tell yourself that you can’t go on like that and that you don’t like the life you’re living. Why wouldn’t you make a change if you can?
Did you plan your trip for a long time or were you spontaneous?
We knew that we mostly want to travel by land. We got a plane ticket to Istanbul and that is where our trip started which turned out great. If we would travel from Slovenia we would gradually see the cultural changes but when we got out of the plane in Istanbul there was an immediate cultural shock. We planned to travel from Istanbul to Sydney, north of Himalayas so we could visit Tibet. In Australia we decided that we want to go back to south Asia and from India to South America. From there we travelled to Slovenia because of Igor’s hernia and stayed there for five months and then we continued our trip. We also rented our house and had luck with it as we rented it to the first person that saw it. He was from Germany and paid his rent well and if there was any trouble he asked Igor’s dad for help.
Do you have any advice for planning this kind of trip?
Don’t listen to the others, follow your heart and your mind and see what you want to see. Don’t be afraid to travel alone and don’t limit yourself on things that are familiar to you because you know very little about a country when you’re sitting at home. If you’re going to decide while you’re travelling, you’re going to decide based on how you like the country, not on some travel guide.
Do you remember your first trip when you were younger?
Dominika: Of course I remember. We probably all remember travelling in Yugo and Zastava 101 cars that had no air conditioning. We travelled all day, we had it all with us, we made sandwiches, had some water, we brought food for all week. We can’t even imagine how those trips went now that you can drive through Slovenia in only a couple of hours.
Igor: I remember a trip that me and my friends took to Czech Republic and to Germany that was split back then. We came to Berlin that was separated by Berlin Wall and came to east Berlin where we wanted to sleep but couldn’t because they thought Yugoslavia was on the west side. Then we went to west Berlin and wanted to sleep there but couldn’t because they said that we are from the east side. We were desperate when a Hungarian student came and offered us a place to stay.
Can you tell us an interesting story from your trip?
Igor: I remember an event in Tibet where we couldn’t find a place to spend the night. We were exhausted and there was a girl that just kept screaming on the street. When tired Dominika wanted to say something sharp to her, Dominika fell into a canal. It was very funny.
Dominika: I will never forget a journey in Kalimantan. It was raining, there was mud everywhere and our bus got stuck in it. The trip that should take about 15 hours took about 2 days. We were waiting to be pulled out from the mud and we were all alone when some locals came and offered us a place to stay in a bamboo cottage. Simple, but it was great back then.
Did you meet travellers that took the same journey as you two?
Yes there were a lot of travellers, you meet them everywhere. We didn’t travel with them since we like to travel alone. There’s a lot of people that decided to travel for a year, less of them that took a longer trip.
Which place did you like the most? Which one didn’t you like?
Dominika: I loved the Himalaya Mountains. I think I could live there, it really is a beautiful place. I definitely wouldn’t travel to Delhi, it was very dirty, traffic was chaotic, we waited for a train that didn’t show up, couldn’t find a place to stay the night.
Igor: I can’t decide which place I liked the most, there were too many and all of them were special. There also isn’t a place that I would say that I didn’t want to see although I agree with Dominika.
How did you manage your finance, where did you sleep?
We had an income from renting our house. We slept in simple rooms or at locals that were always ready to offer a place to stay. We kept our expenses low which was easier in Asia than in Australia where the expenses went up. We bought a car there and we had to spend money for gas and then we sold the car when we ended our trip. We were always looking for a cheap place to stay even though it meant that the room was sometimes dirty or we looked for a place at the locals that were all extremely kind. That is why we also opened our home for travellers here in Slovenia. To give something back. Sometimes we also worked for food and shelter.
Dominika, you also wrote a book about your journey. Did you know that you will write it right on the beginning of your trip?
No, I didn’t know that I will write an actual book but I wrote a diary to keep the adventures alive. Somewhere on the trip I made a decision to share our journey with readers and that I’ll write a book. One of the reasons was to keep my memories alive for our future children. Memories fade but when you read about them, they come alive.
Do you have any advice for young travellers that have the same dream as you two had?
We think that young people simply must travel. It is very different to travel alone than with the agency. You have to be daring and grab the opportunity when you have it. You broaden your mind, you see things that you wouldn’t otherwise. Dare to travel!
