Even though my year as a freshman at the Rotterdam School of Management has been an incredibly enjoyable one – I will spare you the details – something has been missing. I am not sure yet what exactly, but it might have been the feeling of absolute freedom. The feeling I experienced while being in Central-America last year, when I was able to do whatever, however, and whenever.

In the almost 4.5 years Wout and I have been together, he has taught me to see solutions instead of problems. So, an obvious thing for us to do was to think of a solution to my problem. A suitable one we came up with last December was to plan a next backpacking trip, and so we did. After we sorted out when exactly we would have summer holidays, we booked our flights right away. Because hey, the most dangerous risk of all is the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later, right?

With our next adventure taking us to Indonesia in less than a week, we are once again getting really stoked for travelling. Oddly enough, it is not only the prospect of exploring Indonesia that is the main reason for this excitement. It is also our eagerness to get out there, and to be once again thrown into the life of a backpacker.

Our initial plan was to travel both Java and Bali, two of the most popular travel destinations out of the more than 17.000 islands Indonesia consists of.

However, after we booked our flights to Jakarta, we found out that we will arrive there around the end of the Ramadan. Travelling Java during the subsequent Sugar Feast, or so-called Idul Fitri, appeared basically impossible. Wout and I both being quite stubborn, didn’t expect it to be such a great deal until we did some more research on the internet. All the train tickets from Jakarta directing towards East-Java were already sold out three months in advance.

In order to avoid the risk of getting stuck on the road, we eventually decided to change our plan and book another flight from Jakarta to Lombok. So, we will soon be travelling Lombok and Bali, together, for a month!