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  • Puppy Savior Complex (Hatay, Turkey)

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  • Hitchhiking from Lake Van to Batman, Turkey

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  • Check, I Hitchhiked the Millau Viaduct (France)

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  • Cruising Down the Irrawaddy River from Mandalay to Nyaung-U (Old Bagan)

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  • Trusting One

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  • Hitchhiking Yerevan to Vayk with an Iranian Visa in Hand (Armenia)

    Hitchhiking Yerevan to Vayk with an Iranian Visa in Hand (Armenia)

  • Hitchhiking the Donghai Bridge from Zhejiang to Shanghai

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  • Montenegrin Sunsets (Kruče)

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  • Accommodation in Iceland: Reykjavík + Around the Ring Road

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  • Loss on the Road—Farewell, Ashley

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  • Tourist vs Traveler Debate: Don

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  • Two Weeks in Sharjah + Ajman (United Arab Emirates)

    Two Weeks in Sharjah + Ajman (United Arab Emirates)

‹›

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caspian sea

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Modest Swimming in the Caspian Sea

23rd October 201417th January 2021 Iris Veldwijk

#CaspianSea! #Mazandaran      

 
    

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irisveldwijk

The HALO Eclipse Moment of the 2026 total solar ec The HALO Eclipse Moment of the 2026 total solar eclipse in Northern Spain with @total.together . So grateful for the experience and can't wait to do it again
#totalsolareclipse #eclipsetotal #solareclipsechasers
Today is my 35th birthday and I have to start all Today is my 35th birthday and I have to start all over again. I don't want to. I am terrified.

In the last 11 years, the cool solo hitchhiker "girl" you might have started following back in 2015 has allowed circumstances to strip herself of everything that that made her her. I don't recognize myself. I don't really know who I am anymore. I would like to go back to being that person, but at my big age? Oof, that's rough.

I used to post here every day and manage a travel blog many people loved. That has been neglected over the years as I was with someone who I thought was the love of my life. The self-abandonment started gradually. Towards the end, I was doing everything to fix things with someone who was drifting away from me while telling me they loved me and wanted to be with me forever. Grow old and such.

I won't grow old with them and I'm uninterested in growing old at all. Growing old sucks.

I've missed opportunities because they took care of me. Opportunities that will never come back. I haven't ever had this many regrets before and I'm overwhelmed by them.

All I want is to rewind time. Either to the point we never met at all so I wouldn't feel this immense hurt and a gaping hole where my heart used to be.

Or rewind to where things started to go wrong. That's the hard part I've been ruminating on for months already. I can't pinpoint it.

I've read the literature about healing. I know what steps to take. Feed myself well. Go out every day for at least a walk, maybe some exercise. Get good sleep. Talk to friends. 

I'm at a fork in the road where the path to self-destruction would just be the easier way to go. I used to be able to do the difficult thing. It's not that I'm incapable of doing the difficult thing of healing; I'm just uninterested. That scares me more than anything. 

Anyway. I know where the gaping hole where my heart used to be is. It's an unbearable six timezones away.

#solofemalehitchhiker
#breakuprecovery 
#happybirthdaytome🎉
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