Directions to Mecca
My First Time Shooting Guns: Glock 19, AK-47, Sniper Rifle, and Shotgun (Kyiv, Ukraine)
Cabo Verde’s Three Defunct Airports
A Little Tibet in Spain: Karma Guen Buddhist Center
Hitchhiking from Lake Van to Batman, Turkey
Kayak Trip Day 78: Ostrov to Rasova – the Danube at Dawn + Headwind in Romania
I Wrote a Travel Guide and It Has Nothing To Do with Hitchhiking
Ranohira: Our First Time Hitchhiking in Madagascar
Transnistria: A Time Capsule of Soviet Nostalgia between Moldova and Ukraine
Hitchhiking from Heniches'k to Kherson: Familiar Road, New Surface
The Train from Yangon to Mawlamyine
Maastricht: Wholesome Activities in Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter
Hitchhiking the Donghai Bridge from Zhejiang to Shanghai
Kayak Trip Day 37: Danube Floodplains to Gönyű
Lu Lu the Dog (Kruče, MNE)
Vrelo Bosne Park: Springs of the Bosna River (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
I'm Taking a Gap Year from Travel to Finish University
Kayak Trip Day 70: Vidin to Lom – A Broken Kayak Sail
Kayak Trip Day 6: Munderkingen to Dettingen
Turkish Animal Shelter in Hatay, Turkey

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caspian sea mazandaran iran persia hitchhiking swimming hijab head scarf

Modest Swimming in the Caspian Sea

23rd October 201417th January 2021 Iris Veldwijk

#CaspianSea! #Mazandaran

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irisveldwijk

It hurts. (8 August 2026) But I'm doing my own th

It hurts. (8 August 2026)

But I'm doing my own thing without constant discussion and criticism. There are a lot of things I've learned since the 6th of September 2015. One of them is that a finding a good partner who treats you well doesn't mean a thing. They can absolutely turn around and actively decide to become a piece of shit. Someone who abandons all their principles and goes from being your dream human being to your biggest enemy.

Everyone always says "Just find a good [insert gender]". I'd found one who was a much better partner than my other two long-term relationships. Perfect, in a sense. The alignment was insane.

Finding a good partner is no guarantee they'll stay good. I don't believe you can fake this for a solid 8.5 years. I've tried to explain it away: midlife crisis, depression, brain injury. Or perhaps plain cruelty.

They neglected and then refused to fix things while I kept working. I went from carrying 50% of the relationship to carrying 100% over the course of about 2.5 years. Mentally and physically, I've been set ablaze.

Outwardly, I kept pretending everything was fine. I protected their reputation (something you might have noticed I'm done with). That adds to the loneliness. Talk to friends, my loves. Don't stay silent.

Love yourself first and foremost. I'm an excellent navigator and even I got fucking lost on this road I chose in life.

What a waste of my capacity for love.

📸 in Aguilar de Campoo (Spain) on some hill overlooking the village. I'd just spent the night following my feelings doing whatever I wanted and exploring things in a way I haven't in over a decade. I've gone to Hades and back and it's been a ride.

#roughbreakup #abusiverelationship #midlifecrisis #digitalnomad #hitchhiker

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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