My First Time in Europe: A Student Exchange in Poland and 18 Countries in 100 Days
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In February 2010, I flew to Warsaw for a semester at Kozminski University, on an exchange from SMU. I was 23, and it was my first time in Europe.
By the time I flew home, I had spent about 100 days travelling, across 18 countries.
Why Poland?
So you might be thinking, why not London or Paris, like most exchange students? Well, for travelling, Warsaw sits in a good spot. It is in the middle of the continent, with the Baltics to the north, Prague and Vienna to the south, and Berlin a train ride to the west.
What did I see in Poland?
Quite a lot, since it was home for 5 months. Besides Warsaw, I went to Krakow, the old royal capital, and to Zakopane, the mountain town in the Tatras. I also went up to Masuria, the lake district in the north-east.
From Krakow, I went down into the Wieliczka Salt Mine, where miners carved chapels, statues and chandeliers out of rock salt over hundreds of years.
And I went to Auschwitz. It is a quiet and heavy place to visit, and I will not pretend a paragraph can do it justice.
Where else did I go?
Here are the places I can date to that year. Up north, I went to Vilnius and Klaipeda in Lithuania, and to Copenhagen in Denmark. Further south and west, there was Prague, Brussels, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Rome and the Vatican, Ljubljana and Lake Bled in Slovenia, and Croatia.
How did the trading fit in?
In 2010, this blog was about a year old, and I kept writing during the semester. The posts from those months are still up: the random walk myth in March, what moves prices in April, and why it is so hard to cut losses in May.
These days, the trading takes about 15 minutes a day, and the setup for doing it on the road is in my post on how I trade while travelling.
Did I go back?
Yes, more than once. In 2019, I went back to the region for a month, through 14 former communist countries, and passed through Zagreb again. Some of the Croatian stops turned up later as Game of Thrones filming locations. And at the end of 2025, I went back to Lake Bled for my honeymoon, 15 years after I first saw it as a student.
Did you go on exchange when you were a student? Where did you go, and where did you end up travelling? Let me know in the comments.
All my other trips are on the travel log, country by country, and more photos are on Instagram, @iamrecneps.
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