See also the previous post.
Why do you travel alone or with companion(s)?* If you travel with companion(s), write their names here, too.
*Question from “Witch Way to the End of the World”
I travelled alone—although, to be fair, during those 1.5 years, I was rarely actually alone. Still, I did begin this whole heroic saga (see below for the tale of how I earned a PhD in “figuring it out”) by leaving Tallinn in proud solitude. That is, right up until my Australian friend Sam joined the plot in the Vatican (a place I had absolutely zero intention of visiting—but we’ll get to that twist later).
Along the way, I shared mountain roads, a sailboat, buses of questionable moral and mechanical character, and even a helicopter with all kinds of fascinating humans who flew in from far corners of the world — for example, Paul, Inga, and Simo. And that’s not even counting the people I’d never heard of before the trip, who somehow glued themselves to me along the way (and I to them). Travel is social like that—you start alone and end up with an accidental entourage.
There were many reasons for launching solo: mainly, I had no idea where I was going or for how long. It’s tough to convince someone to join a plan that is 90% improvisation and 10% chaos. Besides, I liked the idea of being able to do anything, anywhere, anytime—total freedom. Sounds like paradise (and it is), but it also means you are constantly responsible for every single thing: where to sleep, where to eat, which direction to go, who to meet, how to communicate, and what to do when something unexpected happens and the only help desk is… yourself. It’s divine and draining at the same time—but priceless. Anyway, vamos a Ushuaia!
The saga, however, nearly ended before it began. I almost missed my plane already in Tallinn Airport—no exaggeration. The shiny new security system (where you no longer have to remove liquids and laptops) jammed approximately seven hundred and twenty-seven times. The line moved at the speed of everyone who just remembered they still need to put winter tyres on their car (a seasonal reality in the north…).
With exactly 15 minutes left until gate closure, the miracle machine let my backpack through without actually scanning it and immediately sent it back for another go. The previous round had taken 45 minutes, so I went into polite panic mode. I tried explaining to the security lady that if I didn’t get out of Tallinn, I couldn’t get to the end of the world either. She found that logic compelling and summoned a young man from the back—who clearly expected an ordinary morning shift but suddenly looked like he had taken a wrong turn into a CrossFit class. Without explanation, she asked him to stretch out his arms and plopped my backpack onto them like a training weight. I still have no idea why this was necessary, but he definitely got his workout in. Finally, my bag received a VIP backroom inspection, and I sprinted to the plane like my life (or at least my itinerary) depended on it.
Let it be said that for the first time in my life, I had designed my flight schedule to be comfortable. Argentina is 5–6 hours behind Estonia, depending on daylight saving time, so the world’s most organised comfort traveller planned a smooth route: Tallinn to Helsinki in the morning, Helsinki to Rome, cross the Atlantic overnight while sleeping peacefully, then a domestic hop from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia.
That was the dream-flight—emphasis on dream—because the transatlantic plane was delayed by 12 hours. Which meant an extra night in Rome and then another in Buenos Aires, because of course we missed the domestic connection. Sometimes travel is a smooth glide. And sometimes the universe looks at your perfectly planned itinerary and says, “Cute. Try again.”
Luckily, Rome is specifically engineered for travellers whose adventures suddenly take a sharp left turn—sometimes to destinations not even on the original itinerary. And since my Australian friend Sam also materialised there, we did what any sane, stranded humans in Italy would do: we ate and drank everything the country is famous for, then sent modest, diplomatic prayers in the Vatican for onward progress. If you think this is the moment the adventure ended and we peacefully arrived in Ushuaia… well, unfortunately, no one is paying you for optimistic assumptions. The universe had more plot twists ready.
The next morning, we arrived at the airport to discover that our flight… did not exist. Not on any departure board, anywhere. I once went to the wrong airport in Istanbul (character development, thank you very much), but this time that was not the issue. We checked our freshly reissued boarding passes and discovered that the printed version claimed the flight departed yesterday, while the email and text message promised it was today. So whose version of reality were we living in?
We began approaching anyone who looked vaguely like an airport employee, but no one had information—and honestly, we felt slightly ridiculous asking about a plane that might, technically speaking, be halfway to Patagonia already. Finally, a random guy appeared, silently waved us down an unmarked corridor, and deposited us at a mysterious gate. To this day, I have no explanation, but apparently the Vatican prayers activated mid-route.
By this point, it had been many, many hours since our last meal (pasta and wine—quality fuel), and I foolishly hoped for airplane breakfast. Instead, the cabin crew lovingly presented us with… dry crackers. And that is how the 13-hour flight unfolded: snacks of sadness, music, sleep, and my first Spanish audio lessons on loop.
At some utterly unreasonable hour we landed in Buenos Aires and felt genuinely triumphant—like victorious explorers. In the arrivals corridor someone loudly and incorrectly shouted my name, and we were handed a taxi voucher supposedly covered by the airline (which, naturally, never was). The voucher shot us to a hotel just so we could return to the airport a few hours later.
New airport. New panic. And Sam got a free dose of morning adrenaline when he was told he had the wrong boarding pass, of course. But since everything had already gone sideways, we just shrugged, rolled with fate, and eventually landed in Ushuaia. Patagonia. Tierra del Fuego. Southern Argentina. At the end of the world.
Or… is it really the end? Pub quiz players will confidently say Ushuaia is the southernmost city in the world. But for the advanced edition of the quiz, there’s actually one even further south!