Rewilding Through Europe (2025)

Ten years after Alaska, I ventured out again.
But this time, my wild wasn’t glaciers and grizzlies, it was train stations, ancient streets, and border crossings on foot.

The 21-day solo expedition is now complete, and I’m excited to finally share the story. I walked 551,338 steps, burned 23,353 calories, and spent 5,562 minutes on foot roughly 273 miles without shortcuts. No rental cars. No comfort plans. Just public transport between regions and my legs for everything else.

I’d spent the last year and a half training consistently at the gym, building the strength and stamina I’d need for this kind of travel. That preparation was critical. I traveled light but deliberate: just two bags a Pelican Air case full of camera gear and a Deuter Joypack 34 for clothes. At each Airbnb or hotel, I’d dump my clothes onto the bed or floor, transfer my gear into the backpack, and head back out hauling nearly 20 pounds of photo equipment most days.

If you’re thinking of doing something similar, don’t underestimate the physical demand especially if you’re hauling camera gear. Without serious training, this kind of trip can break you. If you’re going gear-free and slower, it’s a different story—but documenting while moving at this pace requires real endurance.

Before setting off, I reached out to SanDisk, Klean Kanteen, Yerba Madre, and Saily with a clear ask. Klean Kanteen and Yerba Madre had backed me during my Alaska expedition, and this time, each brand provided something essential—gear that kept me grounded, fueled, and moving.

What followed was a blur of silence, strangers, and stories. The journey left its mark—one place, one step, one frame at a time.

Amsterdam → Krakow → Zakopane → Athens → Rome → Vatican City → Rimini → San Marino → Padova → Firenze → Venezia→ Cortina D’Ampezzo → Krakow (again)

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📍Amsterdam

“An unintended beginning, and a heavy one.”
Amsterdam wasn’t supposed to be part of the trip just an 11-hour layover.
But hauling all my gear through the city made it feel like day one.
A rough, painful start.
I stopped by Patagonia Amsterdam to get my pack dialed in
a small fix that made everything ahead smoother.
My eyes for images were still asleep.
The trip hadn’t officially started,
but it already felt real.

📍 Krakow

“Stillness in stone. A city that doesn’t need to impress you to move you.”
“A gentle beginning wrapped in brick and birdsong.”
Krakow is where I took a deep breath for what was coming.
It didn’t demand my attention it held my hand as I stepped into this expedition.
I wandered quiet alleys before the city stirred, following the sound of Common Swifts, their calls echoing through the empty streets.
Beneath my feet lay the Rynek Underground and after visiting it, I couldn’t see Krakow the same way. A whole other world below, layered in stories, foundations, and time.
I watched both morning and sunset light spill across Market Square, washing over cobblestones and centuries. The kind of light that doesn’t ask to be captured it just wants to be noticed.
The city asked nothing of me but to be present.
So I walked until I was.

📍 Zakopane

“Where wool, wood, and wind meet the mountain.”
I came here to lock in to embrace the altitude and settle into the rhythm of this expedition, still in its early stages. Zakopane was meant to be the switch: from uncertainty to focus.
I discovered my new favorite food here mountain grilled cheese with cranberry jam. It’s simple, warm, and just strange enough that I love it. 
But Zakopane was layered. Beneath its charm was something harder to frame. Streets overflowed with stalls selling trinkets stamped “Made in China,” pulling attention away from the history and craftsmanship that once defined it. As a photographer, that clutter made the story harder to see.
Still, nature held strong. In the silhouettes of the Tatras. In the stubborn gaze of sheep. In the scent of pine behind every distraction.
Zakopane reminded me that nature isn’t just in terrain it’s in how a place carries its past, even when it’s blurred by the present.

📍 Athens

“Where shadows cling to marble, and myth lives.”
Athens hit me hard and fast. The sun, the sound, the crowded weight of it all. I didn’t come to admire ruins from a distance I came to feel how the city lives around them.
I climbed to the Acropolis and wandered alleyways below, my route constantly rerouted by the sun. Google Maps became my best friend and worst distraction. Every time I found a shady street, I took it even if it took me the wrong way.
Stray cats lounged like sentinels on broken columns, but mostly streets  as if guarding some forgotten wisdom. One of them stared at me so long I swear it whispered “you don’t belong here.” It wasn’t wrong.
Athens doesn’t whisper though. It sings loudly. And if you walk long enough, it eventually sings to you too. Maybe to go home. Maybe to hydrate. Maybe to stop pretending you’re not melting.
The heat was no joke. But neither was the presence of this place.

📍 Rome

“The chaos teaches you patience. The history teaches you reverence.”
Rome isn’t just a city—it’s a contradiction. Beautiful and loud, old and chaotic, sacred and profane.
Here, I earned my first set of blisters.
Rome, it turns out, is not walkable—not in the way I had hoped. It’s too damn big. I tried anyway.
I was defeated—by distance, by cobblestones, by time. But in that defeat, I found rhythm. The city moved too fast for comfort, too slow for shortcuts.
I didn’t do research, so everything hit me fresh. That’s how I learned Rome has obelisks scattered everywhere. Just… ancient monoliths in traffic circles.
And the seagulls? Terrifying. One tried to poop on me not once, but almost ten times until I finally got the message and cleared its airspace.
Rome never slowed down for me.
I had to speed up to meet it.

📍Vatican City

“A state of marble and silence. A cathedral built from belief.”
Vatican City felt like stepping into a place I didn’t belong and — like walking through a painting that hadn’t dried yet.
I couldn’t name a single religious figure in there if I tried, except jesus and his mom. I was in awe of the scale of this place. I wish my mom was here, she’d find this place fascinating as a religious person.
“Me? I became a lens for the chaos — bound to frame the overwhelming madness of this cathedral in photos.”
I didn’t come here for religion—I came because I had a ticket. Oddly I found myself mind boggled by religion and it’s power.
Then there was the Egyptian section, which was easily the most compelling part. My tinfoil hat might have come out for a moment. I’m not saying it’s aliens, but…

📍 Rimini

“Be in the moment”
Rimini wasn’t on the itinerary.
It arrived softly like a suggestion, not a plan.
I came here for a moment, not a monument.
Just one day.
No backpack on my shoulders but the weight of doing good.
I had my camera with me, slung light with a single lens
but this wasn’t the usual gear-hauling, frame-hunting rhythm.
As I walked the city, my thoughts bounced around
questions, curiosities, the urge to document.
But with Fancy, that impulse short-circuited.
I didn’t want to shoot—I wanted to feel.
To be present.
To live it while it lasted.
No setups. No planning.
Just breath. Pause. Shared silence.
Sometimes the story isn’t captured.

📍 San Marino

“A country in the clouds.”
San Marino felt like a myth
a castle perched high in the sky.
Butterflies in my stomach, questions in my head.
The air felt thin, a little breathless
I didn’t know what came next,
so I climbed anyway steep roads, relentless sun,
hoping movement might sort the static.
 I crafted flowers.
A final gesture, or maybe a quiet thank you
for something I wasn’t sure how to name.
And then
a stray cat appeared,
and suddenly, life felt simple again.
Just sun-warmed stone,
and a small shadow by my feet.
San Marino didn’t offer answers.
But it held me in the pause.

📍Padova

“Quiet intellect wrapped in warm stone.”
Padova wasn’t trying to be grand it just was. It felt like a city that knew itself deeply and didn’t need to prove anything. I saw students, bicycles, soft architecture, and churches that truly felt lived-in. Tourists were almost nonexistent here, and you could feel the quiet peace it brought to the city. Yet, even in that tranquility, I noticed plastic floating in the waters.
I walked slowly, sticking to the shade, observing more and talking to the locals. Sometimes, that’s the whole point. But maybe it was also the heat, which had started to melt me faster.
I was only here for a couple of hours before divine intervention flung me to Firenze later that day.

📍Firenze

“Where craft lives in the walls and the light edits itself.”
Firenze wasn’t on my original list a friend, Matteo, made it happen, a true divine intervention. By this point, cathedrals were starting to make me yawn. It wasn’t their fault, I was just burning out. My issues with cities were starting to show.
Then I found myself at Florence’s highest point, and suddenly everything clicked. From up there, with the entire city laid out below me, the details I’d missed from the streets below came alive. The textures, the intricate carvings on buildings, the way birds filled the vast sky it all stood out in a new, exciting light.
I didn’t even want to take photos mostly because I was exhausted but Florence didn’t care. It was still unreal.

📍Venezia

“A floating maze with a memory problem. A city of water and mosquitoes, where boredom led to wild discoveries.”

I stayed in Venezia for the longest out of all my destinations so far: three full days. And I’m afraid to say, I made a mistake. Mosquitoes ate me like a buffet, my Airbnb was an oven, and there was no escaping the heat.
My arrival was heralded by a thunderstorm I didn’t see coming. Suddenly, I was soaked, battling raging winds and waves that made me white-knuckle the boat. But this was my element. Nature, at its best, had come knocking. While others ran for cover, I ventured out, knowing Alaska had trained me for this. A break from the sun!
Venezia doesn’t care about your plans. Every bridge leads somewhere you didn’t intend but maybe needed to go. I got more disoriented here than anywhere else. Mosquitoes continued to eat me alive in the streets after sunset. And maybe that was the lesson. Sometimes, disorientation is the point. That very disorientation led me to explore the lesser-known parts, away from the main attractions I’d grown bored of. It was there, amidst the quiet canals and forgotten corners, that I saw so much wildlife I actually forgot I was in Venice.

📍 Cortina D’Ampezzo

“The Dolomites don’t speak they tower.”
Cortina felt like both the edge of the map and a return to the wild. This is where I felt small again; not just physically, but creatively. The scale of the Dolomites is staggering; it silences the mind. I could finally breathe here. The temperature, around 15 Celsius, was almost back to normal.
Believe it or not, the clouds here dwarfed the mountains. Being from San Francisco, I’m used to clouds and fog, but this was on another level. I was back in my element or maybe just somewhere that felt familiar. The mountains and I are accustomed to one another, expecting the unexpected. The air was thin. The images were sharp. The stillness felt known. And for once, the people around me dressed like me.
My socks stank, and my shoes even worse. I had to secure them in a trash bag to make sure they didn’t nuke the few clean pieces of gear I had left. Yet, even with that, I found moments of profound calm. I saw horses and cows with bells around their necks. I pulled up a rock and sat next to them, just watching and enjoying their peacefulness. I tried to be as calm as they were, even as the sun cooked my back.
On my last day, fatigue finally kicked in. I overslept and almost missed my bus if a local bread maker hadn’t miraculously given me a ride to town. I made it just in time. Certain things happened throughout this trip that were very odd, almost like divine intervention. This was definitely one of them.