Backpacking through Europe in 1994
Introduction - Page 1
May 2026
Thank you for joining me as I finally relive my 100-day backpacking adventure through Europe in 1994.
At 22 years old, lost, depressed, and still recovering from a suicide attempt, I dropped out of college, bought a one-way ticket, and disappeared across 11 countries with nothing but a backpack, a sleeping bag, a journal, and my camera.
During those 100 days I reconnected with old friends and made new ones, and had unbelievable adventures like getting drunk for free at a pub in Ireland, falling in love in France, getting stuck in a snowstorm on the streets of Stockholm overnight, getting a tattoo in Spain, and shooting hundreds of photographs in Europe’s most iconic locations: Dublin, London, Paris, Copenhagen, Munich, Venice — and countless more.
I took most of my pictures on black-and-white film — cheap, forgiving, and perfect for a broke backpacker. Color film was much more precious and expensive, so I used it sparingly. Color slides (transparencies) were the rarest and most special of all — beautiful but unforgiving, with almost no margin for error.
For nearly 30 years, that journal, the negatives, the precious color slides, my backpack, and a small box of mementos sat untouched in my parents’ basement.
I kept saying to myself “one day” I would go through it all.
That day finally came in 2024 — right around the 30th anniversary of the trip. I pulled the box out and spent the next full year scanning every page of my journal, every single frame of film, and every little memento I had collected. As I worked, memories came flooding back, and I began typing out my reflections as a 52-year-old man looking back at his 22-year-old self.
Then, in July 2025, came the ultimate shock: my parents’ house burned to the ground — a complete and total loss.
If I had waited even one more year to move that box, every photo, every journal entry, and every memory from that life-changing journey would have been gone forever.
The fact that these stories and images survived still humbles me deeply… and makes me believe this story is meant to live, meant to touch someone… possibly you, if you are reading this right now.
In 1994 I was, for all practical purposes, completely cut off from my friends and family back in Nebraska. I communicated with them using phone booths and expensive pre-paid international calling cards, and air-mail postcards. I wandered around Europe with nothing but a guidebook and a small European train timetable booklet to guide me to my next location.
That desperate, bold trip didn’t just help me find myself. I also found God.
In my teens and twenties I had flirted with atheism and was angry at God — if He even existed — enough so to try and take my own life without thinking of the consequences to my soul. But alone on those long train rides, walking endless European streets, exploring ancient cemeteries, and especially sitting quietly inside cathedrals and churches far older than America itself, something shifted. I began to feel a connection.
Some of the things that happened to me on that trip — and even the miracle of the fire last summer — have only deepened that faith. I now believe in God, in angels watching over me, and in a real purpose to my life.
That journey became the foundation for the rest of my adult life — teaching me how to keep going, how to find myself, how to love and accept who I am, and how to trust that I’m never truly alone.
I’m excited, grateful, and fired up to share this with you.
This is more than old travel photos and journal entries. This is the story of how I found my way back to myself… and how those memories were saved after almost being lost forever.
So come with me — let’s go back to Europe together. Turn the page, and we’ll begin.
— Todd