Backpacking through Europe in 1994
Introduction • page 2
February • I Get This Idea!
February 1994 • The Idea
I was twenty-two, lost, and sinking again.
Spring semester had just started, and it felt like everyone around me was moving forward while I was standing still. Kyle was getting married. Tim was engaged. Doug was heading into the Army. Curt was off to the Police Academy. They all had plans.
I had none.
I was still grinding away at Bob’s Superstore in the camera department, living at “The Dome” — Kearney’s most legendary party house — and barely hanging on at the University of Nebraska-Kearney. Two years earlier I had already lost a full-ride scholarship to Arizona State because I cared more about partying than studying. Now I was watching my last semester with my best friends slip away.
Then, on a random Monday morning in February, sitting in the most pointless class I’d ever taken — “International Travel and Tourism” — something broke open.
The professor was showing his personal vacation slides while I stared at the wall, thinking: I don’t want to watch someone else’s life. I want to go live my own.
In that moment, the wild idea hit me like lightning:
Drop out of college. Go to Europe. Backpack the continent with my camera.
I could visit my old Rotary exchange friends scattered across Europe. I could stay with Olivier in France, Katrine in Norway, Pernille in Denmark, and the rest of the crew I hadn’t seen since Australia. I could ride the trains with a Eurail pass and finally experience the world instead of just reading about it.
I could visit my buddy Jeff — we’d known each other since junior high — a US Marine stationed at Rota, Spain. Of course everyone would be happy to see me! Of course they would let me crash at their homes for a few days!
By the time the bell rang at 11:00 a.m. and released me from the prison of that International Tourism class, I had fully convinced myself.
I WAS GOING TO GO BACKPACKING THROUGH EUROPE IN THE FALL!
The first thing I needed to do — besides buy a backpack and a sleeping bag — was make business cards, of course. I already envisioned myself as an International Freelance Photographer, conquering Europe and photographing supermodels!
I got straight to work as soon as I got home from class, taking a self-portrait in the photo studio I had created in the living room of The Dome for my new business cards.
Once I had my business cards printed, declaring myself an “International Freelance Photographer,” the next thing I needed was a map.
This was 1994. There was no internet. No Google Maps. No GPS. No cell phone in my pocket. If I wanted to figure out how to actually get across Europe, I needed a real, physical map.
So I went out and bought this one.
This bright red Michelin map became my bible. I spent hours staring at it, tracing possible routes with my finger, dreaming about all the places I was actually going to see in person. Dublin. London. Paris. Copenhagen. Munich. Venice. Exploring ancient castles and cathedrals. Visiting tiny villages I couldn’t even pronounce.
That map didn’t just show me where the roads and train lines went. It showed me a way out of the fog I was living in.
For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t just thinking about escaping my life — I was making concrete plans to go build a new one.
“Sweet!” I thought as I looked through all the countries waiting for me. “This is going to be a blast!”
I knew I wanted to capture everything — the thoughts, the fears, the excitement, the crazy moments I knew were coming. So I went out and bought this simple green spiral notebook.
This is the actual journal that traveled with me through all 100 days. It survived planes, trains, hostels, and its own wild journey — after I lost it, the journal was sent to Ireland, then back to America, and finally returned to me. It then spent thirty years in a cold, dark basement storage room… before being rescued and brought back into the light just months before my parents’ house burned down in 2025.
It is now one of my most valuable possessions in the world.
Inside these pages are the raw, unfiltered words of a 22-year-old kid who had no idea what he was doing — but was brave enough to do it anyway.
***
As I accumulated my gear and told my friends, very few people believed I would actually do this.
I invited everyone to come with me. Even if not for the whole trip, I suggested meeting up with me for a week or two. Unfortunately, I had no takers. To this day, however, almost every single friend I asked then said they WISHED NOW they had gone with me.
Anyway, the more people said no to joining me, the more determined I became to go alone.
The more people said I was crazy to do this, the more resolute I became to show them just how crazy I really was - crazy enough to do this!
I had some more planning to do, and a few months to get it all done.
I opened up the map and used sticky tack to stick it on my wall and I began dreaming.
Dreaming of escaping Kearney, dreaming of exploring Europe, dreaming of what I would see and what I would find…
February–August 1994 • Going Alone
As I gathered my gear and told my friends about the plan, almost no one believed I would actually go through with it.
I invited them all to join me — even if just for a week or two somewhere along the way. Not a single person said yes.
To this day, nearly every one of them tells me they wish they had come.
The more people doubted me, the more determined I became. The more they called me crazy, the more resolute I felt.
“Fine,” I said to myself. “I’ll go alone.”
I pinned that big red Michelin map to my bedroom wall in The Dome with sticky tack and spent the next few months dreaming — dreaming of escaping Kearney, dreaming of trains and cathedrals and cities I’d only seen in pictures, dreaming of who I might become on the other side of this adventure.
In the end, I spent 100 days backpacking through 11 countries: Ireland, Northern Ireland, England, France, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Italy, and back through France.
I carried only my backpack, sleeping bag, guidebook, map, camera, a bulk-loader with hundreds of feet of black-and-white film, and a few precious rolls of color slide film.
I made friends, created memories, and — most importantly — took photographs.
This was a time of innocence and pure exploration. Satellite TV and fax machines were considered advanced technology. I stayed in touch with home through pay phones, expensive international calling cards, and air-mail postcards.
And now, thirty years later, you have chosen to come with me.
Through these photographs and journal entries — rescued from that basement and saved from the fire — we’re going back together.
It’s time for me to see what I saw then… and share what I learned with you.
I hope you are as excited as I am to go on this journey — the one where a lost 22-year-old kid went looking for Europe and ended up finding himself.
Thank you for coming with me.
Let’s go!