INCREDIBLE WOMEN TRAVELLERS SERIES

Ildi, tell us something about your early years and how your love of travel developed.

Traveling sometimes feels so surreal, like playing a part in a video game. After ticking off all tourist hotspots on the map, the real game starts! I would stay after having visited around 150 countries, one will face the greatest challenges which come down to the inaccessibility of certain countries; logistics, current political climate (war-torn countries, kidnapping hot spots) and in relation to difficulties of obtaining a visa. 

I personally faced it all, besides traveling solo as a female raises other safety concerns too. When somebody tells me a place cannot be visited at the moment because of governmental warnings or visa issues etc., that is  when I get more excited about the project. This is how I ended up visiting Libya and Syria in 2016, when not many tourists ventured out there or the incredibly beautiful island of Yemen, Socotra in 2017 by hitching a cement delivery cargo boat -  there were literally no commercial flights to  the Yemen mainland or Socotra at the time of my travel.

It is definitely worth all the hard work, as all these unforgettable memories contributed to be the person who I am today. Reckless, restless, boundlessly curious. Traveling to the unknown really built up my patience level and tolerance for uncertainty, broadened my horizons and I certainly became more self-reliant and independent. Traveling solo is a great self-confidence booster too. There is no greater experience than discovering new cultures, human and natural wonders, fascinating monuments and witnessing magical, natural phenomena of our wonderful globe with an open heart and open mind.  

I generally travel solo without any companion, purely because I do engage more with my surroundings and enjoy more of the cultural perspective of my adventures by exposing myself to new encounters with the people in the particular country I visit or on the road if I travel by myself. 

As I did most of my travels with a full-time job, due to the nature of my job I spent anything from 3-4 days up to a week in each country depending on the safety situation and major attractions, trying to maximise my time accordingly on a shoestring budget. I sacrificed most of my life savings to visit every country in the world, therefore I often used couchsurfing, stayed in Airbnb or inexpensive family-owned guesthouses. Taking public transportation, local buses, eating street food, visiting the museums and markets, meeting the locals are the key elements in my travels. 

The best lifetime memories always come from stories like sleeping in a beduin cave in Petra, in a yurt just outskirts of Ulaanbaatar with my Mongolian host family or spending a few nights in a hut in Rwanda or Gambia without running water and electricity. We are very spoiled nowadays, all these experiences are invaluable and incomparable and will make you understand more about the people and the world we live in.

I always travel with an open mind without any expectations, consequently I don't really get negatively surprised. Most of my travel experiences are positive for various reasons, even if any unpleasant surprises occurred, looking back I always gained from them.

Travelling through West and Central Africa bureaucracy, corruption, the lack of transportation, the unbearable heat with dust can be frustrating, on the other hand I must admit that Africa is my favourite continent in the world too! 

My first solo trip to the African continent stole my heart forever, getting to know the daily routine of the Hammer tribe while traveling through the Omo Valley in Ethiopia. It really made me feel like walking on the cover page of National Geographic Magazine. Cruising around the swamp wonderland of the Okavango delta in Botswana on a mokoro and spotting the big five or simply enjoying the little show of a silverback family in the vast rainforest of Rwanda, travelling on the terracotta coloured dirt roads of the iconic West African terrain and visiting the world's largest mud mosque in Djenne, Mali - just to mention some of the highlights, really had a wow effect on me. Mother Africa, the cradle of civilisation, astonished me always in the most unexpected way during my travels.  

Usually what impresses me when I travel apart from the natural wonders is the people and their stories, and​ how it affects me as a traveller.

One story is especially close to my heart. In 2012 I was invited by another travel-obsessed friend to the Comoros Islands where I had the privilege of meeting Ingo - Ingjaldur Hannibalsson - the late first Icelandic UN master, a university professor from Iceland. He was also on a mission to visit every country in the world and I was going through a phase of my life of almost giving up my travels due to constant travel fatigue and also the lack of support from some friends and close family members who found my quest to visit every country complete and utter nonsense... This encounter was definitely a turning point for me, he inspired me through his magical travel tales to travel more or rather endlessly. I always think what if I hadn't bumped into Ingo on that trip.... (He accomplished his goal of visiting every country in August 2014, only to leave this world unexpectedly a few months later, but I will always keep him in my thoughts as I walk in his footsteps sharing the same journey.)

During my visit to Sudan I booked a trip to the Meroe Pyramids. The Sudanese travel agent, Midhat was passionately showing me his travel photos which included summer holidays to Italy, Switzerland, Germany and to my big surprise - Hungary. One of the pictures looked familiar so I looked closer. At first I thought no, it cannot be.... then all of a sudden a photo appeared on the main square of my small non-touristy city, Nyiregyhaza covered with snow! I cannot express how random it was and how blessed I felt. Particularly if I take into consideration that Midhat was from Wadi Halfa, from the Magyarab tribe. A tribe between the Sudanese and Egyptian border dating back to the 16th century with Hungarian ancestors. And he was in my city in a search of an other Magyarab who apparently lived there! 

In Kinshasa when visiting the former Congolese president, Laurent Kabila’s, Mausoleum which has several layers of security leading to the gigantic monument of Kabila and his tomb, I encountered one of the security personnel’s eyes landing on my colourful, expensive-looking watch. The highest ‘entrance fee’ to the compound I was asked for my watch, although I really surprised the security guards when I displayed my bargaining skills and confidently asked for his AK-47 in return. Needless to say, I get into the mausoleum without any unnecessary donation of my travel watch.

My second to last country was Yemen, more precisely the astonishingly beautiful island of Socotra. It is arguably one of the most stunning places on Earth, such a unique, otherworldly hidden gem, almost unreal! As there was no scheduled flight to the country at the time of my visit - neither to the mainland or the island of Socotra - I decided to take the only option available to reach this otherworldly, unique, unspoilt island - a cement delivery cargo boat. What might seem a bit scary at first but it was a kind of once-in-a-lifetime trip, now or never. I ended up waiting 8 days for the first available boat to depart from Salalah. The epic trip took a gruelling 48 hours there and back across the Arabian sea with a lack of basic facilities onboard, sleeping on the deck under the stars. Definitely well worth all the hassle though! Especially because onboard, there was an overly friendly goat which followed me everywhere I went, we gladly adopted each other to the point that he became my ultimate travel buddy for the entire journey, I named him Abdulaziz.

You finished all the UN countries. Where have you been since? What's next?

Since I completed my secret childhood dream journey to visit every sovereign nation in the world, I visited some of the unrecognised or partially recognised countries, disputed areas and 'sovereign states' such as Western Sahara, Transnistria, Abkhazia, Northern Ireland, Northern Cyprus, Niue and the Cook Islands. I also explored Faroe Islands and Svalbard. I am currently on a mission to visit UN+ territories and I found Nomad Mania a great guideline for this.

Will I ever limit my travelling? As long as I have my two legs and air in my lungs to carry me on my endless adventures I will keep going on the road. I have been dreaming yet to spot some penguins in Antarctica, to explore the tropical volcanic island of Saint Helena or wander around the mysterious stone statues of Easter Island... and I know this could perhaps be a bold statement but I really wish one day I could get on a spaceship and see our wonderful globe from the stratosphere...

One of the greatest things about travelling is the people you meet along the way. The more unexplored and less touristy a place you visit, the more chances you meet like-minded travellers. I have countless stories of encounters with other travellers from hiking around Machu Picchu and bumping into somebody who happened to be the best childhood friend of a friend of mine to my plane neighbour on a Bangkok flight who studied at the same university in Germany from the same professor. 

I met other 'country collector' travellers in the most unexpected or rather expected places because only the serious travel freaks go to places like Hargeisa, Mogadishu, Kiribati or Tuvalu and also had the pleasure to meet a few of the UN masters in person.

I believe what links us all the travellers is the unquenchable curiosity and passion to explore the unknown and also to experience where our limits are by stepping out of our comfort zone. I would say we are all obsessed in a certain way with our travels - and this passion is really contagious when you share travel tales in between each other...

I often feel like the world is a small oyster, the more you have seen of it the smaller it gets. I strongly believe we are all connected. My travel mantra says it all: One world, One life and We are all One!