About
Hiya, I’m Anastasia!
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I’m a former librarian currently traveling around the world. Just Gone Wandering is both my travel diary and a place to share helpful tips and information about the different places I’ve been. I’m especially interested in sharing info on long-term (6+ months) travel, living as a digital nomad or seasonal worker, and solo female travel. Expect to find all that here and more!
My Travel Philosophy
My goal is to keep traveling for as long as I can, so that means keeping to a budget. However, as I’m now in my 30s, I don’t necessarily want to stick to the lowest possible budget options and all the discomforts they come with! I consider myself a cozy budget traveler: I don’t mind hostels and taking buses everywhere, but if it’s only a $10 difference I’ll take a private room or a plane. 😛 I prefer trains over anything, especially if they have a cozy sleeper cabin!
I love visiting ancient places, museums, street art/murals, going on walking tours, and short walks through the woods. I’m not much of a beach girly or a foodie extraordinaire, but I do like shopping for snacks at grocery stores and browsing used books at English bookstores. I prefer doing free activities and saving my money for the really special tourist stuff– or even better, exciting adventure travel!
Thanks for stopping by, and don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter to stay up-to-date with everything I post!
Where I’ve Been
After working and saving for 10 years, I took my first international trip in 2022, at the age of 34! I wanted to make it count, so I planned on being gone for 9 months. I quit my job, sold almost everything I owned, put the rest into storage and took off.
I went to Europe, dipping my toes into international travel by first taking a transatlantic cruise to England! We stopped at Portugal and France before ending in England. I visited the United Kingdom (England and Scotland) for several months, then took the Eurostar train over to France where I roamed around for 2.5 months. This included another cruise where we went to England, Germany, and France!
I ended my Schengen timetable in Spain, where I had an amazing week in Barcelona before taking a transatlantic cruise back over to the Americas. We ended in Barbados, a beautiful country with great beaches that I couldn’t appreciate because I was recovering from getting COVID on the cruise! What a shame…
(Check out my 2022 travel itinerary here.)
Well, I enjoyed my trip to Europe so much that I decided to keep my travel life going, and in 2023 I turned my sights to Asia!
From California I went over to Japan for 3 months, then took a ferry to South Korea and stayed there for just over a month. Next I went to Indonesia via Singapore, where I explored Bali and Java for about 6 weeks. Malaysia was calling my name, so I went and explored both the mainland and Borneo, where I saw some amazing wild animals and ancient rainforests!
While on Borneo, I had a quick stop in Brunei, maybe the tiniest country I’ve ever been to. Back on the mainland, I took an overnight train up to Bangkok and started my exploration of Thailand for just under a month, ending in a cross-country trip to Laos to take the slow boat down the Mekong to historic Luang Prabang.
After a month in Laos, I then went over to Vietnam for (yes) another month, starting in Hanoi and ending in Ho Chi Minh City. Then I took a bus across the border to Cambodia where I stayed for a mere 5 days before making my way back to Singapore to fly home to California to visit my parents for Christmas– and to do jury duty!
(Check out my 2023 travel itinerary here.)
My travel budget for 2023 was so low that I decided to keep going…if I started supplementing it with work. So in 2024 I decided to try out digital nomad life, mixed with seasonal work and volunteering! I got another cheap ticket to Japan and stayed for the full 3 months, split between Tokyo and Osaka. Then I headed over to Malaysia again to stay in Kuala Lumpur for three months. Where next?
- 2022: England & Scotland, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Barbados, United States
- 2023: Japan, South Korea, Singapore (3x), Indonesia, Malaysia (2x) including Borneo, Brunei, Thailand (2x), Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, United States
- 2024: Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam
Popular Posts
Solo Female Travel
- Top 5 Countries for First-Time Solo Travelers to Visit
- Going on Your First Solo Trip: Tips for First-Time Travelers
- Safety tips for solo female travelers
- Should I tell people I’m alone? and other questions from solo female travelers
- How to make friends while traveling solo
- How to Book a Group Day Tour as a Solo Traveler
- Best Facebook Groups for Solo Female Travelers
- How to Get Great Photos of Yourself While Traveling Solo
Travel Budget Breakdowns
- A month in Aberdeen | June 2022 Travel budget breakdown
- Two months in France | September/October 2022 Travel Budget Breakdown
- A month in Laos | Travel Budget Breakdown
- A month in Vietnam | Travel Budget Breakdown
- One month in Tokyo | March 2024 Travel Budget Breakdown
- One month outside of Osaka, Japan | April 2024 Travel Budget Breakdown
- 10 months in Asia: Solo female backpacker’s travel budget
Nomad Living
- How to Plan a Year of Full-time Travel
- Packing List for Perpetual Travel (Solo Female Cozy Budget Style)
- Backpack vs. Suitcase for Long-Term Travel
- How to keep in contact while traveling abroad
- The BEST WhatsApp Travel Group Chats
- 90+ Active Facebook Groups for Travelers
- Where to Stay Besides Hotels When Traveling Long-Term
- Travel kitchen essentials | Hotel cooking
- Best Resources for Long-Term Travel
Destination Travel Guides
Recent Posts
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Best Travel Podcasts (2024)
I love podcasts because I can download a bunch to my phone and have them ready to listen to on long travel days! Podcasts are like portable radio shows, little snippets of audio on all sorts of topics and hosted by all sorts of people. Travel podcasts, as a genre, are really fun because they…
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One Month in Kuala Lumpur | 2024 Digital Nomad Budget Breakdown
I recently spent two months living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. As part of my goal to show how much I spend traveling full-time as a digital nomad, I figured it’d be good to share my spending for one of those months, June 2024. This is the fourth time I’ve been to Kuala Lumpur, and the…
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My Experience on a Seine River Cruise
One of the more popular things to do in Paris is a Seine River cruise. It’s actually a really good deal for a tourist activity in a major city, usually under $20 USD. Some come with snacks for a few dollars more, but the most basic ones just include a boat ticket and a tour…
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Budget Cruise Tips for Newbies
I went on my first cruise in 2022, and I started with a whopper because it was a Transatlantic! I went from Florida to England on a two week Princess cruise in an interior cabin, and it was SO FUN. I met really nice people (including other solo travelers), did a lot of reading and…
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What’s the Banana Pancake Trail, Anyway?
The “Banana Pancake Trail” is a popular backpacking route in Southeast Asia. The trail gets its name from the banana pancake breakfast offered in guesthouses and cafes catering to Western backpackers. The standard route covers Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, with some people extending it downward to Malaysia, Indonesia and even over to the Philippines.…
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How to Get to Tokyo from Narita Airport
There’s a couple different ways you can get into Tokyo proper from Narita Airport. How you choose what’s best for you will depend on your budget, how much luggage you have, and how much time you want to spend getting there. In general, it’ll take about an hour from Narita Airport to central Tokyo. It…