London - Cornwall

After returning to Poland from my first solo journey I had to face reality. I had put everything on travel, it was the middle of winter, and all my friends were at university.

I started delivering food by bicycle for paltry money. After a month of frustrating work I sat down and calculated how long I would have to work that way to save for the journey I was then dreaming of. It came to about four years.

That crushed me, so I started looking for another solution. I began writing to people I knew abroad, in countries where the minimum wage was higher than in Poland. My uncle living in London agreed to take me in until I earned enough to rent a place of my own.

So in February 2020 I moved to London. I found work on the second day after arriving. I worked very intensively in a restaurant in one of London's parks, until the pandemic began and restaurants were closed.

I arrived in that city without a phone, with only my uncle's address written on a scrap of paper, and a little later I started receiving the average of my previous wage each month, without having to work.

I did not think for long. A little earlier I had bought a bicycle for 20 pounds to save on the cost of getting to work, and I decided I would use that machine for my next journey. I could not leave the country, so I decided to go to its furthest end: Cornwall.

I remember that carefree time very well. I saw Stonehenge, rode through the beautiful Jurassic Coast, slept alone on some of the most beautiful beaches in the country, tried local cider in small seaside towns and ate a lot of fish and chips. Along the way I met many great people, but above all I discovered that travelling by bicycle gives me far more freedom than hitch-hiking.

After returning to London I spent only a few days there. I decided there was nothing for me there, so I got back on the bicycle and set off again, this time along the other side of the English coast.

In total, over about two months, I rode a little over 2,000 kilometres.