A little over a year ago, in the early days of 2019, I realized I didn't have any goals, resolutions or dreams for the new year. In a moment of panic, I tweeted some friends to ask them for help. It was Ella from Ella Was Here who then came up with the idea of the Twelve Cities Challenge. She challenged me to visit a new city every month of 2019. I added some rules of my own to that basic setup: a city counted as "new" if a previous visit was five years or longer ago; a visit had to last at least six hours to count; going somewhere for a track meet does not count. I was very excited to start planning. The challenge was not impossible, but difficult enough to get me out of my comfort zone. In January, I boarded the Thalys to Paris, confident that it'd be the first in a row of twelve successful, if short, city trips. Alas, it was not meant to be.

Like a lot of challenges and changes, the Twelve Cities Challenge seemed easy enough at first. My trip to Paris was already scheduled in December 2018, so I didn't have to worry about the first destination at all. Keeping my financial status and ecological footprint in mind, I made the conscious decision to stay closer to home in the months that followed. I explored the old city center of Dordrecht in February. March saw me visit The Hague, a city I had ambiguous feelings about prior to that month. I came in trouble with university deadlines in March though and almost let the month pass by without me going anywhere. I had to squeeze my visit into the last few days of March, but for a second I was convinced I was going to fail before I'd even made it to April. A crisis was averted at the last minute, mostly because I couldn't live with the thought of failing so early on. Luckily, April and May were easier. My parents and I had already planned a trip to Bratislava for April. Ella, being the mastermind behind the whole ordeal, helped me out by inviting me to Ghent in May. All was well, but I started to notice an issue: Content. While I had enough content to share on my Instagram stories during my visits, I often didn't have much to blog about. I enjoyed all my visits up until that point in the year, but really had to put a lot of effort into making my time in for example Dordrecht sound interesting enough to keep my small audience from falling asleep.


In June, my dad started asking when I'd post my Twelve Cities content here on my blog. I tried to avoid his question, said I was working on it. In reality, I was just counting down the days till we'd leave for Africa and I'd have actual material to write about. I didn't give up on the challenge yet, although that month's city trip once again confronted me with the content problem. I went to Breda to visit my college friend Stefanie. She gave me a tour of the city, we looked at street art, but most important of all: We talked for hours about everything that did and didn't matter in life. It was a perfect summer day that I have fond memories of. But let's face it: no one wants to read about friends discussing their former teachers and classes on what's supposed to be a travel blog.

Although I was struggling with the presentation of the challenge on my blog, I did not give up. My mom and I went to Gouda. We took a long walk through the city center while my mom shared her memories of the city from when she was a kid. We had a good time, but after lunch we realized we were practically done there. We'd seen what we wanted to see, we'd done what we wanted to do. I let go of my six-hour rule that day. What's the point of holding on to it if you're literally just waiting till you can go home?


August made things easier again. I spent a few days in Cape Town and thanked the universe for the stories I could write about it. Those stories are very dear to me, but at this point in time I'm finally ready to share them. They'll be here soon. You won't hear much about the city I visited in September though. I didn't visit one. Soon after the start of the academic year, I fell sick and couldn't travel much. Luckily the judges of the Twelve Cities Challenge (read: Ella and my parents) allowed me to visit two cities in October to make up for the missed month. I chose Zierikzee and Leiden, both of which I liked, but couldn't blog about without getting bored myself. By November, I'd lost most of my motivation. Nonetheless, I got on a train to visit the northern city of Leeuwarden. That was the city that broke me.

It was cold when I got off the train. As a cruel welcome gift, I got my period as I left the train station. Then I found myself, miserable and alone, in a complete ghost town. The streets were deserted. Most shops were still closed late in the morning. The city felt completely life- and soulless. I tried to like the place though, and told myself to keep following the signs leading me to various monuments and sights. None of them made an impression on me. I wondered why this city had been chosen as European Capital of Culture in 2018. Everything it had to offer, I'd already seen bigger, better and more beautiful elsewhere. Leeuwarden's only redeeming quality was its street art. Within two hours, however, I boarded the train home, almost angry at the city for wasting my time.

The silence in the city center of Leeuwarden was deafening

Too annoyed by Leeuwarden's disappointing existence to go anywhere else, I let November slip by. December came, and I was in no way ready to go anywhere. I had no ideas left, no motivation, no energy. I had to drag myself through the busy weeks at university. I collapsed the second my Christmas vacation started. Sleep won, travel lost. I swore I would not leave the house for two weeks. Ironically, the last days of the year saw me revisit The Hague, a city I never expected to see again so soon. A friend asked me to tag along, and I didn't even want to try and convince him to go somewhere else with me just so I could complete my challenge. I didn't care. I hadn't cared since October.

As I looked back on 2019 early in the morning of January 1st 2020, I noticed I didn't feel bad about failing the Twelve Cities Challenge at all. I made if far and learned a lot about planning and spreading myself too thin. Sometime after Africa, I'd become tired of constantly being on the move. I needed to stay in one place for a while until the travel fatigue was gone. That's what I've done since the disaster known as Leeuwarden. At this very moment, I finally feel excited about traveling again. I don't need a challenge anymore to get out of my comfort zone. Besides, I went to so many new places I hadn't counted for the challenge that I didn't care about not visiting a new city in December. I visited Swakopmund, Cork, Belfast, Brussels, Vienna and Victoria Falls. Seventeen cities in one year! That's without all the national parks, towns and places I saw for the first time in 2019. My goal with the Twelve Cities Challenge was to not get stuck in one place. I more than reached that goal. Sadly, completing the Twelve Cities Challenge didn't play a big enough role in that process to keep me going. I don't see it as a true failure. It was an adventure. I learned more than I'd expected, mostly about planning and logistics. If only I'd learned what to do with insufficient content, it would have been perfect (suggestions are more than welcome). And hey, I'm not dead yet, I might try again in the near distant future! It's never too late for a second attempt when it comes to a challenge like this one.