I didn't plan for travel to become this central to who I am. But little by little, I traded books about other cultures, documentaries, and secondhand stereotypes for something more direct: going and seeing it myself. Mostly solo, sometimes not. I still can't quite believe how much I've gotten to witness firsthand — things a younger version of me couldn't have pictured. This is simply how I learn best: through experience, not through screens.
What follows are the turning points that shaped my personality and the way I see the world. It's an ongoing process — I'm still figuring things out, still unlearning what I thought I knew.
Hi, I'm Csenge.
I grew up in Szentendre, a small town just north of Budapest, surrounded by nature and with a childhood full of time spent outdoors. My parents never wanted me to spend too much time in front of the TV — but whenever I did, I was usually watching documentaries. I was fascinated by the incredible variety of life on our planet: the landscapes, the cultures, and especially the animals — with the world beneath the surface captivating me most of all. Those documentaries made the world feel endlessly big, wild, and full of things worth discovering. Back then, though, it felt like a world reserved for wildlife photographers and explorers — impossibly far from anything I thought my own life could ever hold.
The First Steps Up
My grandparents live in Tapolca, and climbing the volcanic hills around my grandfather's weekend house in Badacsonytomaj was something the whole family did together every summer. When I was a teenager, my mother wanted to try via ferrata at Lake Garda in Italy. On the first day, we climbed a rock formation that looked completely unreachable from the ground. I got tired earlier than expected. Looking up made it feel impossibly high; looking down wasn't much better. But when I focused only on the next step, I could keep going — and the view from the top was worth every step.
One step at a time takes you further than you'd ever imagine.
The move that changed everything
That mindset shifted when I started higher education in Hungary and realized I wanted to study something that wasn't taught there. I ended up in the Netherlands, continuing my studies in Agribusiness with a focus on Sustainability — and that move became the real starting point. I grew up, in every sense: a better income even as a student, the ability to create real opportunities for myself, and access to exchange programs and internships anywhere in the world. Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, China, Norway, Mexico — none of it would have happened without that first move.
The Pull of the Ocean
My first real encounter with the sea was in Croatia at eleven or twelve, with my dad — just a mask, no snorkel. A few small fish, and one accidentally-rescued sea urchin. Later, in Cozumel, I tried my first real dive — doubts and fear about the whole underwater world included, but years of watching documentaries had made me too curious not to try. Then Phuket, during an exchange semester in Thailand, learning to dive properly — and discovering that finding proper buoyancy is its own kind of magic for a beginner, one I completely lacked but loved trying to get right.
During an internship in Bali, I went snorkeling off Nusa Penida — struggling with the waves, swallowing water, figuring out the equipment. Then the magic happened: manta rays came incredibly close, circling, one after another, as if they'd chosen to — the biggest marine creatures I'd encountered so far.
I want more of this.
Where I stopped being a visitor
After a motorcycle accident, slightly wounded, I didn't give up on my very first freediving course, already reserved in Bali. I trained at Apnea Bali Freediving in Tulamben. My instructor, Barra, encouraged me and my buddy by diving with us every single time — to make us feel more comfortable and not alone. The real shift was being able to descend calmly, examine coral, float without the depth scaring me — and, once, swimming beside a turtle that looked into my eyes and stayed with me for a while.
I don't feel like I am visiting the ocean anymore.
I feel at home here.
An emotional rollercoaster from 3,000m to the top
Rinjani wasn't the plan — a random, bargained-down option I said yes to with only weeks of spinning behind me and the mindset to go anyway. Our group split early, fast climbers ahead, almost-first-timers behind, and somewhere in between I lost track of both — that's how I ended up walking most of the summit push alone, in the dark, following other groups' headlamps through brutal wind and cold. A small Russian group passed me three times, moving in slow, deliberate duck-steps through the loose volcanic sand — I kept overtaking them, until I finally understood why they moved that way at all. Near the top, the terrain got so steep I was climbing like a dog, exhausted and close to tears. A Korean hiker handed me one of his trekking poles.
I reached the 3,700-metre summit having doubted, more than once, that I would — and found the most beautiful scenery of my life waiting. We celebrated with cookies at the top, before I handed his pole back.
Moving fast isn't the same as moving efficiently. And accepting help from a stranger can completely change how a hard day ends.
The following week, right after finishing that first freediving course, I climbed Agung — and found it dramatically easier, not because I'd gotten stronger, but because I finally knew how to breathe through the climb instead of against it. This time I had company: a kind girl from Sri Lanka, on her first-ever mountain summit. I recognized the struggle in her before she said a word — I'd lived it myself on Rinjani, just weeks earlier — and this time, I got to be the steady one instead. We didn't make it in time for sunrise either. It didn't matter. We reached the top together, and I got to share that memory with her instead of carrying it alone. The irony wasn't lost on me — from up there, above the clouds, I could finally see Rinjani's peak clearly, a vivid reminder of everything I'd felt and learned there.
Norway
The biggest shift happened in Norway. Until I was about 23, I genuinely believed swimming with wild orcas was something reserved for documentary filmmakers — not something an ordinary person could do — until a few Instagram and YouTube videos popped up that convinced me it was actually possible. The idea sat in the back of my mind for about a year before I actually started saving for it. As graduation got closer, I gave myself the expedition as a graduation gift, planning for it to be my first, and my last, before I settled into the more conventional stability I assumed I was supposed to want.
Norway didn't let that plan survive. I met people who'd built lives completely unlike the one I'd planned — and completely like the one I secretly wanted. I also realized something else, too: that travelling isn't something with an age limit, not something I'll eventually grow out of or need to let go of later. It's a lifestyle, and a decision.
The expedition meant to be my last became my first.
None of this was ever about collecting places. It was about slowly changing how I saw myself — learning that a summit can feel impossible only because I'm looking too far ahead, that moving slowly can take you further than rushing, that fear doesn't have to disappear before you're allowed to move forward.
I can dream about a life I once thought wasn't meant for people like me.
That's what Currents & Journeys is built on — not a suggestion that you should travel exactly the way I have, but an invitation to get curious about your own life, and find out what actually makes you feel alive.
You don't need to know the whole path. You only need to take the next step.
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