We Left to Travel. I Came Back to a Different Apartment.

This blog is about travel — about cities, countries, movement, and the freedom that comes with exploring the world.

But sometimes the most uncomfortable journeys don’t happen abroad.
They happen inside your own life.

While we were planning our next trips and settling into a new, bigger home, something happened to the apartment where my adult life had started.

This is the story of what changed — and what it taught me.

⭐ In This Article

In 2012, with the help of my parents, I bought my first apartment.
A small one-bedroom place — 31 square meters plus a balcony. Second floor. No elevator. Brand-new building.

Before that, I had only lived in student dormitories. Owning my own place felt unreal.

We renovated it carefully. Some work was done by professionals, some by me. I insulated and finished the balcony myself. I even installed kitchen tiles without ever having done it before. It turned out perfectly, and I was proud of that.

I didn’t just invest money.
I invested effort, attention, and emotion.

In 2014 I got married.
A few years later our son was born. He spent the first six years of his life in that apartment.

For me, places are never just spaces. They carry memory.

As our family grew, the apartment felt smaller every year.
Our son needed his own room. We needed air, space, light.

We moved into a larger home. It changed our daily life immediately. More room. More comfort. More freedom.

The old apartment stood empty for four months. I kept paying utilities and avoided making a decision. I knew that once I rented it out, it would never feel the same again.

But I also understood something practical: property should work, not just sit.

So we decided to rent it out.

The first tenants were two part-time students.
We signed a contract. Payments were on time.

Then the downstairs neighbor called. Parties. Noise. Guests.

I gave a warning. Then another.

After two months, they moved out.

The apartment wasn’t seriously damaged. But I realized that renting requires more structure than emotion.

The next tenant was reliable.
Quiet. Paid on time. Communicated clearly.

After six months, he relocated to another city.

That felt normal. Predictable.

Then came the third tenant.

She called saying she urgently needed housing for herself and her young child.

I was out of town at the time. The keys were with my wife, who was in the city, but I’m usually the one who meets potential tenants in person.
She suggested picking up the keys and moving in without meeting me first. That should have been my first red flag.

Communication quickly became inconsistent.
The contract wasn’t properly finalized.
Basic details — like utility meter readings — were difficult to confirm.

After about three weeks, I visited the apartment. I noticed cigarette smell. The conversation felt tense and defensive.

Later, when I asked again for necessary information about utilities, I received irritation instead of cooperation.

At that point, I decided to end the rental agreement and asked her to vacate by the end of the month.

On the final day, the keys were left in the mailbox.

When I entered the apartment, I understood I had made a mistake by ignoring my intuition.

There was a heavy odor. Trash. Spoiled food. Clogged plumbing. The toilet completely blocked.

The cost of restoring the apartment exceeded what I had earned that month, even including part of the deposit.

The cigarette smell took nearly a year to fully disappear.

This story isn’t about blaming tenants.
It isn’t about saying renting is a bad idea.

It’s about responsibility.
About boundaries.
About learning to combine trust with structure.

I became stricter with contracts. Clearer with expectations. More attentive to details.

But more importantly, I understood something simple:

An apartment is property.
Home is the people inside it.

That small one-bedroom place was an important chapter of my life. But it doesn’t define my present.

Today we live in a bigger home, we travel, we explore new cities and countries. Renting that apartment — even with its difficult lesson — helped support the freedom we now have.

Sometimes growth doesn’t come from a new country.
Sometimes it comes from opening your own front door.

All of my travels — the ones already completed and the ones still ahead — can be found on the homepage of this blog:

👉 https://eager2travel.com

This website is about moving forward.
And every experience, even the uncomfortable ones, becomes part of the journey.