Why take the road less traveled
Somewhere you've never heard of might just be your new favorite spot
I feel like most travel starts with a place you want to visit and then things kind of just snowball from there. I recently too a trip that started this way. I had about 20 days in Eastern Europe, flying into and out of Vienna. Why Vienna? Well for one, it had the cheapest flight to Thailand at the time, but also it has kind of always been on the list. You know, the list. The places everyone wants to see. And why? Because of Billy Joel. Billy Joel was one of my favorite artists growing up and Vienna just so happened to be my favorite song for the majority of my 24 years on earth, so I added it to the list.
After listening to that song millions of times, I thought I knew exactly what Vienna would look like, sound like, feel like. And I was pumped to go. And I was pretty excited for all of the other places I decided to visit, Salzburg, Ljubljana, Bled and Budapest. I decided on this loop kind of on a whim. Really I could have done any number of loops ending in Vienna with 20 days to spare. But for some reason, I was called to Slovenia, probably because I had never really heard much about it before.
Here’s the thing about travel: sometimes the places everyone talks about are exactly as magical as promised. And sometimes, the places you add as an afterthought (the ones that aren’t on everyone’s bucket list) end up stealing your heart entirely. This trip taught me that the road less traveled isn’t always about finding somewhere totally obscure. Sometimes it’s just about being willing to stray from the top ten lists, to visit the places that don’t have a Billy Joel song written about them.
After years of imagining the Vienna that I had built up in my mind (with little to no research of what it was actually like) I was finally there. And I had a great time. The people don’t lie, it really is a beautiful city. And since I went in the summer, there were loads of incredible public events to attend, a great parks scene and a fantastic public transportation system. So why didn’t it stand out?
I’m not sure. Maybe it’s because I don’t love museums, and one of Vienna’s biggest draws is its museum scene. But honestly, I think it’s partially the Billy Joel song’s fault. And in all truth, I should have known. I knew Vienna was an imperial city, and a capital city. I should have expected more of a capital city vibe with busy streets and gorgeous (though repetitive) rows of baroque buildings.
“Vienna” has been one of my favorite songs for most of my life, and I think I just built the city up too much in my mind to the point where I was a little disappointed. I wanted it to feel like a smaller town, somewhere that you could really just “slow down.” Although it seems that was just my interpretation of the song, obviously not what Billy Joel originally intended.
Funnily enough, there was another city that I visited because of some of my favorite media: Salzburg. A gorgeous little mountain town famous for being the city of Music, both because Mozart was born there and because The Sound of Music was filmed there. I wonder which one brings in more tourists. If you were unclear on which was my favorite media, it was The Sound of Music, I’m not quite cultured enough to pretend that Mozart is my favorite artist.
Salzburg was incredible. I had built it up in my mind as well, but since I had built it up from visual media, it was harder to stray from the original city than I had with Vienna. I got to take pictures in all of the places from the movie and I got to send them to my mom, who shares my love for the film. Salzburg was also a very special trip because I got to meet up with my friend Charlotte that Jordan and I had met in Morocco. Not to mention Salzburg is just flat out stunning. What is there not to love. A river flowing through, snow capped mountains in the distance, a castle on a hill, stunning lookout points over the city — I was speechless for half of the time we spent there.
If I had to pick between the two cities, it is a no-brainer for me. Some people might pick Vienna, maybe there’s more to do and more to see, and it’s certainly more iconic. But for me, the beauty of Salzburg is not something I can easily ignore. Even though the next two cities I visited really gave Salzburg a run for its money.
I took the bus from Salzburg to Ljubljana, and even though we were mostly on the highway, the route through the Alps was stunning, the kind of scenery that makes you want to press your face against the window like a kid. We finally arrived, walked to our hostel and crashed in our budget backpacker beds.
The next morning, we rented some city bikes (one euro for a whole week :0) and started biking around. What we saw really surprised us. Ljubljana was stunning. It felt like Venice, which I guess makes sense given the proximity to Italy, but I was shocked. The riverside cafes, the abundance of pedestrian-only areas, the castle perched on the hill overlooking everything. It was all effortlessly beautiful. After we’d biked through a good portion of the city, my boyfriend and I looked at each other and realized: this was the Vienna we had invented in our heads.
It was undeniably a city, but a city where you definitely knew your neighbors, where you could easily walk or bike everywhere, where life moved at a pace that actually felt sustainable. There was culture and energy, but none of the overwhelm that comes with major European capitals. While we were there, I decided to Ljubljana to my mental list of places I could genuinely see myself living someday. It’s a small city, but it still has all the positive amenities that come with city living, without the rushed attitude that makes you feel like you’re constantly behind.
After we’d sufficiently explored Ljubljana, we made our way to Bled, a gorgeous little mountain town in the Julian Alps about halfway between Salzburg and Ljubljana. And it was truly straight out of a fairytale.
We had incredible weather when we were there. We walked around the entire lake, stopping constantly to take photos because every angle looked like a postcard. We hiked the Vintgar Gorge, where you walk on wooden pathways suspended over rapids and waterfalls. And because this was an even smaller town than Ljubljana, we finally slowed down.
We talked to shop owners about their favorite spots. We sat and ate ice cream while watching the rowboats on the lake. We took a nap on the lakeshore while reading books.
It was incredible, this is what I’d been chasing the whole trip.
Give Slovenia the love it deserves
So after visiting all of these places, I have some thoughts, favorites, and a least favorite. Sadly, Vienna would have to be the least favorite. I don’t know maybe big city that feels like a big city just isn’t my vibe. All of the other cities I visited had a longer lasting impact on me, and I really enjoyed my time there. Not that I didn’t in Vienna, but it just felt different.
One thing that really surprised me about this revelation is the numbers. Vienna alone attracted 8.2 million tourists in 2024. Just one city. Meanwhile, the entire country of Slovenia welcomed 6.58 million visitors that same year. That’s insane. And Bled, the gorgeous little town in the Alps, had just 481,035 arrivals.
Do the math on that. Vienna gets roughly 17 times more tourists than Bled does. And I get it, Vienna is stunning, it’s historic, it has incredible architecture and a reputation that precedes it. But when I think about where I actually felt like I could slow down, where I actually felt that sense of magic and discovery that made me fall in love with travel in the first place? That was Bled. That was Ljubljana (1.2 million). And that was Salzburg (1.7 million).
I’m not saying everyone should skip Vienna (though if you’ve built it up in your head based on a Billy Joel song like I did, maybe temper those expectations). What I am saying is that sometimes the places that don’t make it onto everyone’s “must-see” list end up being the most memorable. Sometimes the road less traveled is just an hour outside of where everyone else is going. Which makes it all the more sweeter because you get to enjoy it all by yourself!
Slovenia surprised me because I let it. I didn’t have decades of expectations built up. I didn’t have a soundtrack playing in my head telling me what it should feel like. I just showed up, rented a bike, and let the cities reveal itself to me.
xx abby
What a wonderful piece, and a great reminder. It's interesting how unique perspectives, life experiences, where someone is in life, and what someone is seeking out from a place in that specific time in life can affect how a place is viewed. Great piece :)
I also am a huge Billy Joel fan -- saw him in concert 5 times, once partnering with Elton John on a U.S. tour. I was also a bit surprised that Vienna was not the intimate, romantic city that I envisioned, partly because of Billy Joel, but also because it was featured in several romantic movies made in the black and white cinema era that are featured on The Movie Channel. I did love Salzburg and took the Sound of Music guided van tour to filming locations in the city and high in the Alps. It sounds cheesy, but it was a day very well spent, thanks to a fun and knowledgeable tour guide who shared many inside stories about the movie and its cast. Austria has amazing scenery no matter which way you turn and I look forward to visiting it again some day.