I had left the United States in 2019, long before anyone had heard of COVID-19. My decision to travel full-time had nothing to do with the virus. So when borders started closing in early 2020, I wasn’t scrambling for a last flight or rebooking a trip home. I was already out in the world — and I was going to stay out in the world.
As a travel blogger, I was watching it all unfold in real time. In Thailand and Cambodia, we followed the news as the virus spread from country to country. At first, Thailand only restricted travelers from China. Then, almost overnight, the map started closing.
The Crossing That Changed Everything
On March 9, 2020, I was in Thailand, in transit to Siem Reap, Cambodia.
I took the Giant Ibis bus across the border — only my second border crossing since I left the USA on my mega trip, and my first by bus. At the border I presented my 30-day tourist e-visa, which cost $50, and crossed safely into Cambodia.
I arrived at the YOLO Hostel in Siem Reap — now rebranded under a new name. Around me, the mood was already shifting. The news was getting louder, travelers were cutting trips short, and everyone was talking about getting home before it was too late.
I had originally planned to cross into Vietnam by bus on March 20, 2020. Vietnam shut its border on March 19th — one day before I was supposed to leave — and my $120 visa fee was lost. That closed door is a big part of why I stayed in Cambodia.
Because I had entered Cambodia in March 2020, I ended up in a strange, lucky category: a tourist who was allowed to be stuck. Cambodia was also home to many expats on long-term visas, but I wasn’t one of them. I was just a traveler who had arrived at exactly the right moment to be allowed to stay.
Two days later, on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic.
Siem Reap: Holed Up With a Pool
After a stop at Angkor Wat, I settled in Siem Reap for a while. I ended up holed up at the Le Tiger Hotel. It wasn’t a bad place to be stuck — it had a pool, and in those first uncertain weeks, that mattered more than I expected.
Siem Reap felt quiet and tense at the same time. The temples were emptying out. The hostels were emptying out. The conversation everywhere was the same: stay or go?
I stayed.
On May 15, 2020, I finally took a bus from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh.
Phnom Penh: Making a Home in BKK3
In Phnom Penh, I made myself at home. I rented a homestay apartment through Airbnb in the BKK3 neighborhood, and I stayed there for a long time.
The good news was legal as much as it was personal: the government of Cambodia allowed foreigners who had entered in March 2020 to remain in the country until there was an opportunity to catch a flight home. I wasn’t being forced to leave. I could wait it out properly.
Phnom Penh is a medium-sized city — big, but nothing like hanging around a mega-city like Bangkok or Seoul. That size made it livable during a lockdown. I could actually get to know it.
Instead of traveling, my days became a routine: exercising, swimming, cycling, exploring the neighborhood, and watching the bad news get worse on TV as lockdowns spread around the world.
This is also where I got my knack for filming YouTube videos around town. With nowhere to go, I started documenting the place I was stuck in — the streets, the markets, the quiet. Phnom Penh became my studio.
I also spent a lot of time hanging out in BKK1, at the rooftop pool at onederZ Hostel. Some other backpackers were stuck there during the pandemic too, so it became one of my regular spots for company.
There were pockets around town where expats and tourists gathered — all of us loosely part of the same group: “Stuck in Cambodia.” We weren’t tourists anymore, and we weren’t quite residents either. We were just waiting, together.
Until early 2021, Cambodia had kept the virus mostly under control. Then, on February 20, 2021, that changed. A group of Chinese nationals bribed guards to slip out of a quarantine hotel in Phnom Penh and went out to nightclubs, and two of them later tested positive. The government called it the “February 20 Community Event,” and it grew into the largest outbreak Cambodia had seen so far.
The cases kept climbing. On April 15, 2021, Phnom Penh went into lockdown for the first time since the pandemic began: an evening curfew, markets shut down, and “red zones” where people weren’t allowed to leave their homes at all. That is when I decided it was time to go.
Life After 2021: Leaving Cambodia for Serbia
The pandemic didn’t stop, but by 2021 it had less of an impact on travel. The rules were clearer, even if they were still strict.
The lockdowns in Phnom Penh were the push I needed. I had no interest in being shut in again, so I fled Cambodia for Europe. By May 2021 I had booked a flight — ticketed through Lufthansa, but the first leg was operated by Singapore Airlines — from Phnom Penh to Singapore, then to Frankfurt, then on to Belgrade, Serbia.
Serbia’s rule in 2021 was straightforward: tourists were allowed in during the pandemic if they had a negative PCR test within 48 hours before the flight. Vaccines were just becoming available. I wore a mask on the flight, as everyone did then.
Once I arrived, I was admitted into Serbia without issue, and my Europe and Balkans chapter began.
Between 2021 and 2022, the pandemic still shaped every border crossing. Sometimes it was a PCR test, sometimes proof of vaccination, to transit from one country to another. As an American passport holder, I was initially excluded from entry into the EU. Later in late 2021, that changed.
During that whole period, I was also required to wear a mask in many public spaces — first in Cambodia, then later in Spain and elsewhere in Europe.
What the Hold Taught Me
I didn’t plan to be stuck in Cambodia. No one did. But because I hadn’t been trying to get back to the United States, I didn’t experience the pandemic as a panicked dash home. I experienced it as a long pause — a year of living in one place when I had planned to keep moving.
That pause is what turned me from a traveler passing through into someone who could actually live somewhere, even when the world had stopped.
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