If you are a teenager, you may not have enough money to travel. So sometimes you may be thinking that when you have money, you will have no time to travel. If you are a middle-age person, sometimes you too may have this doubt. Even though you have money, you may be thinking that you don’t have time to travel because of your job or family. But, are those reasons real? Can those reasons actually, prevent you from traveling? I personally do not believe that. I think it is never too late to travel. Sometimes you may be worried about not having a travel companion. If you don’t have one, don’t think too much and just travel by yourself!
The story I’m going to tell you today will make you believe that you are never too late to travel and visit the world. This grandma is known as Baba Lena. But her real name is Elena Erkhova. By the age of 91 years old, she has managed to travel all around the world.
Actually, she was born in a period of time which was not easy to travel. But when she was young she managed to travel beyond the Soviet Russia However. That was the beginning of her journey. She was in her 40’s by the end of the 1970’s. During that period she traveled to several destinations which were allowed outside the Soviet Russia such as Poland, Prague, and East Germany.
Unlike these days, traveling was very expensive at that time period. So she had to stop chasing her traveling dreams as she didn’t have enough money. When she was 83 years old, one day her friends questioned her about traveling. They asked why she doesn’t start to travel again as she has enough money. This question made her rethink about her dream and she then started to chase her dreams one by one.
Sometimes you may wonder how this old grandma collected money for her traveling. She used to save money from her pension and collected money from selling knitted goods and flowers. Her determination to travel was unstoppable and with the saved money, she visited many places and countries around the Russia such as Mount Elbrus, Novosibirsk, Moscow, the Republic of Tuva, Spain, Germany, Vietnam, Thailand, Italy, etc.
People around the world got to know about this amazing grandma from the posts she shared on her Facebook account. Once in 2016, Lena met a Russian blogger named Ekaterina Papina. She shared a picture with Baba Lena and it went viral receiving more than 14,000 shares on Facebook. Then her grandson started and managed a few social media accounts for Baba Lena to document her travels.
During most of her travels, she met new people and visited new cities. But if you go through her Facebook account, you’ll see those are not the only things she did during her travels. In some posts, she can be seen riding a motorcycle in Vietnam and riding a camel in Israel.
Unfortunately, this world-famous grandma died in 2019 when she was 91 years old due to cancer. Her YouTube and Instagram accounts were emptied after her death. But her Facebook page still remains and maintains by her grandson as a memorial.
