Five Years to Web Summit: The Europe Trip That Almost Didn't Happen
Five years of waiting. Two visa rejections. A friend cancelling at the last minute. A solo trip across five countries. This is how Web Summit finally happened.
Sit with me for a few minutes. I need to tell you how close this trip came to not happening.
On 19 November 2025, I was standing on the second floor of the Eiffel Tower. It was night. A storm outside was so strong they had closed the top floor. Paris was glowing below me, the wind cutting through my jacket. And for the first time in maybe two and a half years, I felt proud - not because I had achieved something massive, but because I had shown up. After five years of waiting. After visa rejections. After plans falling apart. After doing this entire trip solo.
I stood there and thought: finally, something went right.
Someone standing nearby noticed me and offered to take my photo. I think my happiness was that visible. Until then I had mostly been taking my own pictures or asking others, but here, someone else saw the joy on my face before I even asked. That became the best photo of the whole trip - that moment, that feeling.
It was mine.
Let me rewind.
The Five-Year Dream
In 2020, when I registered my previous company, I made a promise to myself: one day, I'll take this to Web Summit. For me it wasn't just another tech conference. It was the biggest stage I could imagine at that time - I wanted to stand there, represent something I had built, meet people, learn, and feel like I belonged in that room. But life doesn't always move according to your Notion board, does it? The next few years were complicated. Plans changed. Work changed. I changed.
In February 2025, I resigned and started fresh. I joined Yamu Media, a company I genuinely believe in, where I could grow and do meaningful work. At the same time, I kept a small experimental space called MediaMen - a place where my friends and I could tinker with ideas, test new tech, and build things simply because they felt interesting. Yamu gave me direction and stability. MediaMen gave me creative energy. Slowly, something shifted.
In June 2025, I decided: I'm going to Web Summit with LenderKart, a product I had built through one of those experiments. By God's grace, I made it work. I bought the booth. Booked the flights. Started planning.
And then the visa story began.
The Visa Rejections
Have you ever been so close to something that losing it feels worse than never trying? That was the situation.
I applied for a UK visa first, for a professional trip. I was new to all of it - international travel, visa processes, documentation. So naturally, I asked people. Friends, family, people who had travelled, people who had opinions. Everyone was trying to help, and everyone had a different version of the "right way." I listened, tried to combine everything, and submitted the application.
Rejected.
And because that UK visa had been rejected, my Europe visa got affected too. The rejection created doubt in the next application.
Rejected again.
Now imagine: flights booked, hotels paid, Web Summit booth confirmed, the trip two weeks away - and I had no visa. Cancel everything? Accept the loss? Tell yourself "maybe this wasn't meant to happen"? Honestly, I had those thoughts too. But I didn't stop.
The DIY Moment
Two weeks before the trip, I stopped asking everyone. I sat down and decided to understand the process myself - read the guidelines properly, checked every requirement, filled the forms on my own terms. Not because other people were wrong, but because at some point you have to take responsibility for your own dream.
I submitted the application. Two days later, I went to the visa center to collect my passport. From past experience I knew the pattern: if they hand you an envelope with a paper inside, it usually means rejection. If they just hand you your passport, the visa is stamped.
They handed me the envelope. I felt it. It was thin - only the passport was inside.
My visa was stamped. One week before the trip, when I had almost lost hope.
Bhagwan ki kripa.
Going Solo
Now here's the next twist. This trip wasn't supposed to be solo. A friend was supposed to come with me - we had planned it together, hotels, itinerary, everything. But three to four days before departure, his situation changed and he couldn't make it.
So now I had another decision to make. Cancel the whole trip, or go alone? Think about it: two visa rejections, a last-minute approval, a friend cancelling, a first international solo trip across multiple countries. Most people would at least pause. I paused too.
But I went anyway. And honestly? I'm proud of that.
Porto: First Breath
I landed in Porto first. The moment I came up from the underground metro station, I saw it.
Green grass.
Clean, bright green grass. The kind you see in movies. The air was cold, fresh, and dust-free. I was standing there with my giant bag on cobblestone streets, trying to figure out how to get to my hostel. Most things were in Portuguese - signs, ticket machines, announcements. English was available, but this was my first time in Europe and everything felt unfamiliar. I asked people, fumbled through machines, checked maps, dragged my bag across cobblestones. Somehow figured it out.
And that was the first small lesson of the trip: you don't need to know everything before you start. Sometimes you just need to reach the next station.
My hostel, Supernova, was beautiful - clean, open, great coffee, and a kind host who gave me detailed walking directions for the next day. My cousin had told me to carry ready-to-eat Haldiram's food from India, so I had instant food and wasn't starving. That was a lifesaver. I spent hours walking around Porto - churches, bridges, streets, the river lit up at night. The city had this calm, glowing quality.
I didn't buy much at first. A baguette for 5 euros, coffee for around 2, a hat for 7 because I badly needed one. I was still converting everything to rupees - if you've ever travelled from India to Europe, you know this mental calculation: "10 euros? That's 1050 rupees!" That habit would change soon.
Lisbon: The Turning Point
Web Summit was in Lisbon. I attended the opening night, met some great people, and later went down to the city center with the Web Summit crowd - hung out, talked, ate, the whole place buzzing with that conference energy where everyone seems to be building something.
Then my jija ji came to meet me. He flew down from Manchester just to be there - he had been the one pushing me months earlier to book the booth. "Just do it, Aanand. Stop thinking." Without him, I probably would have delayed another year. We walked around Lisbon and talked about strategy, life, business, everything in between. And one conversation changed how I experienced the rest of the trip.
I was still converting every euro into rupees - a coffee was 10 euros and I would immediately think "that's too much." He stopped me.
"You waited five years for this trip. You struggled to get here. Stop converting. Stop calculating. You're not going to come back next month. Enjoy it."
Have you ever ruined your own joy by calculating too much? I was doing exactly that. From that moment, I loosened up - bought the coffee, ate at the markets, stopped penny-pinching and started experiencing.
Web Summit itself was incredible. The crowd, the tech, the scale, the energy. I wasn't there with a hard sales pitch or trying to force anything. I just wanted to be there, learn, observe, connect, and enjoy the process. And yes, collecting goodies gave me cheap thrills - pens, keychains, stickers. Sometimes small things make you very happy.
After the main event there were after-parties everywhere. I met complete strangers from different countries - founders, developers, designers, people who were just curious about the world. Random conversations turned into group dinners. People I may never meet again still became part of the memory. That's the strange beauty of travel: some people enter your life only for one evening, but the memory stays.
Lisbon: The Late-Night Problem
Lisbon also gave me one unexpected challenge. One night I reached my Airbnb around 1 AM to find the wall between my rental and the next house was very low, and their dogs were loose. In daylight maybe I would have figured it out, but in an unknown city, alone, in the middle of the night, I didn't want to take unnecessary risks. So I called a Bolt cab and asked the driver to accompany me to the door. He did. I didn't cancel the cab afterward - it was only 4-5 euros, and by then I had learned something important: peace of mind is worth paying for.
I also took a last-minute tour to Sintra with an Airbnb Experience host named Miguel. His wife lives in India, so we connected instantly. The castles, the cliffs, the group of travelers from different countries, the conversations - everything felt beautiful. That tour made me realize I wasn't just rushing through Europe. I was actually experiencing it.
Barcelona: The Solo Party
In Barcelona, I did something I had never done before. It was my last night, and someone had told me that Barcelona's party culture is incredible and I shouldn't miss it. Until then I had walked, explored, worked a little, and kept mostly to myself. Then I saw a post about club hopping on the beach: "Be there by 10:45 PM."
Now tell me honestly - would you go? Late night, alone, uncertain buses, no friends, no clear plan.
For some reason, I went. I figured out the route on the fly, reached the beach, got a wristband, and joined the group. They took us to five different clubs. I partied with people from all over the world - Brazil, Germany, Australia, South Korea, and many more. Complete strangers, different backgrounds, different languages, all dancing together in the same space. We danced till 3:30 AM, then I took a Mercedes cab back to the hostel at 4.
It wasn't my first party ever, but it was my first proper late-night club night in Europe, with that kind of energy and diversity. Small flex: first Tesla ride in Lisbon, first Mercedes ride in Barcelona. I felt content.
Paris: The Stapler Incident
Paris was chaos. My flight was delayed exactly 2 hours and 55 minutes - three flights on this trip were delayed in almost the same range, and I noticed the pattern: airlines avoid crossing the 3-hour mark because that's when passenger compensation kicks in. I reached the hostel late, exhausted and hungry. Nearby I found a small Bangladeshi kebab shop and asked if they could make something vegetarian. They gave me an incredible meal for 7 euros - a huge sandwich, fries, and a cold drink. In Paris, that felt like a steal.
The next morning I went out to explore. Coffee. Croissant. Walking. Very Paris.
And then my jeans zipper broke. It kept sliding down - wardrobe malfunction in the middle of Paris, with a Louvre ticket waiting. So what do you do? Go back to the hostel and waste an hour? Walk around Paris holding your jeans? Miss the Louvre?
Apparently, you buy a stapler.
I bought one from a nearby shop, stapled my jeans shut, and went to the Louvre. The museum is massive - too much to cover in one day - so I made a strategic decision and went straight to the Mona Lisa first. After that I rushed for my Seine boat cruise in the middle of a storm. Buses weren't showing up, rain was coming down, I almost missed it. But the cruise operators were kind enough to accommodate me. Then I rushed to the Eiffel Tower for my summit booking.
The Eiffel Tower: The Moment
The storm was so bad they had closed the top floor. I could only go to the second floor. But standing there, looking at Paris lit up at night, I didn't care.
All the waiting, all the rejections, all the uncertainty - the solo trip, the cancelled plans, the fear, the exhaustion. None of it disappeared. But somehow, it all made sense. Because I had shown up. Not perfectly, not with everything under control. But I had shown up.
Someone took my photo. The best photo of the whole trip.
And standing there, I realized something: this moment didn't need validation. It was mine.
I walked around Paris after that till 2 AM - saw the Arc de Triomphe, walked through Christmas markets, ate at Five Guys, took the metro, walked back to my hostel. Just existed. And sometimes, after years of pressure, just existing in a place you once dreamed of is enough.
Belgium: The Warmth of Friends
After Paris, I went to Belgium to meet my friend Astrid. We had met in India, in Pondicherry, and stayed in touch. She and her friend Kristof welcomed me with so much warmth - I had actually met Kristof in Pondicherry too, when he had visited India. They took me around the city, showed me beautiful old buildings and hidden corners, and even took me to see Jeanneke Pis - the lesser-known girl statue tucked away in a small street. Everyone knows Manneken Pis, the famous peeing boy statue, but this one felt like a local secret.
Astrid bought me chocolates her mom used to give her as a kid. Then we went to her farmhouse, where her dog Kaalu was waiting. Kaalu's name has a funny India connection - when her brother Mathieu brought the dog home and asked what to name it, Astrid told him that in India black dogs are affectionately called "Kaalu," and the name stuck. I stayed there, worked a little, rested, talked. It felt like home.
Astrid didn't have to host me. She didn't owe me anything. But she showed up with a kind of generosity I'll never forget. Her brother Mathieu made incredible coffee using beans Astrid had brought from Marc's Coffee in Pondicherry, and we sat on the farm talking about life, spirituality, travel. One evening, Mathieu took me to his friend's place for dinner - a simple homemade arrabiata pasta with zucchini. Another warm, generous evening with people I had just met.
That's when I realized something: I came to Europe solo. But I wasn't alone.
Netherlands: The Grounding
The last stop was Den Bosch in the Netherlands, where my brother lives. After weeks of moving, exploring, navigating, solving, rushing, and figuring things out alone, I finally reached a place where I could just be. My brother and bhabhi welcomed me with full heart - and the food. Proper meals, multiple courses, care in every dish. The kind of home-cooked food that fills you differently from restaurant food.
We played card games, talked, I met my little nephew, worked a little from a beautiful cafe. My brother showed me around Den Bosch, and one day I went to Amsterdam too - Madame Tussauds, the Red Light District. But mostly, I relaxed. I noticed the trust systems everywhere: vegetables left out with honor-system cash boxes, fruit lying on streets, public systems running with quiet discipline. The Netherlands had a precise, calm energy. After all the chaos, I needed that - a place to decompress and process what had just happened.
Navigating the Unknown
One of the things I'm most proud of from this trip is how many small problems I solved on the fly. Different countries, different food systems, different transport networks, different languages - public transport in Porto, metro with a giant bag in Lisbon, food in Paris when I didn't speak French, small-town movement in Belgium, trains in the Netherlands. Every few hours there was something new to figure out. And you know what's interesting? You adapt faster than you think.
I picked up enough of each language to get by - Portuguese in Porto, Spanish in Barcelona, French in Paris, Dutch in Belgium and the Netherlands. Not fluent, not even close. But enough to navigate, enough to order food, enough to read signs, enough to feel less lost. I'm an introvert by nature, but on this trip I became more extroverted out of necessity. I talked to hostel staff, cab drivers, strangers on streets, people in metros, other travelers, restaurant staff - because that's how you figure things out, and that's how a solo trip becomes a series of unexpected connections.
Everywhere I went, people helped me. They guided me, welcomed me, accommodated my vegetarian food requests, gave directions, showed patience. That stayed with me.
What I Learned
This trip taught me something I don't think I could have learned any other way. Sometimes the slow years are preparing you for the breakthrough. I waited five years for Web Summit, got rejected twice for visas, my friend couldn't make it, plans kept changing. But when it finally happened - when I was standing on the Eiffel Tower on 19 November 2025, alone, in the storm, proud - I realized: the wait had given the moment its weight.
If I had gone in 2020 or 2021, maybe I wouldn't have appreciated it the same way. Maybe I wouldn't have fought for it. Maybe I wouldn't have understood what it meant to show up for myself. The struggle made the approval sweeter. The uncertainty made the arrival meaningful. Going solo made me realize I don't need perfect conditions to begin.
The Takeaway
I'm not saying "trust the process." I'm not saying "everything happens for a reason." Honestly, sometimes things are just difficult - plans fall apart, people can't come with you, the visa gets rejected, your jeans zipper breaks in Paris. So I'll say something simpler: keep showing up.
Even when it's awkward. Even when you're scared. Even when you have to go alone. Do it messy. Staple your jeans if you have to. Call a cab driver to walk you past loose dogs. Figure out the metro in a language you don't speak. Talk to strangers even when it feels uncomfortable. Take the photo. Take the trip. Take the chance.
Because one day, maybe five years later, you'll be standing somewhere you once dreamed of. And you'll realize: you earned this. Not because everything went smoothly, not because someone handed it to you, but because you kept going when it would have been easier to quit.
That's the Europe trip I waited five years to take. And honestly? I'd wait five more if I had to.