Every trip is different. But any given destination remains the same for everyone. Every tourist visiting Rome sees the coliseum; every visitor to Paris, the Eiffel Tower.

So is there really such a thing as a truly unique, original, one-of-a-kind trip?

I thought there was. Part of my desire to travel the Trans-Siberian Railroad was that it very distinctly was NOT Rome or Paris. It was a route less traveled – a destination that still felt raw and unspoiled by tourism. Hell, I didn’t even know of anyone else who had ever done it before.

The first day on the train provided an enthralling, off-to-the-unknown sort-of a feeling. Like central Russia was some kind of uncharted territory. And it was, for me.

But the more people I met, the more travelers I talked to, the more I realized that we were all doing the exact same thing. My “unique” trip was just one of many. Everyone spent a few days in Moscow and saw Red Square, the Kremlin and St. Basil’s. Everyone stopped in Irkutsk and made the pilgrimage to Olkhon Island and stayed in the exact same hostel. Everyone did a multi-day caravan in the Gobi Desert.

What’s more? Every single person I met personally knew someone else who had completed the journey before. By the time the train rolled into Beijing, it felt as though there were few people who hadn’t done the Trans-Siberian.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed. So much for having a wholly original travel idea! Does such a thing even exist anymore? Are there places that haven’t been passed though by thousands of travelers already? Places that Lonely Planet hasn’t boiled down to a basic city map and accommodation suggestions?

I felt deflated, crestfallen. I was still enamored with the trip and the experience, but somehow it had lost a bit of its shine.

It’s not lost on me that the Trans-Siberian is still (comparatively) an exotic and lesser explored destination. And that I went about it in a different way than most travelers; others typically make four stops along the way, Moscow, Irkutsk, Ulaan Baator, and Beijing. I opted to make 11.

In this way, I did have a trip uniquely mine and saw more of the country than those who stayed on the train for days on end. (I probably saw more of the country than most Russians have!)

Not to say that making more stops made the trip any better or worse than staying on-board. In fact, several travelers I encountered were confused about why I would disembark so frequently; “The point is to ride the rails, start to finish.  That’s the point of the Trans-Siberian,” they would say.

Same trip, different priorities and expectations. And I guess that’s the real point. We might travel to a place that has been visited hundreds of thousands of times before, but our personal expectations and experiences with that place are what makes it unique – not the place itself.

Now, I look back on the trip with the same enthusiasm I had when I began – although it might not be anything new to the world of travel, it was brand spankin’ new to me!