About ten years ago I started driving in Budapest, back when the whole thing was still somewhere between hustle, instinct and survival. I worked with Airbnb apartments, small hotels, random clients, and I slowly realised that if I wanted to build something real, I had to make it legal, official and mine. So I did the work. I studied tourism, got my guide qualification, learned the business, and step by step started building Mary Carry under my own name.
Then life hit hard. A serious motorcycle accident changed everything. Recovery was long, ugly and humbling. I got back on my feet, and for a while things were moving again, but the deeper chaos in my life was already building in the background. Bad relationships, burnout, addiction, too much pressure, too little support, too many wrong turns — and then the pandemic came and in basically one day the whole tourism world died under my feet.
I tried to survive with whatever I could do at the time. Cleaning jobs, shitty work, anything that brought in some money. But I hated every second of it, and meanwhile my life kept sliding further and further out of control. There was a point where I genuinely didn’t see a way out anymore. I call it my Jimi Hendrix Day. If you know, you know. That was rock bottom, and not the poetic kind.
But that was also where something shifted. Not in a dramatic movie-scene way. Not with a halo, not with perfect discipline, not overnight. Just the first ugly, messy decision that I did not want to die like that, and I did not want to disappear like that, and if there was even a tiny way back, then I had to find it.
Rebuilding was brutal. I relapsed. I struggled. I worked for platforms that paid almost nothing and acted like they were doing me a favour. I drove long-distance jobs for ridiculous money, I slept in cheap places, I crossed borders with a car that was basically bleeding oil, and I kept trying to hold myself together while my nervous system was falling apart. I failed my taxi exam three times. Three. Times. People treated me like I was stupid, like I would never make it. On the fourth attempt, in another school, I passed.
That mattered. Not just because of the exam, but because it proved something to me. I rented a taxi, started again, and kept pushing. It was still hard as hell. Budapest taxi work can chew you up if you let it. If you want to pay serious money every month just to keep a car moving under you, you have to work until your bones rattle. I was anxious, exhausted and still trying to get my brain and my life under control.
Then came another turning point. I finally got the right psychiatric support, the right treatment, and for the first time in a very long time my anxiety stopped running my entire life. I stopped being afraid of people. I stopped being afraid of decisions. I stopped freezing in place. I stopped looking for someone else to save me, employ me, pick me, rescue me, support me, fix me or validate me.
And once that fear lifted, everything changed. I worked the Budapest–Bamako rally in Africa in a service car, alone, through terrain, chaos, breakdown risks and everything else — without accident, without drama, without losing my nerve. That was one of those moments where I knew for real that I was back. Not the old version of me. A stronger one.
So now here we are. I rebuilt this alone. Nobody built my website for me. Nobody handed me a ready-made business. Nobody cared more than I did. I got the loan. I’m buying the yellow car under me. I have the guide background, the driving experience, the scars, the humour, the instinct, and the sheer bloody-mindedness it took to bring Mary Carry back from the dead.
When you book with me, you are not just getting from A to B. You get a calm ride, a human being, fast communication, flexibility, local knowledge, and somebody who actually gives a damn whether your experience is stressful or smooth. If we need to stop for coffee, we stop. If you need water, snacks, a breather, a little more time, a little less pressure — that’s how I work.
So no, this is not just a ride. And no, I’m not trying to be the cheapest. There are plenty of people for that. What I offer is something more personal, more direct, more real. If that’s what you’re looking for, then we’ll probably get along just fine.