Peaks of the Balkans

This was my first long trip. After founding my first company, I needed a real break and decided to get a camper van, a 20-year-old Volkswagen T4 California, to go on a proper adventure. At that time, I was in a relationship with Elisabeth, who also loved the outdoors and had a work contract ending in April, so we decided to set off early May.

Elisabeth had previously worked for an NGO running a project called the Peaks of the Balkans, a long-distance hiking trail designed to reconnect Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro after the conflicts that had torn the region apart, while also helping the people living in these remote mountain communities develop sustainable tourism and a better livelihood. The trail is roughly 192 km long, takes about 10 to 13 days to complete, and was launched in 2009 through a cross-border cooperation supported by the German development agency GIZ.

The Peaks of the Balkans was the main objective of this adventure, and it was also a chance to discover all of south-east Europe, a region I had never travelled to. We started with a drive across Poland, where we stopped to visit my daughter. Then we headed south to Krakow, where we spent some time exploring the city, and later to Auschwitz. I expected this to be an emotional challenge, but I really underestimated the impact it would have on me. We’ve all seen pictures of the atrocities that happened there, but what doesn’t come across in pictures or films is the sheer scale of the place. Standing there, seeing hundreds and hundreds of barracks all perfectly aligned, and then learning about the conditions in which people had to survive, how everything had been engineered so meticulously to inflict the maximum amount of pain, that really leaves a scar and damages the little faith one has left in human beings. I think it took us almost three days before we could start thinking about anything else and start smiling again. I didn’t take a single picture there. It felt wrong, and I had no desire to relive any of it later by looking at images.

We crossed the border into the Czech Republic, then Austria, with a little break in Vienna. We finally arrived in Slovenia, which was the first place where we really slowed down. We visited Bled and Ljubljana, and randomly ended up in an incredible underground cave network that turned out to be very popular but which we’d never heard of, a lucky discovery during a hike. Later we reached the coast at Koper and Piran, where we could enjoy a more Mediterranean landscape. Slovenia left a great impression on me. Within a few hours of the capital you can be either in the mountains or by the sea, which is a pretty rare combination.

Then we headed south into Croatia and had a wonderful break in Motovun, where we stayed on an olive farm. We continued east and visited Plitvice Lakes National Park, famous for its many waterfalls and turquoise lakes connected by wooden boardwalks. We then headed south to Split, where we stayed a few days by the sea. We carried on south, made a quick stop in Dubrovnik, but the city was so busy it was really hard to enjoy. We kept going further south and ended up at an abandoned military fort called Fort Punta Oštro, on the tip of the Prevlaka peninsula, the southernmost point of mainland Croatia, which was a really fun place to spend the night.

It was time to cross the border, heading for Sarajevo, with a stop in Mostar first, an old city famous for its very high bridge from which local guys jump to impress the crowd and earn some coins. Sarajevo was another beautiful experience. We were there during Ramadan, which made it special: the evenings were so warm, with everyone meeting in the cafés after sunset, finally enjoying time with friends and family. At the same time, we had our second reality check after visiting museums detailing the horrors of the war, the concentration camps, and the siege. All of this became very real when we took a guided tour through the city, where the walls are still covered in bullet holes and shrapnel scars.

After Sarajevo, we wanted to get back to nature and headed south to Sutjeska National Park, where we did a beautiful hike with stunning views. Just getting to the trailhead with the van was a real challenge: the roads were in terrible condition. The trail itself was completely unmarked, and we got lost more than once, especially since we couldn’t count on other hikers to guide us: we crossed paths with one group of four people the entire day. But getting lost there was absolutely worth it for the views we got.

Our next stop was Serbia. Knowing what we’d learned in Bosnia made our stay there a lot more challenging, particularly after a guided tour in Belgrade where the guide was in complete denial of the events of that war. Once we’d left Belgrade behind, we did enjoy some beautiful landscapes and met lovely locals who offered us rakija at 8am and seemed genuinely surprised by my polite decline. It was also the first time I met some real overlanders, a couple from the UK travelling in a 20-year-old Land Rover.

Then we went to Montenegro, and I believe that’s where we started our 192 km hike. I’m not entirely sure because I’m writing this page 10 years later. While we’d been hiking almost every day since the beginning of the trip, this was our first attempt at a multi-day hike. My first one ever, actually. Knowing that we could stay in guesthouses where a bed and meals were provided made it a lot easier, because we didn’t need to carry food or sleeping gear, which kept our packs much lighter. We had incredible experiences all along the trail. Literally everyone was wonderful, welcoming and incredibly kind. Many didn’t speak much English, but we always found a way, and it’s amazing how much you can communicate with just a smile and a hand gesture. The landscapes were truly beautiful, and seeing farmers’ lives up close was new to me. I even milked a cow there and drank her milk. Definitely a strange thing for me to do, and not really aligned with my values, but it was an interesting experience I don’t regret for a second. This hike was a truly incredible experience that I keep close to my heart.

From there we went back on the road and crossed Albania from north to south. What a beautiful country. The Adriatic Sea is incredible, the people are really warm, and it was nothing like busy Croatia. I imagine that’s less true 10 years on, but at the time we really loved being there. Then we headed east to North Macedonia and crossed Bulgaria towards Varna on the Black Sea coast.

We quickly went north into Romania. We started by exploring the Danube Delta, where the river meets the Black Sea.

Then, a slightly unnecessary stop to see Dracula’s Castle, and on to the Carpathians. Nature is really pristine there, and the animals haven’t been hunted, so they’re not actually scared of humans and will come close. We did the craziest hike of my life there, a trail recommended by the local tourism office, and clearly that person had no idea what they were doing. It took us 13 hours to get through, half the time scaling vertical rock faces with cables to hang onto, then running the rest to have any chance of making it before sunset. They’d warned us to stay on the path because apparently a lot of tourists wander off the track and get lost. I think the reason is that they sell a 13-hour route for experienced hikers as a 6-hour Sunday walk. No wonder people try to cut corners hoping to make it back in time. It was honestly really stressful. We arrived back at our car with less than 5 minutes of daylight left. Now it’s just a nice memory, but in the moment, it was a lot less fun.

We also visited a sanctuary that takes care of bears who have been mistreated in the past. It’s called Libearty Bear Sanctuary , and was founded by Cristina Lapis in 2005. Visitors were only allowed for a few hours a day to limit disturbance, nothing was done to attract the bears, and if they didn’t want to see any humans, they could stay away from the (silent) crowd. It was the only condition under which I would have agreed to see bears in captivity, and I’m really glad this place exists. We were happy to donate to it.

Before leaving Romania, we made one last stop in Maramureș to ride the Mocăniţa, a narrow-gauge steam train that winds through the Vaser Valley, one of the last working forestry railways in Europe. A slow, gentle way to close our Romanian chapter.

From there, I believe we started driving across several countries quite quickly because we had to attend a wedding in Germany, crossing Hungary, Slovakia and Austria again. With the wedding behind us, we headed back west to the French Atlantic coast to visit some family. Then we kept driving south along the coast, enjoying the ocean, the long beaches and the sand dunes. We crossed the Pyrenees into Spain and drove all along the northern coast until Galicia. We had quite a few stops on the way at beautiful beaches and caves, where we met plenty of other vanlifers.

After that, it was time to drive back home to Berlin, our hearts full of memories and absolutely not ready to return to urban life and work.