This blog post was copied from www.travellinghewitts.com – the blog I maintained between 2015 and 2018 with Lena, my now ex-wife who I was travelling with at the time. I have no intention of going through the old posts to update them – the past is what it is and doesn’t change. Apologies if some of the context seems a little strange as a result!
The Balkans. I’m still not completely sure how we settled on our destination for the trip this year; it’s not a part of the world I’ve ever paid great attention to or been overly interested in – until I started planning the trip.
We had to pick somewhere that wasn’t too outlandish; getting Lena though her license and onto a bike was a big enough ask without then shipping her off to Timbuktu. But we didn’t want to go somewhere too pedestrian. We also didn’t want to pay normal prices for food and accommodation. So the Balkans it is and I’ve spent six months planning the trip.
The idea is to try and keep things relaxed. No riding every day and plenty of variety. Neither of us have any interest in the classic “bike tour” munching miles every day. Riding is fun but it’s not the be-all and end-all of a trip for us. Ideally I have aimed to ride for a day and stop for a day, although that pattern is only loosely maintained. We’re going to sail from Venice to Greece – it halves the mileage and if we sleep on the deck it’s fairly cheap.
Google Maps doesn’t allow me enough way points to include the whole trip in a single link so, if you’re interested, you can see a broad outline of the trip here and here. The route takes us to Greece by boat, into Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia. Along the way there will be road, off-road, rafting, paragliding, hydro-boarding, hiking, cycling and a truck load of baklava.
