we travel, then walk, on a budget
The origin of our trip to Wales was open ended, so much so that we didn’t know Wales was our destination until a couple weeks out. This trip serves as an example of an unplanned road trip that’s a culmination of cheap flights across the pond, an expiring travel voucher, and no time to plan. The end result was cliffs, rocks, castles, and fish and chips.
Over the past few year, we’ve had our delays and plans go awry. But it always seemed we were able to figure out new plans and were able to achieve what we wanted to do. So we were due to run out of luck at some point and the norse gods were happy to be the ones to bring all my plans crashing down and then some.
Recently, airfare between Europe and United States have been on an all-time low driven by budget airlines like WOW, Norwegian, and Level even in the summer high season. With the ease of the trans-Atlantic commute and the beginning of summer hut to hut trekking season in Europe, I thought it was appropriate to jump back in the time machine to June 2014 and write about the time we did a segmented Walker’s Haute Route trek. As with my previous report about the past, my information might be dated now. Please cross check all the trail information with reputable sources.
Before I get started on the report, a key aspect to keep in mind is that the Walker’s Haute Route is really sections of different hut to hut hikes that was put together to fit the 2 week holidays Europeans, especially Brits, have by Kev Reynolds and the Cicerone guide books. There are many, many different alternatives you can take or loop together. The number of trails in Switzerland is pretty astounding, though it fits since the entire country is pretty much just glacier carved valleys.
A unique aspect of our trek was that we started the hike in mid-June, which was before the official Walker’s Haute Route season that year. So we had to mixed and matched different sections of the trails around, hence the segmented nature of this trip.
This was one of those things seemingly all young Americans did when I was growing up. It was almost a rite of passage. It was in line with the American road trip with your buddies. Some movies I can remember off the top of my head include Before Sunrise, An American Werewolf in Paris, some movie(s) with the Olsen twins, and of course Eurotrip (I didn’t say they were good movies). What I’m referring to is the European backpacking trip. More specifically, getting a rail pass and just going from city to city. For many it’s getting back to the old country and back to their roots, for others it’s to immerse in a different culture, and definitely for some, it was to get wasted and party their way across the land. Regardless of what someone did, backpacking in Europe with friends or by oneself seemed like, to me, one of those things that all young people did. It was a place with plenty of backpacking infrastructure and easy to go from place to place. And in most cases, one would take away life lessons, create stories they’d tell the rest of their lives, and returned back more knowing more about the world and themselves. Today with the internet, travel blogs, and global tourism, kids aren’t so confined to Europe to get that experience. But for me, a kid of the 90s, a Euro trip was the first place to travel to.
This entry is the first of the backlogged trip reports from the past that I’ll be working through. Unlike current reports, I won’t have exact costs or as complete of a report as I’m working off memories. Furthermore, by no means was I as efficient in budgeting in the past as I am now so there are definitely areas I could have saved money and some areas I went way too out of the way to save money. Lastly, some of the information and trails may have changed also over the years, so please cross check any information for your own safety.