Europe, Hiking, Slow travel, Travel Diary, Trip Planning, Walking Holidays

Gosausee…See it to Believe it

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There are some places that just have to be seen in person to be believed. Gosausee Austria is one of them.

Day 6 of our two week sojourn in Austria & Germany gave us one of the prettiest hikes we’ve experienced so far. Having spent the previous day on an easy hike & lounging around, we were ready for something a little more challenging (but not TOO challenging as I wasn’t sure how my knee would hold up). Our innkeeper Larry swore that Gosausee was one of the prettiest hikes in the region, with a breathtaking view at the midpoint of the loop. Trusting Larry’s sage advice, we sprinted downhill to catch the “5 past 9 bus.” Larry told us everything we’d need to know about what bus to take & when to hop off & get on another one, so it was fairly easy. What took us by surprise was that we were the only non-Chinese people on the bus. Seeing that one of the couples was staying at the same inn as us, we attempted a stilted conversation & that’s how we found out that it was a national Chinese 10-day holiday. The nearby town of Hallstatt is a Unesco World Heritage site, so it’s very attractive to Chinese tourists who like to check off that “I’ve been here” list. Hence why we heard more Mandarin that day than German.

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Europe, Slow travel, Travel Diary, Trip Planning, Walking Holidays

Why I LOVE Haus Hepi

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Obertraun Austria

Have you ever stayed at a place where you thought, “I could live here” or “I would like to be adopted by these people?” Well, that is EXACTLY how we felt after a five night stay at Haus Hepi in Obertraun, Austria.

A year ago when I began planning a trip “somewhere” in Europe, I knew two things: we wanted beautiful landscapes for hiking & a place to stay that felt like home. I looked at farm stays all across Bavaria & Iceland, coastal cottages in Portugal, villas in Costa Rica. I used a lot of non-English search terms, trying to find lodging that only the locals would know about…and that’s when I discovered Haus Hepi. I had never heard of Obertraun, but Haus Hepi’s site said they had a hiking package which included customized advice on hiking itineraries plus transportation from Salzburg plus the option to add dinner prepared by a professional chef. PERFECT! I built the rest of our two week trip around this place, & boy am I SOOOOOO glad I did.
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Hiking, Slow travel, Travel Diary, United States, Walking Holidays

Weekend Walk along Tammany Trace

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Tammany Trace Abita Springs

Earlier this year, I went on a weekend walk along the Tammany Trace, which is a “rails to trails” path on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain (just north of New Orleans). I went with my sister, husband & the couple who introduced us to walking holidays. Our initial thought was to do this as a true inn-to-inn walking trip, but lack of transportation was an issue — we couldn’t find anyone willing to shuttle us from starting point to end. Plus, dinner options are limited along the trail if you don’t have a car with you that first night. So, we adapted & used 2 vehicles. The distance between parking lots was only about 7.5 miles each time we had to move cars.

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