Plans for Next Year

Even though it’s only August 2024, I’m already thinking seriously about 2025. I have a few plans for next year to wander around the world.

First idea: a tour of Europe.

The idea of a tour of Europe isn’t exactly new to me, but until now I’ve been afraid to do a longer trip because of the car I have. The car, a Mazda CX-5, has left me stranded a few times, admittedly within Romania. I recently received a South Korean SUV as a gift and, even though it’s no Toyota Land Cruiser, I think I’d dare to do the tour of Europe in it.

The initial tour looks roughly like this: leave from Chiaja and cross Romania via Sibiu, Cluj and Oradea. Then Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, take the ferry across to Finland, drive up to Rovaniemi, then come down the other side of the Baltic Sea through Sweden, make a quick detour into Norway, then Denmark, Germany, Liechtenstein, Austria, Slovenia, Belgrade and home.

Then one evening, chatting on WhatsApp with a friend, he told me that since I’m going to Norway anyway, I should do the fjords too, and that it might be worth going further north than Rovaniemi in Finland. And since I’m easily influenced and I’ve since ticked off Riga, Tallinn and Helsinki, I’ll probably take his advice.

Unknowns for this trip: how many days will I need, given that I’m still employed? Will I camp in the Nordic countries? Am I even allowed to? What budget would I need to stay in hotels or hostels everywhere? And how far should I stray from the route, since I’ll be tempted to see the sights near me? How much will each detour cost me? I’ll probably find answers to all these questions by 2025.

Second idea: a tour of the Caucasus

The idea of a trip to Baku, Azerbaijan is fairly new and is partly a section of the bigger trip to Mongolia. Initially the plan looked more like a loop, but since I understood there are some conflicts between the neighbours and only Georgia gets along with everyone, it went through a few changes. Even though the idea is fairly new, and also because this year on holiday in Bali I made friends with a guy from Georgia, this tour of the Caucasus could well be the trip I actually do in 2025.

The only unknowns right now are the visas and how often I’ll stop in Turkey. The length of this trip should fit within an employee’s annual leave.

Another idea: hiking the Via Transilvanica

My newest idea is to hike the Via Transilvanica. The only big problem is the length of the hike – around 60 days if I want to walk the entire route. The budget for this one shouldn’t be high, I don’t even need a car. I wonder if there’s an employer out there who would support their employees on this kind of “holiday”?

The ultimate idea: a trip to Mongolia

Even though I don’t think 2025 will be about Mongolia, I’m not sure why I listed this trip here. I wrote about the idea of a trip to Mongolia here: Itinerary to Mongolia

But before that I still have to buy and prepare a car…

In conclusion

I’ll probably spend the coming period focusing on paying off my instalments and studying the routes above, and who knows, maybe in 2025 one of them will be the lucky one. In the meantime I’m playing the lottery, because there’s certainly no sponsor for all the crazy ideas going through my head.