What it Takes to Survive the Balkan Wilderness

We always knew this would be the toughest challenge we’d ever faced. And we even trained for it. But nothing could have fully prepared us for this nine-day trek into the wilderness of the Western Balkans. 

The trek is called the Peaks of the Balkans, and it’s a trail that circles through the remote mountains of Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro. The route we chose was a grueling 120 km or 75 miles long. This is exactly the type of adventure we hoped to have when we first started traveling full time. 

Back when we were working, we always felt disappointed that we could only fit in one big trek a year. Once we started traveling full time, we thought that we would finally be doing all those big treks that we dreamed of: the Camino Santiago, the Inca Trail, Annapurna in the Himalayas. We had a pretty substantial if unrealistic bucket list. 

But our travels have looked a little different from what we imagined. We see ourselves as really adventurous but so far our travels have been somewhat cushy. We’ve spent time in interesting countries but we’ve been hopping from one very comfortable airbnb to another. It’s been a lot of fun but we sometimes get the feeling that we’re falling a bit short of our dreams to be true adventurers.

With the Peaks of the Balkans trek, this is where we were trying to make our big dream happen. 

However, we were worried about taking on a challenge this huge. We’ve been doing some long day hikes during our travels but we didn’t feel particularly ready for eight hours of hiking each day, especially two little toy poodles along for the adventure. Once they get tired, that’s an extra 20 pounds of weight we have to carry.

Once we started the hike, the first big shock was the immediate physical challenge. You can train as much as you like but there’s nothing quite like starting a day with a steep uphill climb for 4 hours in the hot sun, especially when you reach the top and there’s another few hours of challenging downhill. The first couple days were especially difficult for me and I really wasn’t sure if I would be capable of finishing the whole trek. This is something that you’ll never hear from Gillian; she spent 12 years in the military so she was trained to never back down from a physical challenge and certainly never ever complain about it. I’m someone with only average fitness and average endurance and I found this trek quite difficult. At some points it was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other and just keep doing that, hour after hour.

Once I got over the initial shock of the physical challenge, I had time to look around and notice my surroundings. Most of the places we stayed in were very remote areas where only shepherds live and only during the summer. So the guesthouses there were very simple. Of course we were always well fed with three meals a day. We were given a simple breakfast, usually with eggs, bread, jam, and lots of cheese. Lunch was typically a do it yourself sandwich and dinner was huge and hearty. It was always carb heavy with rice, potatoes and bread. Sometimes there was meat but sometimes not, as the guesthouses were so remote there wasn’t electricity.  

I’m someone who likes my creature comforts. I like boutique hotels and luxurious bathrooms and fresh bedding. Well there was none of that on the trail. These were very basic lodgings. The bedrooms were typically shared. Some of them were designed in a thoughtful way but others were just a basic mattress on the floor. 

I would say that the main challenge for me was the bathrooms. These were always a wet room, meaning that  the toilet and shower are all in the same place. So you hose yourself down while standing over the toilet and the whole floor gets soaking wet. Some of these setups were relatively modern but the worst was a bare concrete room with just a trickle of water. Considering where we were in the mountains, we were very grateful that at least we did get a shower at the end of each day.

What made the whole experience a little easier was being part of a group and having two amazing guides to provide support throughout the trek.

If it had just been the two of us, we probably would have lost our motivation very early on. There were some tough moments of hiking; moments when it stopped being fun and was just a tough slog. Knowing that we were all in it together helped us to keep moving forward.

Despite the tough days and minimal creature comforts, we obviously survived the Peaks of the Balkans. It was much harder than we imagined but also more rewarding. We definitely want to do more of this type of trek but probably not every month. Maybe more like once or twice a year. 

Certainly it would have been a lot easier if we hadn’t been taking care of our two little dogs. But we felt a huge sense of accomplishment that we were able to do it all together. Plus they proved themselves as great little hikers (even though we carried them for about 20 to 30% of the way).

While we might not be ready to head into the wilderness for months at a time, there was a real freedom in living so simply. We were off grid. We had basic living conditions. There was a bed and a shower and three meals a day. The rest of the time was all about the mountains. It was truly liberating to be fully immersed in nature and so far away from modern life. The views were absolutely spectacular and worth every minute of effort. 

If you’re curious how we ended up on such a challenging hike to begin with, you can check out the first half of the story here.