About me, and about the hike

Hello There!

I’m Paddy Devlin, I’m 28 years old and recently quit my job with the intention of fulfilling a long term goal of completing a long distance solo hike.  I enjoyed many aspects of my job, but had an irrepressible itch to get outside and explore. With my 29th birthday just round the corner (and I reckon my 30th will come hot on its heels) and the feeling that responsibilities have a way of increasing over time, I reckoned that now was the time.

In January 2017 I am leaving the UK to hike from Istanbul to Vienna and back.  I won’t be using motorised transport for the entire length of the trip*, intend to camp out/stay in the mountains/away from population centres as much as possible.  My intended route will be as follows (With mountain ranges in brackets):

Istanbul -> Bulgaria (Rhodope/Rila) -> Serbia (Dinaric) -> Bosnia-Herzegovina (Dinaric) -> Croatia (Dinaric)-> Slovenia (Julian Alps) -> Italy (Alps/Dolomites) -> Austria (Alps) -> Slovakia (Carpathians/Tatras) -> Ukraine (Carpathians) -> Romania (Carpathians) -> Serbia -> Bulgaria (Balkan) -> Istanbul.

You can see it mapped out here –Total Route (Rough)

I intend to keep a blog of my trip and update whenever I can; at least a post or two per country, with descriptions of my route, the people I meet, the difficulties I encounter etc.

As you can see, the blog is pretty basic/not really existent for the moment, but I intend to populate it with content as I go, so hopefully it will become a better read/browse in time.

I hope you like the blog, and please message me if you have any comments or suggestions.

Paddy

*I have planned two breaks in the trip for significant occasions, for which I will allow myself to take transport to get to/from, however I intend to mark the point that I have left my walk and return to that exact point before recommencing – so that I can say that I have truly walked the whole way.