How Hikers Should Do Europe

For the past six months we’ve been hiking in Europe: primarily the French Alps, but also the Italian and Swiss Alps, and now the mountains along Spain’s Costa Brava and Costa Dorada. All our hikes on this sojourn have been dayhikes. We’ve camped every night in our campervan.

We’ve now travelled in Europe (always with a focus on hiking) by nearly every means possible. We’ve backpacked hut-to-hut. We’ve backpacked carrying a tent, stove, food, etc. and wild camped (free camped). Between backpack trips, we’ve travelled via trains and buses. We’ve hitchhiked extensively. Even on our current trip, hitchhiking has enabled us to complete long, one-way dayhikes. We’ve also rented cars in Europe and, between dayhikes, pitched our tent in village and city campgrounds, or stealth camped free of charge in all kinds of settings. Other times, we’ve rented apartments for several weeks, used rental cars to access mountain trailheads, and returned each night to our village base. Occasionally we’ve stayed in hotels, but largely avoiding hotels has helped us afford longer journeys.

So, which approach do we prefer and recommend?

It’s a question we’ve often pondered and discussed. Now that a couple readers have asked for our advice on the matter, it’s time we commit to an answer.

We’ve enjoyed it all. Each approach has distinct pros and cons, of course. Which one will best suit you depends on your budget and personal preferences. But during all our previous European hiking journeys, we envied the hikers and climbers we saw camping in vans at trailheads. Now that we’ve done it, we can say with certainty that—for us—traveling and living in a campervan is the optimal way to hike Europe.

First, a clarification. What we call a “campervan” in North America goes by different names in Europe. The British call what we’re now driving and living in a “motorhome.” The French call it a “camping car.” The Spanish call it an “auto caravana.” In North America, our vehicle would be considered either a small motorhome or a large campervan. In this blog post, we’ll continue calling it a “campervan,” because (1) it’s possible to travel and live here nearly as comfortably as we have in a slightly smaller vehicle that’s definitely a campervan, not a motorhome, and (2) because many motorhomes in Europe are notably larger than our vehicle and would certainly be considered motorhomes, not campervans, in North America.

We prefer the campervan for many reasons. We’ll elaborate on them presently. Topping our list, however, is a personal bias unrelated to campervans that makes a campervan viable for us: In Europe, we prefer dayhiking to backpacking (either hut-to-hut or self-supported).

That’s heresy, we know. The European mountain hut system is a venerable one. Long distance, hut-to-hut hiking is a life-list dream for many North American hikers. And many European hikers are hut-to-hut devotees. Slashing your burden by eliminating a tent, sleeping bag, and cooking equipment, and carrying little food, enables truly ultralight hiking: relaxed and comfortable. Having delicious meals cooked for you and served to you is a luxurious indulgence. Still, we’d rather dayhike.

Staying at huts costs about 20 to 30 Euros per person. Eating at huts costs about 15 Euros per person just for dinner. At those prices, we couldn’t afford to hike in Europe for long.

Huts are crowded and noisy. Often you’ll have a stranger sleeping within nudging distance of you, perhaps two strangers: one on each side. Often you’ll sleep (or lie awake) with perhaps 20 to 60 other hikers in one room. Some will snore or cough. Some will retire late or rise early. Some will be noisy because they’re either clumsy, unable to sleep (tossing and turning), or just inconsiderate. Some will get up to pee in the middle of the night. Your sleep will almost always be compromised at a hut.

Huts can drain the energy you need for athletic hiking. Having to socialize with strangers at the dinner table every night, particularly people whose language you struggle to speak, can be stimulating and rewarding but also severely draining. Forgoing all but the barest stitch of privacy can prevent you from fully relaxing. And if you’re also not enjoying deep, uninterrupted sleep, your strength and endurance will wane, preventing you from fully enjoying each day on the trail.

Huts can also compromise your nutrition, further sapping your energy. Though eating meals at huts can be a marvelous luxury, it requires that you relinquish control over what and how much you eat. Some huts serve delicious, generous meals, others don’t. Europeans’ concept of breakfast is less hearty than that of most North Americans, so you’ll leave some huts in the morning with less than a full tank. No hut we’ve heard of includes a PowerBar, or any kind of sports-nutrition supplement, in the packed lunches they provide for hikers. If you have special dietary requirements, such as a need to avoid gluten, hut fare will not suit you.

We’re becoming increasingly aware that what we eat before, during, and after a hike profoundly affects our physical capability, our attitudes, and ultimately our level of fulfillment. We know precisely what we need to eat and how much. For example, we consume huge servings—literally platefuls—of fresh vegetables before and after hiking. Huts cannot be expected to serve the quantity of fresh veggies we think is a healthy-hiker requirement. While on the trail, we favour dried fruit (apricots, figs, goji berries, Turkish mulberries) and nuts (almonds, walnuts, pecans), but we also rely on sports nutrition (especially PowerBars, PowerBar Energy Blasts, Honey Singer Protein Bars, Isostar Cereal Bars, and Isostar Sport Drink). Huts cannot be expected to cater to hikers who fuel themselves as if they were competitive athletes.

Yet another disadvantage of hut-to-hut hiking is that huts require reservations, typically well in advance. That means you relinquish flexibility and spontaneity. When you finally begin hiking to the first hut you booked, you could be heading into a week of rain. We much prefer to choose each day’s hiking destination according to the latest weather forecast.

Occasionally, while hiking trail A, we’ll see an intriguing peak or col that requires us to hike trail D, which we hadn’t planned on doing. Or, while hiking trail J, we’ll overlook the area probed by trail M, which was on our agenda, but now we can see it’s much less compelling than we’d imagined. Dayhikers can always, easily adjust their plans. Hut-to-hutsters are locked in.

Hut-to-hut hiking is almost never the continuous, blissful, peaky-horizon-always-in-view, alpine cruise that most hikers imagine it will be. Most days on most hut-to-hut routes entail long, grinding ascents, and long, pounding descents. Usually there’s a col, and sometimes a couple cols, between huts. Often there are long stretches between huts where the trail remains in forest. This is where dayhiking offers a significant advantage, because mountain trailheads in Europe are located at much higher elevations than are mountain trailheads in North America. Many are well above treeline, yet accessible via paved roads. So dayhikers who study their topo maps and choose their trails carefully are likely to spend more of each day striding above treeline than are hut-to-hut backpackers. Which is to say, dayhiking can be both easier and more scenic.

Hut-to-hut hiking is a revered tradition and immensely popular. It tends to keep you immersed in a crowd. Not only when you’re at the huts, but also while you’re on the trail. This past summer, we dayhiked several stages of established, hut-to-hut routes. Those were always the days we encountered the most hikers. On the stages we hiked of the Tour de Mont Blanc, for example, other hikers were constantly in view. On most of our dayhikes, we did not follow established hut-to-hut routes, and we were often alone.

Most stages of the popular hut-to-hut routes sacrifice interest for efficiency. So in addition to denying you optimal scenery, the trails themselves are sometimes boring. Following the easiest, most direct routes, long stretches of many hut-to-hut trails are broad, eroded pathways. They don’t engage you. You simply plod them. But many European trails are more compelling than North American trails because they forge more daring lines. Dayhikers who opt for these surprising, challenging routes will find them thrilling. With the exception of some of the high-level variants on some hut-to-hut routes, hut-to-hutsters often find themselves in a mundane, heavily-trod rut.

Dayhiking in the Alps, by the way, isn’t necessarily the round-trip, out-and-back, same-scenery-twice experience it tends to be in North America. There are far more trails in the Alps than you’ll find in any North American mountain range. Imagine a spiderweb dropped over the mountains. Each thread linked to the others. That’s the Alps: a web of trails, ensuring loop hikes are often possible. Constantly forging into new terrain makes dayhiking much more appealing.

Finally, hiking hut-to-hut—depending on your beliefs regarding safe mountain travel—might not be the carefree, ultralight saunter you’ve imagined. Should you really set off on a multi-day hike through mountains you’ve no experience in, without carrying a shelter, sleeping gear, extra clothing, and food that might enable you to survive an emergency bivouac? What if the weather suddenly turns violent and visibility plummets while you’re between huts? What if you make a navigational error that, come nightfall, leaves you well shy of the hut you’d intended to reach? What if an incapacitating injury befalls you or a companion? What if all of the above happen? That’s why, when hiking hut-to-hut, our packs have been far from weightless. We were always prepared to survive a night out if our plans unspooled into drama.

In summary, we’ve enjoyed hut-to-hut hiking, but for all the reasons explained above, we much prefer dayhiking. Dayhiking makes a campervan viable for hiking-focused European travel. And a campervan is… ooh la la… the way to travel, for the following reasons:

• Renting a campervan is, admittedly, not the cheapest way to go. But if you add up the cost of staying in huts, eating in huts, plus the cost of accommodation (probably hotels) and transportation (even public transportation) when travelling between trails, you’ll realize that travelling via campervan is surprisingly cost-competitive.

• It’s possible to camp free-of-charge every night in a campervan. Free-camping in a campervan is especially easy in France, where campervans are—by and large—welcomed or at least accepted. And free camping in France is by no means a hardship. It’s an advantage. This past summer, we camped 140 nights free of charge in our campervan, and all but a few times our “campsites” were excellent. We tucked into forests. We pulled off atop alpine passes. We overlooked picturesque villages. Often we were next to or within earshot of a stream. Many times we had superb views of the surrounding mountains. Almost always we enjoyed more tranquillity and privacy than we would have had we paid to stay in a campground, where incessantly chatting campers, screaming kids, and barking dogs are a frequent annoyance. While free camping, we never trespassed, violated regulations, or—to the best of our knowledge—annoyed anyone. Finding a place to comfortably camp free in a campervan sometimes requires a little creativity, courage or determination. But it also makes the journey more interesting and fun. And free-camping is what makes renting a campervan affordable, because the rental fee covers both transportation and accommodation.

• Throughout France, you’ll find “aire de services” specifically for campervans. At an aire de service you can, usually free-of-charge, responsibly empty your grey- and black-water tanks. You can also refill your fresh-water tank. Many aire de services allow campervans to stay overnight—free of charge. Aire de services are so common in France that, clearly, the nation has made a concerted effort to accommodate campervan travellers. As a result, campervan life is relatively easy in France, and campervan travellers feel welcome.

• A European hiking journey via campervan allows for very efficient travel. At trailheads where you have several hiking options, you can simply stay, camping free each evening after you return from dayhiking. No need to repeatedly drive back and forth between down-valley accommodation and high-elevation trailheads. Camping free at trailheads saves time, gas money, and allows for more relaxation.

• You can stock a campervan with enough groceries to last a week. That allows you to shop less frequently, at larger supermarkets offering lower prices and more choices. That means you save time and money, and eat what you want, as much as you want, whenever you want. That ensures that each day you set out on a dayhike, you can pack the precise trail foods you prefer. And it ensures that every morning before you hike, and every evening when you return from a hike, your breakfasts and dinners are ample, nutritious and delicious. There’s a particular brand and flavour of tea that you love? You can carry a dozen boxes of it in your campervan. You find a boulangerie that makes the best bread you’ve ever tasted? Buy a couple loaves—one for today, one for tomorrow. And, of course, campervans have refrigerators, so you can stock up on your favourite fresh foods and always enjoy an ice-cold, post-hike beer.

• Speaking of refrigerators, campervan fridges have freezers, which provide a key benefit specific to dayhiking: therapeutic ice packs. Each time we returned to our campervan from a long, demanding dayhike, we would apply ice packs to our knees and ankles to help reduce inflammation. This, plus occasional massage, helped keep us on the trail six days a week. Hut guardians are, to say the least, unaccustomed to having trekkers show up and ask for ice packs.

• A campervan can be a mobile gear closet. No need to severely limit your hiking gear. Campervans have enough storage space that you can bring a variety of clothing and gear, which you can choose from depending on the terrain and weather you anticipate encountering on each dayhike. That means you don’t always have to pack your heavier, Gore-Tex Pro Shell. If it’s a shatterproof, sunny day, you can keep your pack weight minimal by instead carrying your ultralight Gore-Tex PacLite shell. Most hikers travelling in Europe have just one pair of hiking boots. With a campervan, you can carry heavier boots for rougher terrain, a lighter pair of boots for easier trails, a pair of walking shoes for urban hiking, a pair of sandals for kicking back at the campsite, plus a pair of down booties for inside the campervan at night. Most hikers travelling in Europe have to wash their few items of clothes frequently. With a campervan, you can carry enough changes of hiking clothes that finding a laundromat becomes necessary only about once every couple weeks. This past summer, we always had precisely the gear we needed. This allowed us to keep our pack weight minimal and hike as comfortably as possible. It also ensured we never had to do laundry on a day when the weather was optimal for hiking. We could choose to do laundry only on those days when the weather was poor or we wanted or needed a rest.

• A campervan is a reasonably comfortable home in foul weather. Unlike a tent, a campervan has a heater, plus enough room that you can stand up, move around, lounge, do yoga. Unlike in a tent, you can hang your damp hiking clothes in a campervan, so they’re dry by morning even if it rains all night. And because a campervan has abundant storage, it can be a mobile library, containing all the guidebooks and maps you need. When you elect not to hike on a rainy day, you can make optimal use of your time by spreading out your maps, perusing several books at a time, and planning your hikes.

• Your bed in a campervan is your bed. A different bed in a different hotel every night (unless you’re staying at expensive hotels) leaves you vulnerable to a poor night’s rest: an uncomfortable mattress, a room that’s too hot, too cold, too stuffy, a room in a noisy location, etc. With a campervan, you’re almost always in control of the physical and audio atmosphere in which you sleep. That makes it the most consistently homey accommodation possible for a traveller.

There are, however, some drawbacks to European campervan travel you should be aware of:

• Many roads in Europe are narrow. Much narrower than North American drivers are accustomed to. This makes it a challenge to pilot a campervan. You must be a skilled, confident driver. You must always be vigilantly alert behind the wheel. You must drive slower than you might prefer. And you need a co-pilot always on duty as shotgun (a second pair of eyes attentive for potential trouble), navigator (constantly glancing up at directional signage and down at a road map), and ground crew (exiting the van to direct the pilot, and perhaps coordinate traffic, whenever it’s necessary to back up the rig).

• The only access to a few European trailheads is via one-lane roads. Even if you’re driving a small car, some of these roads pose difficulties should you encounter another car traveling in the opposite direction. In a campervan? Fuhgedaboutit. That’s when we’ve parked our campervan and hitchhiked. Compared to North Americans, Europeans are less fearful, more at ease about picking up hitchhikers. Europeans who are themselves hikers will reflexively stop for anyone geared-up to hike and obviously en route to a trailhead. Our hitchhiking attempts never failed, even when several rides were necessary. And hitching always enhanced our day. A lively, cultural exchange ensued every time we climbed into someone’s car.

• With all your hiking gear and valuables (laptops, portable hard drives, passports, etc.) in your campervan, you have more at risk when you leave the van parked at a trailhead than you would if you’d left all your gear and valuables locked in a hotel room and parked a relatively empty car at the same trailhead. We don’t know anyone who’s parked more vehicles at more trailheads in both Europe and North America than we have, however, and we’ve never been broken into on either continent. Our sense is that trailhead theft is less common in Europe than it is in North America, perhaps because trailheads in Europe tend to be busier: too public for easy thievery. Still, we remain vigilant. We always go out of our way to leave our campervan parked where it will be in view of people coming and going. And we always take the extra time necessary to disguise and hide our valuables within the campervan. Campervans have excellent hidey holes that would be difficult for a thief to find.

• In most of Switzerland, free-camping in a campervan is verboten. In Spain and Italy, it’s possible to camp free, but it’s less safe to leave an unattended campervan parked at trailheads. Outside France, we’re less enthusiastic about hiking-focused travel via campervan. Bear in mind, we have not travelled via campervan beyond France, Switzerland, Spain and Italy. If hiking is the focus of your journey, however, you’ll find much of the world’s best hiking in the Alps. And the French Alps, as we can attest, are ideal for campervan travel and free camping.

So, how to come by a campervan in France? Don’t try to buy one. (We explain why not in our post titled “U-Turn,” July 12, 2012). Rent one from the same people we did: France Motorhome Hire (www.francemotorhomehire.com). They’re located in Montargis, just south of Paris. Their email address is <francemotorhomehire@gmail.com>. Their international phone number is +33 238 97 00 33. They are Hannah and Phill Spurge. Starting with their response to our initial email enquiry, continuing through what is now our sixth month on the road with one of their rentals, they have been unfailingly honest, fair, creative, flexible, helpful, responsive and enjoyable. We emphatically recommend them.

Our campervan journey through the French Alps has enriched us beyond measure. If you’re a hiker, you’ll likely feel the same. Start planning now.

We’re grateful to still be putting distance between us and normal life, in which routine elbows exploration aside, society orders nature off the premises, and sedentary work pins physical fitness to the floor.

We’ve been hiking in the Alps since mid-June. We’ve remained injury free, rainy spells have been brief, and we’re disciplined about keeping down-time (shopping, driving, resting, etc.) to a minimum. So we’ve actually hiked most of that four-and-a-half months. In summer, we hiked six days a week. Fall weather and shorter days have recently reduced our average to four or five days a week. Of the 135 days we’ve now been here, we’ve spent approximately 108 days on the trail.

This has been our Endless Summer. The classic film of that title follows surfers on their quest for primo waves rolling toward exotic beaches. Our quest has been for fascinating trails probing sensational mountains. We’re fulfilling a dream. We’re not at home, living a relatively normal, work-constantly, hike-when-possible life. We’re traveling, living a highly unusual, hike-constantly, work-when-possible life.

We have and will continue to blog about our sojourn. Our chief goal—certainly in our books, but even in our blog—is to inspire others to hike and guide them on especially rewarding trails. But  during this endless summer of hiking we’re also exploring metaphysical terrain. The terrain to which we turned our attention when we wrote the book titled Heading Outdoors Eventually Leads Within. It’s this terrain we’re compelled to write about now.

Hiking constantly—far and fast—limits human contact. In summer, on some trails, yes, we crossed paths with many hikers. But even then, we were alone most of the time. Now it’s fall, and we’re inching southward, toward the Med, away from the big, famous peaks. We’re encountering few hikers. When we do meet others—on the trail, or in towns—they’re French. We speak little of their language, they little of ours, so discourse is usually simplistic and fleeting. We don’t have a cell phone. We get internet access rarely—perhaps once a week—in places where we can’t or don’t want to linger long. So communication with friends, family or business affiliates is minimal. Plus, the way we’re traveling—driving a campervan, free-camping in the loneliest, quietest spots we can find, usually at or near trailheads—also limits human contact.

This near-constant state of solitude is conducive to frequent, penetrating introspection.

During a recent spate of rain, for example, when we’d declined to hike for a couple days, we were holed-up in our van, writing. A quiet backroad allowed us to tuck into the forest beside a stream. The trails had been ours alone on our previous two dayhikes. Nobody drove or walked by our van that day in the rain. It was quiet, save for the water music. Fat clouds waddled slowly among the treetops. Fog slithered through the forest. I became aware of how isolated we were were at that moment, how we’ve always isolated ourselves even at home in North America, and how this summer—despite being in heavily populated Europe—we’ve been especially isolated.

I said to Kath, “I feel like we’re in a very small sailboat, far out at sea, on a trans-ocean voyage.”

“I know,” she said. “I feel the same.”

A long discussion ensued, punctuated by several realizations:

• It’s not the hiking that’s difficult for us. Ever. It’s when we’re off the trail, between trailheads—that’s when our life doesn’t always flow smoothly. During those lulls, we’re in a kind of limbo. Like those couple days we were hunkered in the forest, sitting out the rain. That’s when we get antsy. That’s when our minds sometimes become infested with conventional thought: “Should we be doing this? What are we doing? It’s been four and a half months, isn’t that enough? Maybe we should end the trip, go home. Wouldn’t it be better if we had some friends with us? I wish I could be with my family right now. Maybe instead of hiking, gathering info for a future book that might not be profitable, we should be at our desks, marketing our current books.” And on, and on, and on.

• When hiking, we’re immune to all that monkey-mind stuff. On the trail, we’re almost always relaxed and content. We feel very present, fully alive, completely engaged. We never question why were doing it. It feels absolutely right. When hiking, we feel we’re being our true selves. Just as some people have a meditation practice, or a yoga practice, we have a hiking practice. Doing yoga frees the body from tension. Meditating frees the mind from aimless wandering. Hiking frees us from uncertainty and anxiety.

• We’re now engaged in our hiking practice with the same level of devotion as are those for whom meditation or yoga is central to their lives. When getting ready for a hike, we don’t think about the getting ready. We don’t question if we should go hiking or not, if we’ll enjoy it or not, if the trail we chose is the optimal one for that day, if the weather will cooperate… and so on. Mindfully, but without mental static, we simply prepare, then set out. Pre-hike, it’s as if we’re propelled not consciously, but subconsciously. We’ve come to believe that the adventure ahead is more apt go smoothly if, before setting out, we’re calmly focused rather than frantic and anxious.

All that monkey-mind stuff? The uncertainties and anxieties that bubble up when we’re between trailheads? That’s our conscious minds seeking distraction. Distraction from whatever is: the sound of rain dappling on the roof of our van, the difficulty or tedium of writing, the realization that we are utterly alone, etc. Often, whatever is, just doesn’t seem to be enough for the conscious mind. We think we want, need or deserve… something different than what is. Precisely what that difference actually is, we’re not sure, but our conscious minds insist that whatever is just isn’t satisfactory.

• Observing our conscious minds seeking distraction is a new insight for us. We’re now able to recognize the seeking of distraction for what it is, which allows us to let go of it, and settle back into contentment. This glimmer of understanding is one of many that have arisen during our endless summer in the Alps. They’re the result of our new level of dedication to our practice.

• We’ve also seen, with distilled clarity, how little we want. Health, each other, good food, deep sleep, agreeable weather, and wildlands to hike. That’s it. The swarm of concerns, the pile of possessions, the restricting obligations, and the frenetic busyness that seem to consume most people’s lives have, for us, fallen away. We’re completely comfortable—absolutely at home—alone in nature. Noise, crowds and urban bustle have become increasingly agitating. There’s a simplicity and focus to our present existence that’s immensely fulfilling. Wanting so little feels liberating.

• But questions now loom on our horizon: What happens when our endless summer ends? Will we be able to adjust to a life in which we cannot be as dedicated to our hiking practice as we are now? What would it take to indefinitely continue our present level of dedication to our hiking practice?

Meanwhile, our endless summer continues into fall. And each time we look back over our shoulders—at normal life, in which routine elbows exploration aside, society orders nature off the premises, and sedentary work pins physical fitness to the floor—we’re grateful we’re still putting distance between us and it.

Thanks for following us.

Stern Demeanor Erodes Enthusiasm For Hiking

Though the French Alps are the focus of our journey, we also wanted to hike in Switzerland. And we knew that veering into the Swiss Alps was necessary to increase our understanding of the Alps, so we could write about them from a broader perspective.

We’ve just returned to France after hiking every day for three weeks in Switzerland. We spent all that time in the big mountains of southwest Switzerland, specifically in the Valais and Bern cantons. We were especially keen to probe the Bernese Oberland, home to more glacial ice and 4000-m (13,120-ft) peaks than anywhere else in Europe.

Here are some of our observations:

• There’s an unwelcoming streak within Switzerland. We have Swiss friends who are warm and kind, who we like very much, and whose friendship we value. But many of the Swiss we encountered in Switzerland—on hiking trails, buses and trains, in villages, cities and stores—maintained a cold, stern demeanor. They often did not say hello. If they said hello, it seemed perfunctory, begrudging, because they’d usually say it without smiling. Frankly, we found many people we met in the Valais and Bern cantons to be unkind bordering on rude. This kept us slightly on edge the entire time we were in the country and prevented us from enjoying it fully or staying there longer.

Our first afternoon in Switzerland, a hotel proprietor greeted us. He ran out to our van and berated us for parking in “his” lot, which was not clearly signed as such, which was adjacent to a major trailhead, and which, at the time, was empty but for three vehicles. He demanded payment. Then he demanded we come to his hotel bar and buy drinks. When he realized we would do neither, he cursed us and stormed off.

Our last day in Switzerland—literally during our final hour in the country—two Swiss men bade us farewell. First, a driver flipped us off when our van encountered his car on a road so narrow it required both of us to stop and carefully maneuver. Later, a Swiss gas station attendant angrily lectured us because he returned from lunch and found us using the station’s outdoor water faucet to refill our van. (I’d sought permission when we arrived, but the station was closed and unstaffed at the time.)

By comparison, we’ve always felt completely at ease in France. The overwhelming majority of the thousands of French we’ve met throughout the country have been relaxed, warm, welcoming. We also find the French much less nationalistic, which we interpret as more confident, less defensive, more at ease with diversity. Seeing the red-and-white Swiss cross plastered everywhere, on everything, became grating, because we felt we’d glimpsed the collective personality of the people who were, in essence, waving that cross in our faces.

Our experience interacting with people in the Bern and Valais cantons was dispiriting. In a lifetime of worldwide travel, neither of us could honestly say that about any other region of any other nation. And we found other travelers—Spanish, French, Italian—shared our dismay and disappointment.

• The Swiss cantons we visited in Switzerland lack the preponderance of old-world charm we find so alluring in France. In Switzerland, we observed little architecture of note. Nearly all the homes we saw were simply huge, multi-story boxes with peaked roofs. Yes, the profuse, red flowers overflowing the balconies are a pleasing touch. But we find French towns and villages more beautiful (particularly more colorful), and more architecturally varied thus more intriguing than those we saw in Switzerland. And the French adorn their homes and civic spaces with flowers just as enthusiastically as do the Swiss.

• The level of industrial activity (sites, vehicles, structures, projects) in Switzerland grated on us. Maybe it’s a sign that the Swiss economy is robust. If so, the Swiss no doubt applaud it. But as visitors, there was enough industrial activity to mar our appreciation of the valley scenery. Southeast France is bustling, as is most of Europe, but driving between trailheads here we don’t observe anything close to the level of industrial activity that we did in Switzerland. And industry is not what we, like most travelers, want to see.

• The commercialization of Switzerland’s famous hiking destinations was probably necessary in order to prevent far worse forms of degradation due to heavy, year-round tourism. And some aspects of this commercialization—particularly the ski lifts and cog railways—are what, for most people, make hiking feasible. Otherwise, only climbers and supremely fit, determined hikers would launch themselves onto such vertical terrain. Even we took advantage of opportunities to be whisked upward and begin hiking high in the alpine zone. Yet we found the intense commercialization psychologically and emotionally fatiguing. We simply didn’t enjoy hiking there as much as we do in places where the scenery is less spectacular but the atmosphere more pristine and tranquil. The French have also wantonly commercialized many of their mountains, but we contend that in France it’s easier to find relatively pristine backcountry than it is in Switzerland.

• We’d been to Switzerland before, many years ago. But our time there was brief and we did not hike extensively. So we returned to Switzerland this time with unrealistic expectations of the mountain scenery. We, like most people, thought of Switzerland as profusely green: the land of sweeping alpine meadows. The Alps are carpeted with more vast meadowlands than are North American mountain ranges, but the Swiss Alps are not predominantly green above treeline. They’re profoundly rocky, heavily glaciated, strewn with moraines, covered with scree. Shades of grey and black dominate. Often, the Swiss Alps appear as stern as the Swiss themselves. So the high-mountain scenery in Switzerland wasn’t as pleasing as we expected it to be. It was awesome, to be sure, but often rather menacing as well. We prefer the French Alps, which, though slightly less towering overall, are nearly as impressive yet vastly greener, more welcoming, more beautiful. We concede that’s highly subjective. For us, however, it’s absolutely true.

• “No camping” signs are prolific in Switzerland. Most of the signs are very specific, indicating that fully self-contained motorhomes are as verboten as tents. We can understand the reasoning behind this, but it’s another barb in the strict, Swiss culture that pricked us. It prevented us from camping alone, in quieter settings. It forced us into campgrounds, which are just grassy parking lots. It required us to spend more money.

Even in the absence of “no camping” signs, Swiss municipal police shooed us away. Once, we weren’t even camping. It was midday. We were parked on a quiet backstreet of a small town. We were in our van, eating lunch and studying maps. The officer grimly insisted that if we remained, we’d be ticketed.

In France, “camping cars” as they’re known (a term that includes everything from VW vans to American-size motorhomes) are generally welcome to park and spend the night anywhere reasonably discreet. The French attitude toward free camping is indicative of their laissez-faire way of life, which we resonate with and greatly appreciate.

Still, hiking in Switzerland was necessary for us. We’re glad we went. We saw astounding mountain scenery. We did meet a few smiling Swiss. And we enjoyed several superb hikes, some of which are relatively obscure. We’ll tell you about them in our next post. After that, we’ll resume blogging about the French Alps.

FOLLOW-UP POST, Friday, December 14, 2012

Several people have written to us regarding our “No Swiss Bliss” blog post. Some have posted their commentary as responses on our blog. A couple people have bristled at what we said. Others have stated they too felt the Swiss they met in Switzerland were decidedly unfriendly. And a few people have misunderstood us, which was perhaps our fault. We hope the following answers your questions and clarifies our position:

• We want to state emphatically that we never intended to paint all Swiss with a one-colour brush. We’ve made a couple edits to our original post to ensure subsequent readers do not get that impression. Blogging invites spontaneity. Spontaneity lets haste sneak in. Haste slams the door on precision. Some of our wording was imprecise. We regret that, apologize for it and have corrected it.

Our intention was this. When hikers from North America consider visiting the Alps, they instantly think of the Swiss Alps. We wanted to alert hikers to the possibility of having an equally enjoyable, and perhaps superior, hiking vacation in the French Alps. There are many reasons why we believe the French Alps trump the Swiss Alps. One key reason: The Swiss we’ve met in the Swiss Alps have been much less welcoming than the French we’ve met in the French Alps. Yes, that’s merely an opinion. But it’s an opinion we stand by. If we were reading a blog post on the Swiss Alps vs. the French Alps, it’s the kind of opinion we would want to be aware of.

• Prior to leaving North America, we knew about the differences between France and Switzerland regarding campervans. We’d discussed this with our Swiss friends. They reminded us that the Swiss are far less welcoming of campervans, and much less tolerant of free camping, than are the French. They told us we should expect to pay to camp every night we were in Switzerland. So none of this came as a surprise to us. What surprised us was the general unfriendliness we encountered in Switzerland. And that unfriendliness—the vast majority of the time—had nothing whatsoever to do with our campervan. True, in our blog post we cited a couple examples involving our campervan. We cited them because they were dramatic, explicit. Most of the time, however, our campervan was not an issue in Switzerland, because we abided by Swiss custom: We drove, parked and camped exactly as directed. The unfriendliness we encountered in Switzerland occurred when we were far from our campervan. We were just two people on foot—on trails, on sidewalks, in stores, or riding buses or trains—interacting with the people we met along the way.

• Whenever we’re outside English speaking countries, we always greet people in the local language. (The people of the Valais canton speak French, so we said “Bonjour.” The people of the Bern canton speak Swiss German, so we said “Gruetzi.”) We also try to make gentle, brief eye contact. We smile—without fail. And, out of respect, we’re usually prepared to speak a few common, conversational phrases in their language should they engage us. We don’t expect a grin in return. We don’t expect conversation in return. A glimmer of recognition—the merest hint of a smile, or just a quick nod—is all we hope for, because, in our experience, that’s common courtesy the world over. In general, we make a consistent effort to display friendly deference whenever we meet a stranger. Any stranger. Anywhere. And we continued to make this effort in Switzerland even after we felt emotionally ground down by responses ranging from cold to suspicious to gruff.

• We spent three weeks in Switzerland’s Bern and Valais cantons. Within the first few days in each we felt uncomfortable, unwelcome. And we maintain it’s reasonable for us to say so. (1) Because this was a startling, unique experience for us, who’ve traveled to more foreign cultures (and immersed ourselves in them for longer periods) than anyone we know. (2) Switzerland depends on, so it strenuously promotes, international tourism. Virtually all Swiss are aware of this. It’s the universally acknowledged responsibility of any host to at least initially attempt to make visitors feel welcome and comfortable. Even if it means reaching slightly beyond one’s own cultural norms. Even it means doing so repeatedly, to more visitors than one might want to endure. And especially if one is earning immense financial profit from the guests. (3) A smile, a friendly nod, a gracious gesture… these are not unique to certain cultures. These are not arcane nuances of behaviour. Most human beings are capable of smiling and know what it means to smile. They also know what it means to not smile. Or to glare. We’re disinclined to accept “culture” as an excuse for inhospitable behavior, unless we’re talking about, say, a tribe in Borneo that has not yet encountered outsiders.

• While in Switzerland, we were keenly unaware that some people we encountered might not be Swiss. By the end of our first week in Switzerland, we had experienced enough unfriendliness from people we assumed were Swiss, that we began paying more attention to nationality clues. And there are many such clues. People driving, exiting, or re-entering a car that bears a Swiss license plate and bears no indication of being a rental car, are probably Swiss. People employed in Swiss businesses (grocery stores, tourist offices, bakeries, banks, gas stations, post offices, outdoor shops, etc.) are probably Swiss. Hikers wearing and carrying a preponderance of Mammut hiking gear (a Swiss brand of which the Swiss are justifiably proud, and that are not widely owned/used by hikers of other nationalities), and speaking either Swiss German or French, are probably Swiss. It’s also relatively easy to identify people (on sidewalks, at bus stops, in cues, etc.) who are residents of that town. Dress, language, behaviour… all these can be strong clues. It was clear to us that we were encountering unfriendly Swiss, not unfriendly tourists from other nations.

• We’re confident that, while in Switzerland, we did not consistently behave in ways that would spark unfriendliness among otherwise well-meaning, hospitable people. We don’t expect the norms of every nation to be the same as ours. (How could we? We’re citizens of two nations.) We don’t habitually leap to the worst possible conclusions based on minimal evidence. A lifetime of experiences in many cultures has trained us to be aware of and appreciate cultural differences. (Craig lived and worked on the Pacific island of Vava’u, in the Kingdom of Tonga, for two years, almost exclusively among Tongans.) We’re not grumpy travellers. We love travelling. We simply recognize unfriendliness when confronted with it repeatedly, as happened in Switzerland.

• Nobody is always able to accurately interpret based on their observations. But it’s often necessary to interpret based on observation, even if one’s interpretation might ultimately prove inaccurate. Life would come to a standstill if most of us, most of the time, did not make interpretations based on our observations.

• This is what travellers do: They interact, they observe, they draw conclusions—some correct, some erroneous, some a mixture of true and false. Context determines how others respond to a traveller’s presentation of his or her conclusions. If we read a traveller’s blog post stating that, after spending several weeks in, oh, let’s say Burundi, “unfriendly” seemed to be the norm there, we would base our opinion of that report on whatever context was available to us: how the writer expressed herself, what she revealed about herself in the process, and, ideally, other writing of hers that we’d read. In the context of all we’ve posted on our blog, and certainly in the context of all our published work, we believe most readers would think us reasonable and would consider our “No Swiss Bliss” blog post to be a fair summary of our social experience in Switzerland.

• When you’re travelling, it’s not difficult to ascertain how people are receiving you. It obvious. You see it. You feel it. When people recognize you and appreciate your presence, it’s instantly refreshing. It lightens, warms and relaxes you. This did happen to us in Switzerland. The 94-year-old Swiss couple we met while hiking above Saas Almagel were a joy and a thrilling inspiration we’ll always remember. But they were an exception. In Switzerland, the people who touched us positively were rarely Swiss. They were visitors, like us. It was the Koreans—shy yet brightly aware and beaming with curiosity—with whom we shared a train car and a lively conversation. It was the Italian family nervously, giddily inching along an airy, precarious trail but who took time to be fully present with us. It was the East Indians with whom we chatted and laughed while splashing and skidding through sloppy, melting snow atop the Jungfraujoch. It was the Mallorcans we camped next to in Lauterbrunnen, who chuckled, rolled their eyes and shook their heads in dismay when we asked, “How are the Swiss treating you?”

Click once to enlarge. Click again to further enlarge.

Internet access is rare for us while traveling in Europe. Purchasing a plan from Orange (the primary provider in France) was prohibitively expensive. So we snag free wifi when possible. Sometimes at French tourism offices. Occasionally at McDonalds, which we would otherwise never visit but is the one place that consistently offers free wifi in Europe. Most of the time, we’re either on the trail, or camping (free, in our campervan, usually near trailheads) in small, high-mountain villages, so we’re able to get online only occasionally, and then only briefly because we’re eager to get back into the mountains.

Today is gorgeous, the next summit beckons, so this post will be simply comprise some of our impressions from the 644 km (400 mi) we’ve hiked so far on our Hautes Alpes odyssey.

• The Alps are blazingly green. Meadows everywhere. More wildflowers (more colours, more varieties) than we’ve seen in any other mountain range. Many of the flowers strike us as extremely exotic: in particular the orchids that thrive above 1800 m (5904 ft).

• The Alps are more sharply vertical than North American mountain ranges. The valleys are narrower, tighter. The mountains have startling prominence. We’re constantly staring upward in amazement.

• More French hike than do Canadians or Americans. We see hikers here of all ages: from very young children, to seniors who appear to be quite old yet are clearly robust. The other day we met an 84-year-old man trekking alone. He was slow, but he maintained a consistent pace on a very steep trail. And he instantly understood when we told him we greatly respected him. He said he’d been hiking all his life. He loved it and was determined never to stop.

• Sometimes we see huge groups of 10 to 20 people hiking together. We’ve seen many seniors groups, ranging from age 60 to 80. A few women-only groups. Lots of families. And astonishingly young children (well equipped, thanks to their parents) who seem to be loving the experience. And we see all shapes, including the soft and portly, covering significant distances and gaining substantial elevation. We find this universal love of hiking to be very inspirational. Why is it that comparatively few of our fellow North Americans don’t hike?

• Nevertheless, we don’t find the trails here crowded. Sure, the most popular trailhead parking lots are frequently full. But there are no more cars parked at these trails than you’d find on a weekend at the most popular trailheads in U.S. or Canadian national parks. It’s a myth that all the trails in the Alps are crowded. Sure, the trails around Mont Blanc or the Matterhorn are very crowded. But for the most part, we are not among crowds. Frequently we’re alone on the trail, with few if any other hikers in sight. Often we reach our destination—a summit, col, a lake—and we’re the only ones there.

• One reason why hiking is so popular here, and why the trails we’re hiking are generally uncrowded, is because there are so many trails: far more options than you’ll find in any North American mountain range. Typically, from one trailhead you’ll find a couple trails surmounting a peak, a couple more running up or down valley. A couple more traversing various ridges. In the Hautes Alpes, the trails don’t stop; they spiderweb throughout the range. Except when confronted with a glacier, we never reach “trail’s end.” There seems to be no such place. We turn around out of choice, not necessity. This vast trail network gives people the opportunity to spread out. To us, it’s constantly exciting. Frustrating, too, because it requires us to study maps diligently to ensure we’re devoting our time and energy on the most rewarding trails. So our campervan is now a mobile library. We’re transporting enough maps and guidebooks to fill a suitcase. (No “Don’t Waste Your Time” guidebooks on the Hautes Alpes—yet.)

• The trails here are in great shape. Most seem to be well maintained. Some appear to be little used. Many deserve engineering awards. Here, far more often than in North America, we’re hiking on routes that forge clever, wily, cunning passages through seemingly impassably steep terrain.

• Do we yearn for North American wilderness? Actually, no, we don’t. Genuine wilderness has a unique atmosphere, to be sure. And we’ve yet to find it here, but we don’t miss it. The scenery in the Hautes Alpes is so consistently fantastic, amazing, startling, gorgeous, awesome, ______________ (choose whatever superlative you wish, they all apply) that we don’t mind passing a herd of goats, or a few shepherds and their flock of sheep, or some grazing cattle, or the occasional (usually abandoned) stone hut, or even the odd, high-mountain road. These, too, are atmospheric in their own way. Suggestive of an ancient way of life that seems to us rather romantic. The myth is that civilization has destroyed the Alps. The truth is that this has not and will never happen. Yes, we’ve seen mountainsides strewn with ski lifts. But for the most part, we’re hiking through unspeakably beautiful, absolutely unspoiled wildlands. Wilderness? No. But wild enough to keep us enraptured. As for wildlife, on yesterday’s hike we saw numerous chamois. A few days ago, we watched two, male ibex in cliff-edge combat: staring one another down, coiling their muscles, then exploding into each other, their tremendous horns clacking so loud it seemed both animals would be knocked out cold. And marmots? We hear their shrill cry in every hanging valley, and we often see them scurrying across meadows and diving into their burrows.

Thanks for checking in with us. We’ll post more about the Hautes Alpes as soon as possible.

La Meije, from Tete le Maye. Parc National des Ecrins, Hautes Alpes, France.

“Find what is for you a river of infinite, meaningful fascination. Dive into it, and keep swimming.”

That thought came to me today, while hiking in Parc National des Ecrins, in the Hautes Alpes of southeast France. It struck me as an apt summary of how to make life as rewarding an experience as possible. It also summarizes why Kath and I are now in the French Alps instead of the Canadian Rockies.

For us, the the river of infinite, meaningful fascination is hiking the Earth. We dove into that river in 1989, when we moved to Calgary, Alberta—ostensibly because of a job offer but really so we could devote weekends and vacation time to hiking the nearby Canadian Rocky Mountain National Parks. From then on, where and when we would hike has been a central consideration in every major decision we’ve made. As a result, hiking soon became—and still remains—not just our passion but the basis for our livelihood.

And when your passion and livelihood are aligned, you’re no longer swimming upstream through life. You’re going in the right direction: pulled along by a strong, if often unseen, current, because you had the foresight, courage, or just good fortune to dive into your river of infinite, meaningful fascination.

This is where “opportunities” arise that to others might appear to be pure luck but are in fact the result of the life-changing decision you made to dive in. You’re looking for these opportunities and are able to recognize them because your attention is focused rather than fractured as it is for most people. You’re not just seeking these opportunities, you’re instinctively—and sometimes laboriously—doing what’s necessary to create them.

So, while it was logical for us to return to the Canadian Rockies this summer after working all winter in Utah canyon country, what we really wanted to do was spend this summer hiking the Alps. We assumed we were heading back to Canada for the summer, and that’s what we told friends, but we’d long been sleuthing out ways to comfortably yet affordably resume exploring the Alps, researching a future book.

We were prepared. To make it possible, we’d even gone so far as to sell our home in Canmore, Alberta, before heading south to Utah for the winter. We loved that home. But we knew we could rent an apartment, or live in our trailer, upon returning to Canada. Moreover, we knew that the freedom to hike when and where we wanted required complete—particularly financial—flexibility. That’s how committed we are to our river of infinite, meaningful fascination. Swimming downstream isn’t necessarily easy. Staying in the current sometimes requires extraordinary devotion.

Our sleuthing focused on buying a used campervan in Europe. On our last trip to the Alps, we rented a car and camped in our tent for months. Occasionally we abandoned the car and backpacked, or hiked hut to hut. Prior to that, we’d hiked in the Alps while relying solely on public transport. This time, we wanted to be more comfortable, particularly because we’d be working: writing, managing photography, and conducting business when not hiking.

We eventually learned, however, that non-E.U. residents cannot legally register and insure a vehicle in Europe. Yes, there are companies—mostly in Holland—that sell used campervans to non E.U. residents. They do it by registering and insuring the van for you, in their company’s name. They even promise you a “guaranteed buy-back.” But insurance companies are expert at finding reasons not to pay claims. A wrecked campervan owned by a non-E.U. resident but insured by a Dutch auto dealership is sure to spark suspicion. It’s easy to see how you could end up impoverished, slogging through debt the rest of your life if you had a major collision while driving a campervan purchased from a sly, Dutch salesman.

Next we looked into renting a campervan. We were unable to find one we could afford that was big enough to comfortably live and work in for months. So, we were off to Canada… until we connected with France Motorhome Hire (www.francemotorhomehire.com). We’ll tell you more about them in a future blog post, but within a few days of corresponding with Hannah—who owns and runs France Motorhome Hire along with her husband, Phil—we made a u-turn and were on our way to France. Hannah understood and appreciated our hiking/writing project and offered us a long-term rental that was within reach for us.

I’m writing this blog while sitting comfortably at the table inside our “Sky 20” motorhome, parked next to a roaring, glacial stream, in Parc National des Ecrins, in the Hautes Alpes of France. We summitted a minor peak here today: Tete le Maye. The culminating panorama was dazzling. We stayed up there for a couple hours, gazing at massive peaks and glaciers in every direction.

So most of our blog posts for the next few months will be about hiking in the Alps. We hope they inspire you to hike here. When that time comes, we hope you’ll find our suggestions helpful.

And… if you haven’t yet found your river of infinite, meaningful fascination, we hope you do.

Travelers often yearn for friends and family to ask stimulating, thoughtful questions. It rarely happens. When it does, it’s a gift. It helps travelers better understand their own motivations and articulate the deeper meaning of the experiences they’ve had en route.

The standard questions… What place did you enjoy most? Where was the best food?… are briefly tolerable but soon wearisome. When asking them, people don’t realize they’re short-changing themselves. More probing, challenging questions elicit more surprising, entertaining, revealing answers.

How do you know if it’s a “good” question? You’ll feel it’s daring of you to ask it. Or you’ll hesitate before answering, because the question demands reflection. Good questions are personal. Contemplation is necessary to think of good questions, as well as to answer them. A good question discloses something about the person asking it. Good questions are the ones you wish someone would ask you. The result of a good question is that both people know each other better and feel closer to one another.

A great friend of ours, with whom we’ve traveled and hiked in the Canadian Rockies, New Zealand, and the French Alps, recently emailed us several good questions about our experiences this winter in the mountains along the Mediterranean. He’s pondering a long, adventurous journey himself and wants it to be soul-enriching, not just a sight-seeing trip. Here’s what he asked and how we answered:

Q: What do you find challenging about your work hiking/traveling?

A: Balancing how much we take with how much we give. We don’t want hiking/traveling to be entirely selfish, which it can easily become. We want to use what we experience to heighten our contribution to others through our books and website blog. We want hiking/travel to make us wiser and more compassionate. What we learn, we can share through our writing. Compassion is a welcome gift in any human exchange.

Q: What meaning did you get from Liguria as opposed to the Costa Blanca?

A: We’re in Liguria now, just inland from the Italian Riviera. The true meaning of a travel experience takes time to bubble up through the soul into the conscious mind. We think it’s yet to do that. We could, of course, offer several answers to that question now. But the real answer will probably emerge later.

Q: What did France’s maritime alps say to you, and what did Italy’s Alpi Apuane say to you?

A: France said “You’re here rather early for hiking.” Italy is saying, “Just in case you didn’t understand it in French, I’ll repeat it in Italian: ‘You’re here rather early for hiking.’”

Q: Why did you choose, or what feelings led you, to go to Liguria?

A: We came to Liguria for the same reasons that have motivated all our European journeys. It feels as if our mental/emotional tank, with regard to Europe, was barely a quarter full. We want to fill up. Our desire to see Europe’s architectural and natural beauty remains intense. Because European society is ancient, there are trails everywhere. More trails per square kilometer here than anywhere. We’re hikers, so how can we resist the Continent of a Million Trails? The reason we came this winter is that we wanted to escape the vastly harsher winter weather at home, in the Canadian Rockies.

Q: How did the feelings generated in Liguria inspire or contribute to your next choice of destination?

A: On the simplest level, we’re compelled to return to these mountains in summer to take full advantage of all the high-elevation hiking trails that are inaccessible to us in winter. On a deeper level, our experience here is nudging our gaze back to North America, specifically to Utah, where we want to build a home in the high-desert canyon country, where the infinite canyons invite endless exploration, and where our souls resonate most vibrantly with the land.

Q: Do you get a sense for local people when hiking in Europe?

A: Yes, but not the present-day locals. We rarely meet anyone hiking here in winter. But we get a strong sense for the Europeans who built the ancient trails. These people are no longer physically present, of course, but we sense them nonetheless. We not only see their handiwork, we use it, much as they did. The trails they built are not just functional, they’re art. Beautiful, earthen art. The terraces they constructed are marvels of patience, engineering, craftsmanship. The trees they cultivated are gorgeous. These people obviously had a profound relationship with the land. We can’t help but begin to see the world through those people’s eyes and to feel kinship with them. And through them, we deepen our relationship with the Earth.