🚠 Book Dolomites Today + 🥾Spring Sale REI

Today is May 11, 2023,

Well hello there!

Morgan from Crave the Planet--back with another mouth-watering roundup email about all things Off-the-Beaten Path Travel & Hiking in Europe.

#Awkward

In this email 👇🏼

• Travel Blog Archive:  ➡️ Is Trier Germany the Rome of the North? [Ultimate Guide]

• Quick Training Tip: ➡️ Ask your friends this question TODAY

• Hot Take:  ➡️ Lago di Braies is hella touristic

• On the Way:  ➡️ I've found a 3 day hut to hut route in the Dolomites that's still bookable for 2023 right now

Travel Blog Archive ➡️ Is Trier Germany the Rome of the North? [Ultimate Guide]

Trier Germany is so dang cool, sits near the awesome 227.1 mile long "Moselsteig" long distance hiking trail and I got to tour it with friends during the "jesus's-robes" ceremony. 

...That doesn't sound like fun...but trust me, Germans love a party excuse and crucifixion robes are one of them.

If you're into finding places nobody has heard of before--this is a must-read! It's "history+adventure" style."

Click here to read the Ultimate Guide

Quick Training Tip ➡️ Ask Your Friends This Question TODAY

Here's the question:

What do you think is easy for me that is harder for other people?

Do this exactly:

1. Make a list of 5-10 people you trust (a mix of family, friends, and business peers)

2. Ask permission to ask them a question

3. Ask them the question

4. Get their response back IN VOICE (i.e. not text. You can use WhatsApp, Voxer, Facebook Message, or phone call)

5. Ask 1 person a week

The goal is not to build your ego, but determine your "zone of genius" so you can lean into that.

Hot Take ➡️ Lago di Braies is Hella Touristic

This is not clickbait. It's what I believe (right now).

• I travelled there 3 years in a row.

• The first two years were awesome, but it was COVID.

• It felt like a cattle call in 2022.

I wrote a SUPER detailed guide on "how to visit lago di braies".  Which mainly was a treatise on how to figure out parking.

1. If it takes 20 hours of research to figure out parking at a lake, then

2. Maybe it's not really "off-the-beaten" path.

However,

It is crazy gorgeous between sunrise and 0930 and the trailhead for the Alta Via 1 hut to hut hike. It's a great place to be off-season or really early.

I'm doing a post next week about less touristy Dolomites Lakes.

Friday ➡️ 3 Day Hut to Hut Route in Dolomites Still Open

After much Facebook group Q&A, tabbacco maps, google maps, komoot and a dozen blogs I've got a route with lovely mountain top rifugios that are still open for mid August 2023.

I've got hut #1 booked!  And working on the next 2 days for the perfect long weekend in the Dolomites (I don't have enough time off to do a whole week because we're doing the Tour du Mont Blanc instead.)

THEN WHY AM I SO TERRIFIED???

Answer: There are optional via ferratas on the route and I want my kids to do them, but I don't want to and is that right?

"Scared of heights" will always be my motto, but I don't want my teenagers to grow up like me.

So how does a mom encourage her kids to do something she won't do...

• Do as I say, not as I do and just order them to do it, or...

• Pay a guide, or...

• Skip it entirely, or

• Are they gonna fall and die????

Doing things as a kid imprints so much better than trying as an adult

I'm not sure if I should just woman up and do the via ferrata, or be okay with the fact I get really dizzy and scared.

I do know that my sheltered childhood from adventure sports is not serving me well now. But I am alive.  Not everyone survives the wilderness.

I digress...Anyways...

If you do have a full week to hike hut to hut and want to get off the crowded Alta Via 1, check out the Best of the Dolomites Tour by Alpenventures.  With this service you don't worry about the spreadsheet madness that is planning a hut to hut tour and you just show up with all your huts booked, route planned, etc. 

Thanks for reading! 💞 Morgan

Btw take care of your feet: 

Hut to Hut Hiking in the Dolomites - How to Book Hut To Hut Hiking Yourself or With a Service :

➡️  Want to book a Dolomites hut to hut hiking trip?  You can use my spreadsheets to book your own or use a service like Alpenventures Unguided to do your logistics for a self-guided hike. Tell her I sent you to help me support this blog!

Subscribe to keep up with all my vlogs or check out my trail travel guides online here.

This is ad free and reader-supported. Some of these links may be affiliate links and when you click on them and make a purchase I may actually make some money off this blog.  Not much though.  It's more a labor of love and perhaps I need to build a product people actually want to buy. Someday.