A slow archive of places.

We caught a morning train from Berlin down to Bad Schandau, a small spa town in the Elbe valley in eastern Saxony. From there we made our way to Camping und Pension Ostrauer Mühle in the Kirnitzschtal valley, right on the Malerweg. Supposedly one of the oldest campsites in Germany. We pitched our tents and spent the afternoon on a loop hike through Saxon Switzerland, which is Germany's only rock national park — eroded Cretaceous sandstone, towers and gorges and flat-topped table mountains in the Elbe Sandstone range. Next morning we did a different trail before packing up. Then a suicide on the rail line cancelled our train back, we sprinted for the last Flixbus of the day, and finally dragged into Berlin around 11 PM. Wrecked. Sandstone pinnacles still stuck in my head.

A two-day kayaking trip through Müritz National Park, one hour from Berlin by train. Connected lakes, quiet campsites, a footpath disguised as a canal, and a humbling crossing of Germany's largest inland lake.

A travelogue from a week hiking and climbing via ferrata across Italy's Brenta Dolomites — from Rifugio Tuckett to Agostini, with conversations along the way.

Christmas 2024 began with a slow, romantic crawl through the dark — boarding ÖBB's Nightjet in Berlin and waking up to Swiss mountains outside the window. From Zurich, Lennart's family led the way up to Lägernhaus SAC, a wooden Swiss Alpine Club hut perched at 1,340 meters on the Bleikenboden meadow above Schwyz, just below the Ibergeregg pass. Tucked between fir trees with the Ibergeregg ski lifts within walking distance, the hut became our home for six days. The snow came down hard the first few days — the kind of heavy, endless fall that muffles everything. We strapped on snowshoes and waded through drifts, cooked Christmas dinner together in the hut's kitchen, and skied the family-friendly slopes connecting toward Hoch-Ybrig until my legs and lungs gave out and a cold finally pulled me off the mountain. The group's masterpiece was an igloo big enough to host ten people for a party, dug and packed by hand over long afternoons. And then the reward: a morning above a sea of clouds, the distant lake erased beneath them, the white below meeting the white of the snow at our feet in one continuous horizon.

A magical few days exploring Freiburg and its surrounding landscapes. The city charmed me instantly with its Bächle — tiny streams running along every cobblestone lane, where children float wooden boats as you wander the old town. The hikes into Naturpark Südschwarzwald near Sankt Märgen were the heart of the trip: misty fir trees, rolling meadows, and farmhouses tucked into the hills, exactly the scenery that gave the Black Forest its legends. One evening I climbed up to Kanonenplatz just before sunset and watched the rooftops glow gold and pink, the Münster tower rising above it all. The trip ended with something even more special — visiting my dear friend Stefanie in her hometown of Staufen im Breisgau, hiking together through vineyards, castle ruins, and forest paths she's known since childhood. Seeing a place through the eyes of someone who loves it is the best kind of travel. 🌲

A two-day summer traverse of Germany's Harz mountains, swapping Berlin's city noise for deep spruce forests, granite ridges, and a lot of kilometres on tired legs. We started on the morning of July 29, 2024, in Schierke, a small village at the foot of the Brocken — the highest peak in northern Germany and the mythical setting of Goethe's Faust Walpurgis Night. The trail wound through the Harz National Park along stretches of the famous Harzer Hexenstieg ("Witches' Trail"), past mossy primeval forest and rushing streams. Twenty-two kilometres later, we pitched our tents at Campingplatz Polstertal and cooked a well-earned dinner on the gas stove with supplies grabbed from the Schierke supermarket — the frustration of a long first day softened by hot food and quiet woods. Day two took us north for another 23 kilometres to Goslar, a thousand-year-old imperial city and triple UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its old town holds roughly 1,500 timber-framed houses from the 15th to 19th centuries, alongside the Kaiserpfalz imperial palace and the legendary Rammelsberg mines — a fairytale reward for 45 kilometres of hiking.

Corsica the hard way — ten days crossing the island on foot, starting in Ajaccio. Napoleon's hometown, palm trees along the waterfront, a 16th-century citadel over the gulf. I had a day there before things got serious: cathedrals, Maison Bonaparte, wandering the old town. June 23, I picked up the southern half of the GR 20. It has a reputation as Europe's hardest long-distance trail and the reputation is earned. 180 kilometers of granite and scree and pine running the spine of the island. The southern section is the "easier" half, supposedly. It was still tilted slabs, loose rock, a few stretches where you pay attention or you fall, and all of it with a full pack in real Mediterranean sun. First night I camped by the Cascade des Anglais. The waterfall was loud. Then a bed at Gîte U Fugone, then up to Refuge de Prati, which sits high. I walked outside around midnight and the moon was enormous, sitting right over the sea below, with that straight silver line of reflection running across it. I stood there for a while. That was the best part of the trip. After Prati came the Usciolu ridge (narrow), the pastures at Matalza on the Coscione plateau (flat, a relief), and then Asinau below the Bavella needles. On June 30 the trail finally dropped me into Porto-Vecchio on the southeast coast. Long dinners, sea breeze, the weird feeling of not having to climb anything the next morning.

Four days across two Swiss cantons, swapping tourist-trail sledding for something closer to the Alps proper. We started in Grindelwald in the Canton of Bern, where we went the old-fashioned way: dragging sleds on foot all the way to the top of the hill, then letting gravity do the rest on the way down. No magic carpet lifts, no shortcuts. Just the slog up and the payoff of a fast, laughing descent with the Eiger and Jungfrau in view the whole way. Day two was the bigger one. We drove from Zurich to Riemenstalden in the Canton of Schwyz, tucked our car near the little Seilbahn Chäppeliberg cable car, and instead of riding up we strapped on packs and climbed the snow-covered mountainside ourselves. Hours later we reached Lidernenhütte SAC, a wooden Swiss Alpine Club hut built in 1944, perched at 1,727m on the north slope of the Chaiserstock range with a view straight out over Lake Lucerne. We rolled in around 1 PM, boots caked in snow. The next day was a full-on snowshoe traverse: up from the hut to the summit southeast of Alplersee, then a working descent that turned into an avalanche rescue drill with beacons, probes, and shovels. Digging a full simulated burial pit was brutal. Way harder than expected, and a real respect-check if you've ever assumed backcountry safety is something you can figure out on the fly. We rode the little cable car down at the end and drove back to Zurich as the light faded. The hot chocolate at the hut after that long snowshoe day remains undefeated.

Four days in late September and early October 2023 across the roof of Switzerland, following the Vier-Quellen-Weg through the Gotthard massif. It started in postcard weather, which I realize is the kind of thing you're not supposed to admit because it sounds like bragging. We got off the train at Seelisberg, high above Lake Lucerne, and walked onto a green hillside looking straight across at the pyramid of Rigi Hochflue, which sits between Lake Lucerne and Lake Lauerz. I have never had a better picnic. A boat then took us to Flüelen, in the canton of Uri, where we got on the Gotthard Panorama Express up to Nätschen. The train has a dedicated photo coach with windows that actually open, which sounds like a small thing until you're trying to take pictures of the triple-loop church at Wassen through glass. The walking started at Nätschen. We crossed the Tomasee, which is the official source of the Rhine, and stayed the first night at Camona da Maighels, a cozy SAC hut at the head of Val Maighels. Day two went over Giubin at 2,776 m. We ate lunch up there, boiled water for tea on the stove, then came down to Hotel Passo San Gottardo, where dinner turned out to be our first deer of the trip. We slept at Ospizio San Gottardo. The next day we traversed high above the Bedretto valley to Capanna Piansecco, which was redone in 2020 and sits at the tree line among the last of the larches. There was apple pie. On the final morning we dropped to a valley bus and caught the train back to Zurich.

We started in Yuhu Village, at the base of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, and climbed through forest up to Wenhai — a highland basin at about 3,000 meters. Cows grazing in the meadow, cold morning air, first signs of autumn. From there we pushed on to Lugu Lake. The color kept shifting as clouds went over — deep blue, then a paler turquoise. Mosuo villages are spread along the shore, wooden boats pulled up on the banks. The Mosuo are matrilineal, which is where the old "Kingdom of Women" tag comes from. After the lake we picked up the Tea Horse Road through Yongning. Zhuangzi Village sits under huge old-growth trees, with magpie nests way up in the canopies. Waxiangluo, not far off, is strung along a ridge above terraced fields. Then the trail climbs to Taizi Pass, and the drop from the top is something else — the Jinsha River is just a thin green line at the bottom of the gorge, a long way down. This is more or less the route Kublai Khan's army took to get to Dali in the 13th century. Passes above 3,500 meters, then a long descent through heavy woodland to Baoshan Stone City — a village literally built on top of one gigantic boulder, with the Yangtze churning past below. We did the whole thing as a mixed international group, crossing through Mosuo, Pumi, and Naxi areas along the way. Snow mountains, lake country, then gorges and cliff-top settlements. It's one of those parts of Yunnan where the landscape and the legends are hard to pull apart — and honestly, after a few days out there, you stop trying.

Our September trip took us through the karst country of southwestern Guangxi, a region built out of limestone peaks, waterfalls, and river valleys that spend most of the morning hidden in mist. On September 10th we hiked Tongling Grand Canyon in Jingxi. The trail drops down into a gorge cut by old rivers, and the sunlight only reaches the bottom in patches, coming through gaps between the cliffs. At the back of the canyon there's a waterfall that you don't really see until you're almost on top of it. The forest around it is dense in the way subtropical forests are dense. The next day we went to Detian Waterfall, on the China–Vietnam border. It's the largest cross-border waterfall in Asia: roughly 200 meters wide, a 70-meter drop, three tiers. The Guichun River comes down it in wide sheets. We took a bamboo raft out toward the base and got completely soaked by the spray, which honestly was the point. Karst peaks on both sides of the border, which is an unusual thing to be looking at. On September 12th we ended at Mingshi Tianyuan, which some people call "Little Guilin." Everything slows down here. We drifted down the Mingshi River on a bamboo raft past rice paddies, bamboo, and small villages where water buffalo were lying around near the bank. The water was still enough that you could see the peaks reflected in it almost perfectly. It's the kind of scenery you've seen a hundred times in paintings and then you're surprised when it actually looks like that in person. Three days of Guangxi: a tight gorge, a loud border, and a very slow river.

I went to Yuanyang in mid-February for the terraces. The Hani have been farming those mountains for roughly 1,300 years, and the paddies stay flooded through winter, which is why mid-February is when you go. We left before dawn and drove through Dayutang and Hani Town to get to the viewpoints at Quanfuzhuang and Duoyishu. When the sun came up, cloud filled the valleys so thickly that the mountaintops looked like islands floating in a white sea. At the edge of the terraces, the water in the paddies just stopped and the mist took over everything past that. The flooded fields caught the pinks and oranges of the sunrise almost like mirrors. It's the shot everyone goes for, and yes, it looks like that in person. Azheke village was the part I keep thinking about. Old mushroom-shaped houses with thatched roofs, still lived in, smoke coming up from a couple of the chimneys. An older man was clearing out one of the irrigation channels that feeds the terraces, which is the same system that's always fed them. From there I drove down to Jianshui for the Shuanglong Bridge. Seventeen stone arches, Qing dynasty. Mid-morning, when the sun hits the right angle, light comes through all seventeen openings at once and bounces off the water underneath. Locals call it "Golden Light Piercing Holes." Time your visit for it.