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Hi. My name is Ben Klaasen. During 2017 I walked like a tramp across Europe from west to east: from Ireland to Istanbul. This is 21st Century tramping: putting the travail back into travel. It was one of the most profoundly daunting yet satisfying experiences of my life.
Somewhere in Wexford.
I’m still working on transcribing the notes I made during the trip (currently on my way across Slovenia), editing snaps and embedding them into each blog post. I’m also working on editing snaps in the posts about the walk across Normandy.
The notes aren’t a story; they’re just moment-to-moment impressions, observations and notes, but they’ll give you a feel for what’s involved in taking on a journey like this. Mostly, it’s just a lot of slogging along, alone. I happen to like that kind of thing. :-)
You’ll see quoted sections at the top of many posts, which give you my after-the-fact context of my goal for the day, or my recollections (sometimes years later) of how I was feeling. I’ve also used footnotes to clarify some of the notes I scribbled. I’ve used the EXIF data on the photos to line them up with the notes - they’re a bit skew-wiff for the first few days.
You might like to start at the very beginning as I planned and walked a route from Dublin to Rosslare, at the point when I left my house to start the walk to Istanbul or maybe you have some questions.
Thank you for taking the time to check in! I’m always interested in your feedback.