Meet Tom, he’s your normal 23 year old guy. Well, normal probably isn’t the best way to describe him…. There’s been that time where he bluffed his way in to a gig as a journalist in Milan, when he stumbled across an orgy in Madrid, and when he asked the wrong guy to ‘show us your diaphrgam’ in Riga (who is the right guy to ask that to?!) Fair to say it’s never boring when Tom is about.
He loves to travel, drink, meet people and normally comes back with pretty amusing tales of his explorations. A bit of a 21st century Bilbo Baggins (we did say ‘a bit’).
So we sent Tom off on a Euroventure to get to grips with the Balkans in ways that only Tom could do so. Because, well, we thought it would be pretty funny. He’s brutally frank, and also an entertaining chap. So we knew we would get some honest feedback, which we love. So make sure you keep an eye out for #tomsblog on our blog or through our twitter – @euroventure, as the man hungry for love and thirsty for booze takes on Eastern Europe…
Some exciting new Euroventure packages are being developed, and well for some reason I was asked to check out new routes around the wild, wild East. This was to be the kind of journey where you find yourself in towns where there are more chickens than cars on the roads; where old men sit outside their front doors in Y-fronts swigging vodka from the bottle while their wives swat flies away from the family broth; where you’ll suddenly discover you’re 100 miles from the nearest comfortable toilet, and the journey there takes six hours on the roof of a minibus, and costs 79p. Basically, Borat country.
Euroventure’s set routes are ever expanding – most recently to the east and south of the line connecting Gdansk, Belgrade and Dubrovnik. It’s about time – many of the more exciting adventures the continent has to offer lie in the direction of the Balkans. These are parts of the world offering fascinating variety, history, natural beauty, incredible beaches (along with a fair share of not so incredible beach resorts) and, most importantly, fun. Equally importantly, if you are a youthful and impoverished backpacker, these are countries that won’t bankrupt you on the first day of your trip. Plus, while not actually being very far away at all, ‘far’ Eastern Europe and the Balkans maintains the impression of being just a little bit different from everywhere else.
Anyway, there is excellent news, because apparently Euroventure are keen to expand their routes deeper into Eastern Europe, with routes like the Balkan Trail new for 2016. Hurray. This is where Josh and I, the Euroventure minion-affiliates come in. We’ve chosen a small part of the Euroventure frontier – the bit with the nicest weather, basically – to explore, and will be reporting back on our journey over the next couple of months, uncovering the region’s insights, delights and frights, for the benefit of future generations of fine Euroventure customers.
Next stop, Sofia…
Follow Tom’s journey using #Tomsblog on Twitter. Knowing Tom it’s hard to say what’ll come next…
Málaga Granada Seville Cáceres Madrid Ávila Segovia Ourense Santiago de Compostela
