When I was thinking about taking a few months off from work and decided that I wanted to do a hiking or biking trail, I started to search through the internet for trails. Santiago de Compostela was an option, but I actually wanted to do something different….

“You are going to hike for three months? Through the Balkans?? ALONE???”

Having confirmed each of these questions with a “yes”, I could almost always expect to hear one of the following exclamations: “Are you not afraid? Alone, as a woman, from Vienna to Bulgaria?”