Hiking trailers

When we decided we want to walk the 800 km long SNP thru-hike with three small children (6y, 4y, 2y), it was clear to us that it could not be done with backpacks on our backs. The youngest Stanko wouldn’t walk much and woulnd need to sleep, and overall we had too much stuff to carry. Since we had previously traveled a lot by bicycle with children, we had experience with a bicycle trailer, and naturally we thought that we could pull a traile behind us even up the mountains. We were surprised that there aren’t many hiking trailers out there and none of them fully suited us (small wheels, the impossibility to takie child, part of the weight of the load is still on one’s shoulders, the price…). An ordinary cart or a wheelbarrow didn’t suit either, so we finally decided to design and build a trailer exactly according to our ideas.

More information about the trailers further in the article…

Continue reading “Hiking trailers”

Discussion after the movie

We always enjoyed the presentations and discussions after the movie, but somehow we never recorded them and it was only for the few present… now we finally have a recording of the discussion from the last screening at Cestou Necestou in Bratislava, where Hacka from OverlandVAN had nice and also funny discussion with us (by the way – accepting offers for moderation ;)).

Hiking with trailers and kids – statistics

Some facts about our hiking trip with trailers through Slovakia:

  • 836km and 23755 meters of elevation (according to GPS – Strava)
  • 59days of hiking (70 days total)
  • 14km and 400m average for a hiking day (longest day was 22.2km to Čičmany and highest elevation gain was 829m to Čergov)
  • the highest point on the trip was Kráľova Hola (1946m)
  • 16 days we hiked with some company for at least a part of the day (cameraman or friends)
  • we skipped 15% of the SNP trail – most of Low Tatras (Priehyba-Donovaly), Veľká Fatra (Donovaly-Malý Šturec), part of Kremnické vrchy (Malý Šturec-Tunel)
  • we walked 77.5% of the red marked path (different ascend to Kráľova hoľa, skipped Low Tatras, Veľká Fatra and Kremnické vrchy, Vápenná, Záruby, Vápeč, Strážov)
  • from 69 nights we slept 39 nights outside in tent, 6x we paid for the accomodation, 8 nights we spent at some people who we didn’t know before the trip
  • highest point where we slept was next to the hut under Kraľova hoľa (1451m)
  • lowest night temperature approx 4°C and highest day temperature approx 34°C
  • 12 times was raining during hiking
  • 3 kids (6y.,4y.,2y.), 2 parents, 2 hiking trailers
  • 1 flat tire
  • 3x welding of broken trailers, 2x reparing of the brakes (discs and pads and brake fluid maintanance)
  • weight loss: 6kg (Janči) and 4kg (Evit)
  • 80kg total weight of the load (estimate – trailers+stuff, without children)
  • most of the nights we camped we also had camp fire
  • 1x we saw the sunrise
  • countless beautiful places and many incredible and helpful people on the way
  • once the kids were sick, one painful knee (fortunately just couple days – Evit)
  • 4 pairs of destroyed shoes (2x Janko, Janči, Evit)
  • more than 1TB of data (photo+video)
  • 1 movie – Red route home

Some other questions you were asking were answered by Evit in this video:

Hiking with trailers and kids – notes

19. mája 2021 we started hiking the SNP heroes trail – longest hike through Slovakia. All the way it’s a red mark – From Dukla to Devin (at the end, we skipped some parts).

Hiking with three kids (Janko 6y., Kolomanko 4y. and Stanko 2y.) and carry all the stuff wouldn’t be possible so we constructed hiking trailes.

Evit was writing posts to Facebook and Instagram) – we’ve collected all of them and put them in order with pictures, but it’s only in Slovak and it’s so much text, that we will not translate it, sorry guys … I recoomend going to our Facebook page and check the automated translation or use google translate or just look at the Slovak version … or wait for summary, which should be also in English :)

Podcast “Memories from traveling” #1 – Mennonites & Vinales

In this podcast we are bringing back memories on our traveling in Americas. Each of us prepared one photo which reminds an interesting place and event which we then discuss together.

Jan chose a photo s with Mennonites who we met in Mexico.

Evit found a photo from Cuba where we spent couple days in Vinales with a family who lived in the middle to tobacco fields.

The podcast is unfortunately only in Slovak, but we promise to record one of the next podcasts also in English…

Podcast from our livingroom – episode 0 – Mario&Marlene

We decided to  create for you (and us) podcasts, because we are so lucky that world is coming to us – many interesting people come to our place and we want to share this talks from our living room with you. These podcasts will be about traveling, cycling, barefoot and life.

This is episode 0. We had here two cyclists – Marlene from Canada and Mario from Spain who were on two week trip in Slovakia and stopped for one night at our place. We had nice conversations the whole evening and this is approx. 20min from it.

Hope you will enjoy it and we are looking forward for any feedback from you.

Fairy tale about a bear Michael

During our cycle trip around Slovakia I wrote a fairy tale – About a bear Misho with decayed teeth and about sheep Mishka who helped him. Our sons liked it so much I had to tell it almost every night for weeks :) After the return Evit edited it a little and together with Janko they drew illustrations for it.

I’m sorry, but I don’t feel I can translate it to English nicely, but if you want to see at least the illustrations, see the Slovak version or listen to the audio: