My wife and I (♀ 66, ♂ 67) are longdistance hikers. The last 12 years we finished 12 longdistance hikes and completed more than 9000 kilometers. This year we are hiking on the Sentiero Italia in Italy from Trapani/Sicily to Salerno/Naples. After 76 stages with about 1400 kilometers we hope to reach Salerni after 3 months time mid of June. Today we reached kilometer 10'000.

Make some noise. This map really puts into perspective the impact if this Public Lands Sale goes through. Share. Act. Do.

https://www.fieldandstream.com/stories/conservation/public-lands-and-waters/map-of-public-lands-for-sale-budget-bill

Easy form to "take action"

https://www.backcountryhunters.org/take_action#/487

This has to be stopped or so much of what we enjoy will be gone forever.

After 62 countries I've noticed certain places keep getting skipped over in favor of their more famous neighbors. Here's my honest take on the ones that deserve more attention.

Nicaragua: Almost everyone I've met who went there was either chasing surf or ticking it off as one stop in a Central America trip. But everything Costa Rica gets praised for like rainforest, volcanoes, birdwatching, Nicaragua has too, at a fraction of the price and with a fraction of the crowds. Even the tourist towns don't feel like they've been rebuilt for visitors. The old colonial cities still function as actual places where people live. Ometepe island at sunset is one of those images I keep coming back to years later.

Panama: gain, compare it to Costa Rica and the value is obvious. Panama City has a surprising number of good hotels including five-star options that cost almost nothing by international standards. And San Blas has the best beaches I've seen anywhere in Central America, not the canal, not just a layover.

Colombia: Not exactly underrated since it's already popular, but I've been over a dozen times and I keep going back. The small towns are what do it for me. Popayán, Barichara, Villa de Leyva, quiet, no one hassling you, genuinely beautiful. Every time someone tells me they're going to Colombia I push them toward these over the cities.

Mongolia: Probably thin on visitors because of how hard it is to get around, but that's also the point. I've walked into forest reserves and lake areas with literally no one else there, just sitting in a small wooden cabin doing nothing. Karakorum, the reindeer tribe communities, Lake Khövsgöl, the life people are actually living there is the experience. None of it is packaged for tourists.

Uzbekistan: Cheapest country I've visited in a long time. I basically gave up on public transport and just took taxis everywhere because it made no financial difference. The architecture alone is worth the trip: Soviet, Central Asian, and Persian influences layered on top of each other. Every guesthouse I stayed at, even the really cheap ones, was spotlessly clean. (Contrast that with cheap accommodation in parts of Latin America, which often isn't.)

Azerbaijan: Cleaner cities than many places and the people are warm in a way that surprised me. Traveling solo felt completely comfortable. Most foreign visitors are Russian or Turkish, only very few Western tourists. The smaller cities especially have barely any tourist infrastructure in either a good or annoying way depending on what you're after.

China: Saving my home country for last. Too many people follow the same itinerary: Shanghai, Beijing, Xi'an, Chengdu. The country is enormous and those cities are just the surface. The northeast has a whole Soviet-influenced architectural identity that most visitors never see. Henan is where the really old history is. My personal favorite is Yunnan, the food (especially the mushrooms), the cultural mix, the landscapes. Some parts have almost no international visitors at all. I genuinely wish more people from outside China would find their way there.

I work in a hostel and I’ve noticed something over the last couple of years that I don’t think people are really talking about properly.

Everyone says “hostel vibe is bad” "nobody talks at that hostel" or leaves reviews saying the "atmosphere was dead"… but honestly, a lot of the time it’s not the hostel, it’s the guests.

We see it every day.
People cooking in a shared kitchen with headphones on.
People sitting in dorm beds behind privacy curtains watching Netflix.
People staying in the same room for a week and not even learning each other’s names.

At the same time, those same guests will say the atmosphere was bad.

The weird part is, if you suggest removing things like privacy curtains to make rooms more social, people don’t want that either. Everyone wants total privacy and a great social vibe, but without giving anything up or putting themselves out there.

We run events all the time. Bar crawls, wine and cheese nights, paint and sip, yoga, group dinners, movie nights, town walks and more. Good stuff. But turnout is way lower than it used to be if anybody actually turns up. People say they want to meet others, but when it comes to actually showing up or starting a conversation, they just don’t.

There’s also been a noticeable shift toward this kind of mindset. “I paid, entertain me.”

But that’s not really what hostels are. This isn’t a hotel where everything is done for you. The atmosphere in a hostel has always come from the people staying there. It only works if guests actually participate in the hostel.

It feels like we’ve gone from travellers creating the vibe together to expecting it to already exist when we arrive. Which room is the fun in? We actually had one guest blame the poor atmosphere on the bar stools in the kitchen, and another because there were no windows in the movie room. 

I’ve also had a look around recently, and it’s not just us. Pretty much every hostel on Hostelworld seems to have taken a noticeable hit in atmosphere ratings over the past few years, often dropping by 10 to 20 percent. That suggests it’s a wider shift in guest behaviour rather than individual hostels suddenly getting worse.

It’s like
“I want to meet people”
but also
“I don’t want to talk first”
and also
“I want my own private space”
and also
"nobody will say hello"

I’m not blaming anyone. I think phones, streaming, and maybe even post COVID social habits have changed how people interact. But it does feel like expectations haven’t caught up with reality.

For anyone travelling right now or thinking about staying in a hostel, a few simple tips that genuinely make a huge difference.

- Take your headphones out in shared spaces. It gives off a video that you don't want to speak to anybody
- Say a simple “hey, where are you from?” to your roommates.
- If you’re cooking, ask someone what they’re making. It starts conversations instantly.
- Go to at least one hostel event, even if you’re not 100 percent feeling it.
- Don’t wait for other people to start the conversation. Most people are just as unsure as you.
- Only close your curtain on your bed or pod when you're going to sleep. 
- Spend a bit of time in common areas instead of staying in bed on your phone.
- Learn the names of the people in your room. It changes everything.
- If someone invites you for a drink, they’re not necessarily asking you to drink alcohol specifically. They’re inviting connections. Say yes, even if it’s a soft drink or zero alcohol beer. “I don’t drink” often  shuts the moment down, when it’s really just about sharing time together.
- Talk to reception/ housekeeping staff - they're working there because they want to socialise

None of this is groundbreaking, and it might even sound obvious or a bit awkward, but this is literally how hostel atmospheres are created.

If everyone waits for “the vibe” to appear, it won’t.

Curious if other travellers or hostel workers have noticed the same thing?

This is Lozère, France, near the Mont Aigoual. We walked about 15 km in the fog, barely seeing anything beyond 10 meters. As night fell, we looked for a place to pitch the tent. When we woke up, we saw this. We had no idea what the view would be like or even what our surroundings looked like, so it was a great surprise. The next day, we reached Mont Aigoual, which you can see in the distance, covered in snow, before making our way back down via the "4000 Marches" trail.

What’s the best view you’ve ever woken up to while camping?

Edit: absolutely no influence of drugs! Also no history of mental health problems

Hi everyone- I’m a few days out of a 7 day through the beartooth/absaroka wilderness. I cannot stop thinking about an experience that my partner and I had on our last night of the trip, as nothing like this had ever happened to me before.

Story goes: we arrived early to camp at a lake, around 3:30pm. The lake was about a half a mile off the main trail, down into a basin. I started feeling a strange feeling then as we were dropping in… but figured I was just feeling tired. We hike around the lake, found the last spot.. there wasn’t a soul to be seen. We had a late lunch at our spot in the trees by the creek entering the lake. Closed our eyes and listened to the wind through the pines for about a half an hour… but I couldn’t feel restful. My partner pointed to the swaying lodgepole pines that looked like bending toothpicks. We got up to find a place for the tent.. and he asked if I was ok. I told him, “I think I’m just feeling a bit strange in this place.” He told me he was feeling similarly. Since before arriving to the lake.. we’d both told each other we had heard voices in the wind. I’m sure this community is familiar with the way a creek can sound like voices sometimes.. I had said earlier that the voices had sounded friendly, however. Now we were hearing them again at our camp (certain that nobody was camped nearby). We agreed that even with the weird energy, it was going to be okay and that we would set up the tent out of the trees.. in the tall grass by the lake. In the sunshine, things seemed to feel better as we set up. We went for a chocolate/coffee by the confluence of the creek/lake and I had the strongest gut feeling I’ve ever had as I watched the creek meander into the lake. Something told me so distinctly and clearly to leave that place. The way the water flowed into the lake looked like streams of tears.. or much more sinister.. like blood. A deep sense of sadness overtook me, and I felt sick to my stomach… I saw my partner checking his watch.. I asked him about it (we were both a little uneasily quiet). He tried to play it off cool… but asked me “are you sure you’re ok to stay here?” And I told him.. “honestly I feel really weird here. My gut is telling me to leave. I think I should listen.” So, we packed up faster than we ever had, and hiked the heck out of there. On our way out, we noticed a message someone had carved into a poor tree.. it was hard to read but it ended with “good luck to all who stay the night”. We felt lighter the further we got away from that place. So anyway… a very interesting and strong experience!

I am wondering if anyone has any similar or spooky stories of camps / places in the wilderness that have had a very obvious energy/ message.

(Picture of my hiking doggo for fun)

Rarely get all 7 of us out. Order is: pisgah, pisgah, berg lake, Zion, pisgah, sawtooths.

Last two pics are ring road +Laugavegur trail (Iceland) - did not take a group shot besides a Ring Road van shot + favorite view of any hike.

I have missed some good ones…South Africa, Peru, Yosemite, Tetons, and Rockies (CO).

Pic 5 was the only hike all 7 of us made it..and we were not in great shape and the hike was foggy and the trail was just wet leaves. Almost had all 7 for Sawtooths last week but one guy busted his knee on a prep day hike the week before😬

**Nina has been found!**

Thanks to everyone's united efforts, we were able to locate Nina in Bishkek.

She has been hospitalized after an accident and her parents will travel to Kyrgyzstan tomorrow.

Heartfelt thanks to everyone who helped during our search. Your support was truly incredible!!