postcard from romania

Three weeks of traveling through Romania with a tent and our thumbs out, captured on his digi cam and my camcorder.

I keep watching this video just because it makes me so happy. The song, the memories, everything. Anyway, let me tell you a bit about this perfectly imperfect little trip.

falling asleep to the sound of the waves

We were sleeping right on the beach, waking up by sunrise and going for a swim first thing in the morning. Oatmeal for every breakfast. Reading on the beach. Swim. Beach walks. Swim. Nap on the beach. Swim. Cooking pasta with tomato sauce every night. Watching the sunset and the moon rise. Stargazing and falling asleep to the sounds of the waves. Some moments felt like we were the last people on earth, cut off from civilization, under a sky full of stars.

I´m romanticizing those weeks, of course I am. Sure there was the flip-side too.

Carrying way too heavy backpacks through 40-degree midday heat. Mosquito bites. So many fucking mosquito bites. Not only once being very close to a heatstroke. Almost throwing up on a night-train because of motion sickness. Sleepless nights so windy we thought our tent would break down. The same food every day (oatmeal and pasta with tomato sauce).

And yet I´d do it all over again.

For moments of pure freedom on long train rides across the country.

For experiencing strangers’ kindness over and over again when hitchhiking.

For the moment we saw the sea for the first time after talking about it for so long.

For never heard songs turning into the soundtrack of our travels.

For barefoot walks and beach dances and playing in waves the way I did when I was a kid.

For not knowing where to sleep but having so much faith it´s all gonna work out (it always does!).

When we told people we´d travel to Romania this summer, almost everyone was surprised. Why out of all places would we choose Romania?

We live in Europe, why don´t we go to Italy or Spain or Portugal? The answer is quite simple, because wildcamping is legal in Romania and we´ve heard of people camping right on the beach somewhere on the black sea coast.

We could have gone to Spain, and we could have gone to Italy. We just happened to follow this very specific idea of sleeping on a beach — that´s how we didn´t even think twice about our decision of going to Romania.

And it´s a country I´d recommend in a heartbeat. Romania surprised me over and over again. Maybe it´s the fact I didn´t have any expectations, maybe it was the spontaneity of it all.

I´m still amazed by how kind people were, especially in moments when we were completely reliant on strangers. People let us charge our phones in supermarkets, picked us up while hitchhiking, helped us figure things out when we had no idea what we were doing.

We didn´t really get to explore Romanian food properly – we were on a tight budget and cooked our own meals – but the few things we tried, like Covrigi and Zacusca, were incredible. And then there were the salted sunflower seeds. I bought them in every supermarket and ate unreasonable amounts every single day, and I still think about them. I bought some now being back home in Germany, but it´s just not the same.

Maybe you´re thinking we´re experts when it comes to camping, I´m making it sound like we´re always out in the wild camping somewhere. Well, that´s not true at all.

I have no clue when it comes to camping and being in the wild. But I love little chaotic adventures with no plan, plus I knew I always wanted to sleep on the beach somewhere, so of course, I said yes to that trip. Were we naive? Absolutely. Which was probably the magic of this trip. Would lots of little mistakes been avoided if we would´ve actually planned this trip out? Of course.

But we just started traveling towards Romania. On August first we left Berlin and made our way through Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary before entering Romania. I remember how ecstatic I felt when we crossed the border, the sun just went down, blue hour painting the sky light pink. We always just had the sea in mind, this picture we´ve seen of people setting up their tents right on the beach. That´s what kept us going. There wasn´t really a lot of information online, so we just winged it.

We took busses and trains and hitchhiked, and we walked a lot more than I would´ve wanted. This is the way I usually travel as well, the only thing being completely new for me was camping. No access to running water, no electricity, no bathroom. But I guess one gets used to it and even starts to enjoy it at some point.

Since everything had to be simple, the littlest everyday tasks took so much longer. We eventually treated ourselves to a little room when we got to Bucharest, because there´s no way we´d camp somewhere in or close to a big city (we´re naive, but not that naive!), so taking a shower and sleeping in a proper bed was definitely a great feeling.

I remember looking into a mirror for the first time in a while when we got to our place in Bucharest, being excited seeing how tan I got - turns out I was just covered in layers and layers of dirt, and after taking a shower, I wasn´t that tan anymore.

So, would I recommend backpacking through Romania with a tent and no plan just because you heard it’s possible to camp and sleep on the beach? Probably not.

Yet I would do it exactly like that all over again.