The Long Ways Podcast
Adventures and Misadventures on the Long Trails of the World. Follow us as we share our experiences from the Tour du Mont Blanc, Rota Vicentina , Dingle Way, West Highland Way, Hadrians Wall Path, Julian Way, Lycian Way, and most recently - the Great Glen Way! What could go wrong?! Well, follow us to find out!
The Long Ways Podcast
Zero Days
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Not every day on the trail has to be a hiking day -- in fact, it's important to take a day off, or "Zero Day," during a Long Ways Hike. In this episode, Devin and Mike go into their favorite Zero Days on the trail, why you should build a down day into your next trail, and more.
Join Devin and Mike, a father-son duo hiking the great long trails of Europe. Each episode takes a look at at a single day on the trail — with all the highs, lows, stupid moments and semi-profound insights two amateur hikers can provide.
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Hello, and welcome to the Long Ways Podcast. I'm Devin Windelspeck. And I'm Michael Wendelspeck. And we're a father-son hiking duo out to hike the great long trails of the world. Now, Dad, it has been quite some time since we've done recording. Um we intended on doing this once a month, but unfortunately, as things tend to happen, life got in the way. I have been traveling a lot over the past few months from work. Uh, dad is actually about to go on a trip to Belize himself. So we're managing to squeeze this in right between travel times between him and me. But but we're excited to be back on the podcast with you and recording our next episode on the importance of a zero day and what makes a great day off in the middle of a trail. Now, Dad, I think the first thing to do is to talk about well, a few things happened with our own plans after our last recording on how to choose your trail um that uh we should share with our listeners. So, what what happened and what is our um our new plan for our hike this summer?
SPEAKER_02Well, it has been an adventurous few months. Or so, first of all, um it seems like somebody's mysteriously taken some days out of the middle of each month, okay, because I don't know what's going on. I just seem to be losing days. So we're all going to be back. I'm glad to be back too. I look forward to doing this. This is so much fun. And if you remember, we were super excited about the Dolomites, right? So this is you know, the Dolomites was where we're gonna go, and this is a trail we've always wanted to do. It seems okay that at least several thousand other people had the exact same idea. Exactly, exactly. And uh so Neil's to say we're not going to the Dolomites. We're still doing the Alps, okay, but we are not going to the Dolomites. Uh, thanks to our friends at Max Adventures for giving us a great suggestion. And Devin, I'm gonna let you tell them where the where we're going.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so we're going to the Julian Alps. It is kind of the easternmost edge of the Alps, um, in this place called Triglov National Park. The country we're going to is not Italy, actually, at this time, but I'm actually really excited for this, is Slovenia. Um, Slovenia is a country neither of us have ever been to before.
SPEAKER_02And by the way, I want to put in here that just for a preview, until now, I had barely heard of Slovenia. I've traveled over the world, and when we first said we're going to Slovenia, I had to go figure out where we were going.
SPEAKER_00Not Slovakia, Slovenia, two separate countries. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02That's what I thought too. Okay.
SPEAKER_00So if you don't know where it is, it's this tiny country, uh, it used to be part of Yugoslavia, kind of sandwiched in between Croatia, Austria, and Italy. Um, it's from the photos, obviously, and from people I've talked to who have been there, it's absolutely gorgeous. Right up there in the Alps. And we're gonna be spending about eight days hiking through the Julian Alps, mostly in this national park on the eastern edge of the Alps, right there by the Austrian-Italian border. So we're really excited for it. Um, I actually, as much as I want to see the Dolomites, I'm actually almost more excited for this one because it's a little bit more of a off-the-beat uh path trek. Um, and one that I had never heard of before this, and I don't think a lot of other people have heard of. So yeah, we're really excited, and this just goes to show, as we talked about in our last podcast, sometimes your plans fall through. We talked an entire podcast about how to plan for the Dolomites, and it never really happened. So, this is part of the adventure is the lead up to the trail where things fall through, and you say, Okay, what's plan B or plan C?
SPEAKER_02Um, and I think the important part of this is the fact that you know it's not that the plans really fell through, it's that the fact that you have to give yourself lots of time to plan these long, these long treks. Yes, you know, the the long ways it takes some time. It takes time for the agencies to get in and get the you know, sites. And in both cases, both for the Dolomites and even with the Return in Slovenia, um, you know, when we start to do the hut to hut hiking, things become a little bit different. You're not heading into towns where you may have three different hotels to choose from, which is the tradition of what we are used to. Exactly. Hut to hut hiking, okay, is something which is a little bit more challenging, and also for the people who are helping to schedule these long trails.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I just want to pick that up. Like, this is also a new adventure for us because in the past we have done town-to-town hiking. Um, and this is our first time where we're going to be staying in mountain huts. And really staying in places where you don't have the amenities of a town around you. It's just you and the hut in the mountain. We have to carry our own clothes and a little bit heavier packs on these because we're used to just carrying day packs. So Dad and I did a bit of a run to REI recently, spent some money on some good clothes and some good uh packs for this trip. So we're really excited to also kind of push our own boundaries a little bit with this one and see if like this hut to hut hiking, which is like a step above the town-to-town hiking we're used to, is something that we can get excited for and do, also. So if so, it opens up an entire new world of trails for us. And if not, well, then we know what we should stay with and what we shouldn't. So before we start on our podcast, just to give you guys a little bit of a heads up of what the next few recordings are gonna look like. But we're also going to be releasing our new kind of half uh episode podcast called The Short Ways. Um, Dad, do you want to just give a little bit of a heads up of what the short ways are?
SPEAKER_02Sure. So uh, and this this first short ways is gonna be really something you don't want to listen for because the elusive Eric, which we refer to, is actually on this podcast. Okay. Um, and so what I decided to do was start to build some short, just you know, short podcast episodes, which are about some of the trails we take, the longer short trails, okay, that we take to start to get prepared for these long ones, you know, the eight and nine mile day hikes where we go in and we, you know, maybe stay at an Airbnb hike for a couple of days. Each day we come back to, you know, where we're staying. Um, and these things are not only uh helping develop and get ready for the big hikes, but some of them are absolutely gorgeous and have their own stories to tell. You will see this on our website called the short ways. And um it's just we just as much fun as these, they will usually just also just include as a subset. You know, Devin may be on one, or just Devin and I, or maybe in this case, Eric and I will be on one. Um it's gonna tell some of the stories of us hiking um just around this beautiful world that we live in.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. I mean, I just as an example, I recently a little short ways hike of my own um in Shenandoah National Park this weekend. So we wanted to do something that wasn't just about these long trails we take, but also all the other shorter trails around the US, especially um that are worth talking about as well. So keep an eye out for that. Um, but Dad, I think we should jump into this episode. So I'm excited about this one. It's my favorite thing. The non-hiking part? Yeah, maybe that's it.
SPEAKER_02And okay, it's not no, it's not the far episode, just so we know. Okay, okay. It's a different one. Okay, this is my favorite part of the of the of the long ways hikes.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Yeah, the days where we don't hike is dad's favorite part. That's something to keep in mind. So today we are going to be talking about a zero day and the importance of having a zero day. Um, to give you a little bit of a background, our first hike, we didn't plan a zero day into the trail. Um, a zero day um is in hiker parlance is a day where you sit down and you do nothing. It's a rest day. It's a day to go explore um sometimes the towns or the area you're in without having to do these big 10 to 15 mile hikes. Sometimes they include a small hike, sometimes they don't. But we found that they're really, really important for us. However, on our first hike around Mont Blanc, we did not factor in a rest day. And dad, you want to tell us about how the rest day came about, how these zero days came about?
SPEAKER_02Well, I'm just gonna make it really simple for the sake of time. I got up and told Devin I'm not doing this today.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_02Because if you remember from our Mont Blanc discussions, this was kind of an impromptu type of uh long way. So I was tired um and hurt and was wondering why I was doing this silly hike thing. And um, so I remember telling Devin um we were uh sitting there and I said, we just need to go ahead and take a cab to the next spot. Needless to say, Devin did not think that was part of the plan.
SPEAKER_00I was very, very unhappy.
SPEAKER_02Right. Um, but it was it ended up being a really useful rest for us. Now, in this in this down day, I'll let Devin give some of the details of it. We actually missed a segment of the hike, one of the shorter ones. It wasn't supposed to be one of the harder ones either. It was this was about three days in. Um, but in general, our down days, we don't miss anything. We just basically we try to, yeah, although we'll change that in a second. Okay, we try to stay in one spot, okay. Um, and then just take some time to relax. It's also a time to, you know, replenish supplies if you're in a town, you know, um uh experience the local culture a little bit, sleep in, do laundry if you need to, right? Um, you know, mend some wounds.
SPEAKER_00Yep. Um this first time was actually between the towns of Cormayor and Champey. Um, so we were supposed to hike between Cormaor in Italy to Champey in Switzerland. It was a pretty decent hike, but it wasn't the hike itself that we wanted to skip. Like Dad said, normally we don't try to skip portions of the trail. And if we do, it's only because something came up, or you know, as in the case in the dingo way, we just didn't have the time to do like the last two days or something like that. But with this one, it was partly because this is pre-surgery, knee surgery for dad. That's true. Yep. And dad was going through a lot of pain with his knees from the amount of just stress we were putting on it from the hikes. So we decided to take a cab. Um, that we woke up that morning, we decided to take a cab from um Cormaor to Champagne. I was really mad the entire time. I was like, dad's ruining my trip, dad's not um taking this seriously, not really knowing the amount of pain he was in until later on in the hike. Um, but I think I came around to even that day, we kind of ended up in a little hostel-like um hiking lodge, kind of right beside this really pristine alpine lake in Switzerland. Um I remember it was raining that day. So I remember just staying there with a book um as it was raining outside, um, and then going down to like eat like a really nice meal with like a couple other people who were who were hiking it. Um there's these three women we kept leaffrogging around to I remember we we got to sit down, have dinner with, and actually like sit down and really have a nice talk with that night. And waking up the next morning, I just felt so much so rejuvenated and ready to take on the hike in a way that not taking that break probably I would have gotten more and more worn down each day.
SPEAKER_02Well, I definitely know that I would have. I don't I think that I had to have the day of you know, very little impact on my knees. And and also, you know, this it's kind of like a mental reset day, you know, it really is. Um, it was beautiful. The town was beautiful. Okay, the the lodging was amazing too, as always. And I just, yeah, it was it was very much needed. It was a very different type of down day for us, is what did what we started to plan after that.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Right. So ever since then, we've decided to actually plan in down days to our trips. Um Dad, can you actually talk about what that looks like, how we plan them, why we plan them?
SPEAKER_02Sure. So what we usually try to do is we actually look at mileage, elevation changes, you know, what the challenges of the trails are going to be. And then if we have something like we're on the trail for six days, obviously, you know, three days later, you try to, you know, you know, you try to take a down day in the middle. But sometimes you go like a four-three or a three-four, depending on what's uh facing you. It does take a little bit of time to plan. Um, during COVID, it became a little bit more difficult to plan, as you'll see. Um, but the the idea behind this is to find a decent sized small town, okay, that you'll be able to, if you needed to resupply, or for example, when we were in Ireland, we needed to go get um rain gear because it was so it was so bad. Yeah. But uh we we had rain gear, but we didn't have rain gear. Yeah, we didn't have a hurricane gear. Um, so you can do those types of things. Um, but more and more, what we decided to do was make these into interesting little excursions. Yeah, we're not just gonna sit around in a bar and drink beer, although in the afternoon we probably would. Um, we would go find interesting things which were within a day's striking distance by some other form of transportation. And that was it. That's all you do. Um, things what we all like to see. And usually we have a little bit of a debate. Yep, what do you guys want to do? You know, and so we pick a town and we go look at it. We go, oh, that'd be wonderful. Look what's in your body.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Exactly. Um, so like I said, it's also like it's not just a day for rest and relaxation, it's also just a day to kind of see stuff that you otherwise wouldn't when you're just hiking. Um, we normally, so most of our hikes are usually between seven and nine days, depending. And we normally put it right in the middle. That's not always possible. Usually usually we'll try to do like the majority of hike before the rest day. So, and I think in our last one in Portugal, we did four days rest, then three days. Right. Um because that way, like you can really that last day you can really push yourself, be like, oh, okay, I really need to do this because I know there's a rest day coming up. It's a little bit of a reward that happens. Right. Um, but you know, sometimes we have to put them at one end or the other. Actually, in Slovenia coming up, we're actually going to do all seven days without the rest day and then do a rest day at the very end. And that's just because of how the mountain huts work. Um, we, you know, if you take a mount a rest day in a mountain hut, there's nothing to do there.
SPEAKER_02No, it is a rest day. Okay, but it also was very difficult to get back-to-back reservations. That's not how they work, right? I mean, there's other there's groups that are scheduling in in and out of you, you know, in before and after you, sorry. And I think that this was not something that Max Adventure suggested we do. A matter of fact, they once again, being the professionals and great advisors, they said if you want to do it, we'll figure it out. Okay, but uh, but we here's what we suggest. Okay, a day at the end, okay, um, you know, in this town, okay, and you know, there's what's in the knit area. And so we said, fine, we'll do that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So this was actually gonna be the very end. Um, we were gonna hike for seven days and then take a rest day, which I believe actually has like a nice little hike around the valley that we can take. Not as stressful as the um other days, but you know, sometimes on our hikes we end up doing a little bit of hiking, anyways.
SPEAKER_02Okay, no, no, we no, we don't want to do hiking on our recipes. Okay, I know I know how you're gonna I know you're gonna try to spin this. We ended up hiking on our recipes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um, but I think the other thing when we get into these um zero days is why, I guess, is it so important to take these, Dad? Um, you know, we've been mentioning uh you know a little bit of a mental break and that kind of stuff, but why uh why are we doing this every trip now?
SPEAKER_02Well, from my perspective, it really is is to slow down, you know, um to experience the culture of the area. Okay, we've done some pretty amazing ones um from this. Um it is, you know, you become so uh focused on the hike, right? That um, you know, in moving from one spot to another, it's nice to be able to stop and to look at where you're at. Okay. Um, you know, we're always in different countries, um, and there's usually something close by that we that we can look at. And it is kind of a there is a physical break to it, but there's also a little bit of a mental break of, you know, we're not we're not hiking today. Okay, we're gonna get in our train, for example, or something on those lines. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00The other thing to keep in mind is when you're hiking, especially, you know, if you're a through hiker on the AT, even um, at the very beginning of getting into these, no matter how fit you are, you wear your body down pretty well. Um even if you're really, really fit, after about four or five days of hiking, you can really feel it. You can feel yourself getting tired, you feel like it's a little bit stiffer every morning. And the purpose of these zero days really also is to give your body that time to rest. Um you're gonna have blisters over your feet sometimes, you're gonna have you know a sunburn like I did in um Portugal our last trip um in Ireland.
SPEAKER_02Hypothermia exactly in Ireland. You know, I mean, almost all of our all of our all of our zero days in place at the end of looking back at very convenient times.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. Um, but it's you need that for your body too. If you're like a professional professional hiker, like you just got off the AT or something like that, maybe not. But even people on the AT, they will take zero days um regularly throughout. They're a little bit more spaced apart towards the end, but you know, you need to let your body rest sometimes. And this is something that like any athlete will tell you. And even like professional athletes will tell you this when they're doing their things. They're like, yeah, I'll train five, six days a week, but you have to have that day off. Um, and this is what this is. Now, as a day off, you get to explore the culture. It's a day off that you know, you're in some beautiful towns along the coast to explore, go eat some good food, all that kind of stuff. And we're gonna get to that because after this break, we're gonna actually sit down and rank our favorite uh zero days from our last few trails. And it does involve bars. And it does involve bars. So we're gonna take a break right now, and we'll be back in a few minutes. And welcome back. So we're gonna start with kind of going over our four different zero days on the trail. Um, Dad, tell me about um the first two, the one in Mont Blanc and the one in Scotland.
SPEAKER_02Well, I think that we, I think in my mind, we you know, we kind of recovered the Mont Blanc one. It wasn't planned, so we didn't really have any excursions. It was just a day where we didn't hike by the time we actually got the cab up into Switzerland. You know, we didn't do much that afternoon. Um, a true down day is zero day where you get up in the morning and you know you're not gonna do anything, you're you're planning on not doing anything or having another excursion. So I think the the first one we did successfully, okay, was um definitely um when we uh were in Scotland. We planned to stop at this little place called in called Tindrum. Tindrum. Okay. And basically it is nothing more than a train stop, okay. Um, with a cute little, like almost like a trailer park in between. Lovely little place. If you get a chance to stop there, great, great pubs nearby, okay. Um, but it's kind of funny because one of the train stations on one side of the town, the other one's on the other. Make sure you go to the right one because one's a southbound town and one's a northbound train. They don't they don't happen in the same spot. Um, and so we decided we're gonna uh take a day off and we're gonna take a train ride out to the coast. And one of the things we really wanted to see when we were in Scotland was the coast of Scotland, but the way the West Highland Trail Trail works, it doesn't really bring you near the coast in that segment we were in. Okay. Um, I know north farther north it does. Um, so we decided to take a train ride. I happen to love trains, okay, out to um Oban on the coast, okay. A fishing community and also um a place for well known for um its scotch.
SPEAKER_00Yes, exactly. There's a very famous brewery there. Um, I think on that day, some of the things I remember, we took like a little um boat ride out to like see like the seal island out by Oban. Yes.
SPEAKER_02So we got there and we had we hadn't really planned out the interior part of the day. We had made a short hike up to the top of this hill, which that did not make me very happy um because I was not going to hike. But um, we decided to take this little boat ride out that took us out to a seal island and also to sustainable fish farms, scale farming areas. It was beautiful. Uh, I mean, it was a Scottish day. The I mean, it was we were moving in and out of rain squalls, you know, you were you're getting the you know, this it was cool, it was amazing. We have these incredible photos of seals and uh and burn and and and seabirds and stuff, and then this whole videotapes of of basically the sustainable, um, sustainable fish farming in the yeah, in the in the bay.
SPEAKER_00I think it was for salmon, if I remember correctly.
SPEAKER_02Was mostly salmon, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, the other thing I remember about that day is I remember um we did like a really good like fish and chefs place. Um, and we went to a um distillery for Scotch whiskey, but it turned out that I'm the only one who actually likes Scotch. And Eric and David, uh well, Eric and Dad absolutely don't, especially when it's that smoky. And the fun thing about Scotland is like the further north you go, exactly, yeah, the smokier the whiskey is. Yeah. It was awesome. So less and less dad liked it.
SPEAKER_02Well, it was also hot as heck inside of the inside of the distillery. Okay. Um, and we got in there and it was super smoky. But it's you people have had Auburn Scotch, as I'm some of you have heard it, it's very, very good. It has a great story associated with it. It wasn't what we were looking for. And I've got to tell you, this fish and chips was absolutely some of probably the best. And we ate a lot of fish and chips, okay. On our excursions, but this was probably some of the best we've ever had. Small little restaurant. I can't even, I can't remember the name of it, um, but it was uh just picking up the fish, and it was just so fresh, and it was just amazing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. I would recommend if you're just in Scotland, swing by Oban. Um I would say, and I know we're gonna write these towards the end, that was one of my favorite zero days. Which means we're gonna move on to one of our least favorite zero days, which is Dunquin in Ireland. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Um but but to be fair, when we planned it, it was gonna be an amazing day.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, so there's two things about Duncan. So when we were in um Ireland, we wanted to stay either in Dingle, which is the major town of the Dingle Peninsula, or Dunquin. We were actually um suggested to go to Duncan for a couple good reasons. One, it's absolutely beautiful, it's right there by the ocean. Um, you know, I remember um walking through like the the fields in the evening and just like getting like the this beautiful look over the water with these like tiny little islands off the coast. It's actually one of the few places in Ireland where most people's first language is Irish. And one of the reasons we wanted to go is it has, I think, the westernmost pub in all of Europe, um, depending on if you count the Azores or not, um, located right there. A good down day destination, I may add. A very good down day destination. Yes. Unfortunately, a couple things happened. One was the one was the typhoon. Yeah, we got caught in uh in a horrible rainstorm the night before. If you listen to one of our previous uh podcasts, The Worst Day on the Trail, um, you'll hear all about that. Um, and the other thing is that Dun Quinn really wasn't near anything, it was near the pub. The pub that had been closed for COVID-19. Exactly. So there was nothing to do there. There was no restaurants. No restaurants. When we actually arrived, um, we arrived a little bit late for dinner at our Airbnb. Um, and we actually had to take a bus to a nearby town, which we ended up walking past the next day um to eat at like a tiny little hotel there where we were like the only like one of like three people eating there.
SPEAKER_02Um was just opening up. Well, I mean, it actually opened up while we were there. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00So on our zero day, we actually ended up going because there's nothing to do in Dun Quinn. We actually end up going back to Dingle, the town we had just left and hiked all the way to Dung Quinto on a bus.
SPEAKER_02Um and there's nothing is more discouraging than to go backwards and say that was a horrible day of hiking, and it takes you 15 minutes on the bus and you're backwards. Seven hours of hiking.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um, I actually remember that that was a really once we got past Dingle, that was actually not a bad day. Um, when we got into Dingle because it was really sunny that day. I remember there's a lot of tourists in, um, because again, Ireland had just opened up, so the tourists were coming back in from a lot of them from England, um, not quite the Americans yet. Um, and I think we just spent the day, we spent the day shopping for rein gear. Um, and we also just spent the day like sitting at like some nice breweries and pubs in Dingle that we didn't really have the time to do the night before when we got kind of in really late.
SPEAKER_02And Dingle is a beautiful town. It means all the buildings are different colors. It's it's it's it's an amazing, it is an amazing spot to spend a down day, especially if you don't want to do anything. It's right on the it's right on the bay again. You know, it's uh uh it's it's pretty, it's it's so there's so many different cultures there and everything. It's just it's really worth it. Uh Dunquin, I think if you went there now, it'd be very different. I don't know if the I can't remember the name of the bar now that that bar is open. Um, and there's other things you were supposed to be able to do there. We we talked about even over a little fishing trip. There was nothing still open to the general public at that point in time. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. One of the things we wanted to do was maybe take a boat out to like these islands right off the edge. Um, that used to have a little community on them, which is which is now gone. But even that was closed during the time. So Dun Quinn wasn't our best location, but we ended up salvaging it and making a pretty good day in Dingle. The last of the four zero days we've done was in Portugal in this little town called, and you know, I'm not very good with Portuguese, but Odeshish, I think is how you say it, which is about halfway down the trail um on the fisherman's trail. It's actually the end of the fisherman's trail, a part of the Rota Vicentina, and then we entered into the main route um after it. I really liked Odeshe. It is like this right off the coast, so there's like two parts of it. There's one part that's like on the beach, and then you kind of like follow the river and the road inland, and you end up in like this really cool town that's kind of like built up on a hill with this windmill above it, kind of like looking over the entire town. Um, every time you think of it, because it's like this completely white city. I was thinking of Gondor for some reason, like minus Tarith. It was, yeah. Um, and it was just this perfect, so cute little Portuguese town, like tiny winding roads, a really beautiful courtyard where they had like a lot of food in it. Um, we were at the very, very top of this hill, which sucked when we were trying to get to it. It did to have to walk all the way up that hill. That's like I think one of our longest days in the entire trail. And then we're gonna go up this hill.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and everything, every place to eat or anything was at the bottom.
SPEAKER_00Yep. Yeah, but I remember um I do it again. That day, actually, we and dad didn't like this because that doesn't like hiking on his zero days. No, but we actually hiked out to the beach that day. Um, it was about maybe a two-mile hike out to the beach.
SPEAKER_02Okay, it's I don't think it was two miles, I think it was like 50. Okay, because it reminded me of that, you know, that scene from Monty Python when they're running across the fields and you just keep no matter how much they run across the fields, okay. You never get closer to it. And we were hiking along the road and it was hot, okay. And Devin, you know, first of all, we had this conversation before about Devin guessing distances, okay. Um, but it it it was a it was a decent hike out there and back.
SPEAKER_00It was a decent hike, I do remember that. Yeah, but it was worth it because we ended up spending um the day at this tiny little beach town. Um, we ended up um eating some really good seafood and then just sitting by the beach for the entire um afternoon. And that was a really relaxing day. The hike there and back was a little annoying.
SPEAKER_02Once again, I'm gonna add some color commentary to this. We didn't sit by the beach. What we did is we went out and each one of us rented an umbrella and we passed out on the beach. Well, you do under these umbrellas, okay, with the sound of the ocean. It was the perfect way to spend a zero day.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that was a really good one. Um, and so coming up with our fifth zero day is actually gonna be at the very end of Slovenia, where we're gonna be sitting by um Lake Bled, I believe. Um, just sitting right there by the lake. There's a little, we'll see if um we all do it, but there's a little hike up in the valley we can do. Um so those are our four zero days, Dad. Now I want you to rank them from your favorite to least favorite.
SPEAKER_02I'm just gonna go ahead and tell you that the the one in Portugal with the town that I cannot pronounce, okay, and that seems to be a tradition. Okay, I'm I'm so glad that Devin helps us with these because your my versions of these towns' names is horrible, would be horrible. I would definitely rank uh Portugal as the as the best. Um, because it really was very, very relaxing when we got out there to the beach, is what we all needed. And we you know, the hike there and back was not what we expected, but it was it was fine. The second would definitely be Oban for me. Um uh it was just this picture perfect town. Um, with you know, once again, good food, science. Okay, we you know we went out there and learned about the seals and the agriculture. The third one would probably be Ireland, and the only reason why I'm putting it down, I think if if we went there now, I probably changed my mind. Um, I think it's mostly because we were so worn out and so tired, okay, from the the worst day on the trail, um, that we didn't even when we got to um back to uh Dingle, we really didn't do anything, you know. We just kind of like just wandered around, you know, buying clothes and a couple of things. And you know, of course, the fourth one, because it wasn't really a planned day, would have been Mont Blanc. Although I think there's so many amazing places on the Mont Blanc trail, being this circular trail, you could plant some truly amazing um uh down days. And you know, that's the wonder of Mont Blanc. You can start anywhere and end anywhere, right? Um, so you could almost pick where you, you know, how what sort of down day do you want to have? Do you want to have it in a smaller city? Do I want to have it in a you know a coast, you know, a uh a small town in the mountains? What do you want to do? But for us, uh though the four we've had so far, I would definitely rank um uh Portugal, Scotland, um, Ireland, and then um the Montplanctro.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think mine would be similar. I do think Oban and Odeshe were our two best ones. I probably put Oban first, just because it was really cool to like go experience another town um because that was kind of off our route. Um, because Odeshe, it was on the route. We had seen it the night before, but Oban was cool to just kind of jump off, see something new, and then come back. And then probably Odeshe. I really, really liked Portugal. I'm a huge fan of Portugal after that trip, just culture-wise, um, and being able to spend a little bit of time there. Um, and then I would flip it. I really would put Dun Quinn at the end, um, just because of how worn out we were and how difficult it was to have to deal with logistics, um, getting back and forth when really all we wanted to do was rest. Um, and then I would put probably Champei at third, um, just because of how needed it was. And looking back on how it kind of convinced us to take these zero days, it was a really good way of learning the lesson of what we need to do on these trails to help um inform further trails. Um, so please keep um in tune over the next month or two. We're gonna at least have one more episode coming out, a short ways episode in June. And then we are going to be in Slovenia. So keep an eye on our social media, share it with your friends. Um, and we are looking forward to talking to you again on the long ways about our trip in Slovenia. So, once again, I'm Devin Wendelspeck. And I'm Michael Wendelspeck. And this is the Long Ways Podcast. Thank you for listening.
