Ever considered hiking the Peaks of the Balkans (POTB)? Read what our past guest Simon and his hiking group YOLO thought. In July 2024, they embarked on our week-long Montenegro to Albania hiking adventure, which includes a snippet of the POTB trail. Here’s how they got on. British hiker Simon Crowther first laid eyes on the Balkans in 1997 when he was deployed in Bosnia and Herzegovina under NATO following the Bosnian War. Even then, in the aftermath of the devastation, he was in awe of the astounding natural splendor in the Balkans and vowed to come back. ‘I saw a heck of a lot of the country and it really blew me away just how stunningly beautiful it was,’ he says. 20 years later, he started holidaying with his family in Croatia, combining relaxing on the beach with mini road trips to Bosnia and Montenegro. The more he saw, the more he wanted to see (yep, we get that). And last year, he convinced his hiking group - YOLO - to pay a visit. YOLO (great name btw, guys) is a Northwest England-based walking group born from a men’s boxing club. It’s been going for almost 15 years and now has around 200 members, both male and female, of all ages and backgrounds. Throughout the year, the group gets together for hikes in Snowdonia, the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District, and they also organise an annual overseas expedition. Past trips include Basecamp Everest in Nepal, Mount Tucolin in Morocco, and Spain’s Sierra Nevada. Why the Balkans? ‘It was a bit of a competition between me and Kevin [one of the YOLO founders]. Kevin wanted to go around Mont Blanc. There's a hike around the foothills… and I thought that was a bit pedestrian, a bit boring. I wanted
Ever considered hiking the Peaks of the Balkans (POTB)? Read what our past guest Simon and his hiking group YOLO thought. In July 2024, they embarked on our week-long Montenegro to Albania hiking adventure, which includes a snippet of the POTB trail. Here’s how they got on. British hiker Simon Crowther first laid eyes on
