Author Archives: Julie Tuck

Overlanding – Baltics and Euro-Cities

overlanding baltics tallinn estonia

It’s easy, but a bit lazy, to lump Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania together as ‘the Baltics’. Yes, they do have that shared Baltic coastline and in ‘western’ eyes they’re often associated with a shared 20th century Soviet-dominated story. But they’re each quite different countries with their own identity, history, language, culture, food etc. It’s certainly not a case of ‘seen one, seen them all’.

For us, the common dilemma with many places we visit, is choosing the best season to be there. Sure, we want to see the best a country/region/city has to offer in the best season.  But we hate…hate…hate… with a passion… peak season. It’s just too… ‘peoply’ 😉. And it’s not merely the crowds. Parking gets difficult. Prices go up. But our No.1 Top-of-the-Pops hate of all time, is the need to forward plan and to book ahead for almost anything you want to do. Not only does this remove flexibility, but it saps the joy out of a nomadic lifestyle. We therefore always aim to see places outside of their peak season wherever possible.

overlanding baltics iveco daily 4x4 on a beach in estonia
Estonia beach wild-camping… out of season 🙂

This is all a long-winded way of saying that our time in the Baltics was, by choice, out-of-season. As a result, we know we didn’t see the best of what these countries have to offer. These omissions may warrant a return to the countries one day. But for now, we’re happy to have spent a bit of time in some of Europe’s most beautiful cities… out of season!            

Day one off the ferry from Finland and the weather was much warmer than we had become used to in Scandinavia. Temperatures are well above the seasonal norm here and the cross-country snow tracks commonly used by the locals at this time of year, are a slushy mess. We headed into town and found a great park-up spot close to the centre. Well… we say ‘great’… we mean as ‘great’ as city wild-camping gets – it’s just a car-park, but it’s only €15 for 24 hrs and very peaceful at night. Best of all, it’s a short walk to everything in the old town, so we settle down for a few days of Tallinn ‘old-town’ culture.

Around Tallinn

Tallin was a lovely surprise for us. We hadn’t known quite what to expect, but it really is a beautiful, compact centre. Wonderful architecture, lots of great views, and even better… street stalls selling a warming glögg (mulled wine) to sip as we wandered the cobbled streets taking in the sights. There’s plenty of medieval history, but modern history is also represented by a tour of a ‘secret’ floor of the Hotel Viru. It was once occupied by the KGB for spying on visiting foreigners. The tour included accounts of life in Tallinn during the Cold War. It was fascinating to get an insight to the world that Estonians of our generation grew up in, whilst we enjoyed the freedom of a ‘70s childhood in the west.

overlanding baltics , truck workshop on beach
Beach workshop

After Tallin we headed south down the coast and found a fab little wild-camp night-stop on a Baltic beach; one of those places where you plan to do a quick night stop, but end up staying 4 days. The weather was a glorious +12C. Might sound a bit chilly if you’re a Florida sun-worshipper, but hey… this is the Baltic Sea… in winter! Traditionally it would be around 0C at this time of year. Instead, the sun has melted most of the snow on the beach and the ocean is ice free.

One mega-plus was a fab sighting of the aurora borealis from the beach camp. Marcus took the opportunity to do a bit of maintenance on Cuthbert and got all his tools out to change the UJ bearing in the rear prop shaft (of course… just a normal, every-day, beach activity). Over the years he’s had far worse places to work fixing Cuthbert!

Next down to the Latvian capital, Riga.  Now… we’ve done enough of this travel malarkey to know that arriving in a place with pre-conceived expectations of ‘amazing’ can lead to disappointment. Riga is a popular weekend-city-break for Brits, so maybe our expectations might have been just a wee-bit too high.

Our verdict is that Riga is absolutely a very pleasant place; it’s certainly a top-spot if you like a bit of art deco architecture. Only by comparison to its northern neighbour, Tallinn, does Riga disappoint slightly. Unlike Tallin, we found Riga’s old town to be less characterful and more interspersed with modern buildings.

Like Tallin, Riga’s modern history is represented by a KGB-esqe feature. This time it’s an awful (but fascinating) gaol and interrogation centre where local suspects were subject to the infamous KGB menacing treatment of ‘talk or else’. The grimness of the venue brings home the dreadfulness of the Soviet era in eastern Europe, but the guide was at pains to point out that Stalin’s post-war/pre-1953 era was (comparatively) far worse than the subsequent eras into the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Riga slides

All in all, we spent a pleasant few days in Riga and tried some delicious local food, having breakfast of potato pancakes and cottage cheese with the local workers in the food market.

South of Riga we thought we’d get off the highway and take a few rural back-roads. Well… what can we say?  Latvia is indeed a lovely country… friendly people, pretty scenery ‘n all that… but boy do they have an aversion to repairing pot-holes on the back-roads! These were not remote trails that we particularly sought-out for a bit of exploratory rough-roading (as we have been known to do from time to time). These routes featured on regular road-maps, had allocated route-numbers, and linked a chain of rural villages. Even with our rugged 4×4 roughty-toughty Cuthbert (high clearance and off-road capability) we had to really slow down and take the never-ending string of deep holes at a careful pace 😬. If the potholes hadn’t shaken our vision to blurring, we might have enjoyed the scenery!

Next country was Lithuania and our first stop just over the border was the curious Hill of Crosses. Near Siauliai is a hill with thousands of crosses left by worshippers and pilgrims. It’s thought to go back over 200 years, but even today, visitors continue to add their crosses to the site. The nearby small town benefits mostly from traffic generated by the crosses, but it also has a couple of cute tiny museums and some great restaurants to try some tasty local pasties.

overlanding baltics , hill of crosses lithuania
Hill of Crosses

After Scandinavia where English is spoken pretty much everywhere by everyone, we’re finding language sometimes a bit of a challenge in the Baltics (at least outside the tourist centres and big cities). My knowledge of German, Spanish and French was of no assistance here! We noticed that language here seemed to demonstrate an age-divide in the population. People of our generation, with their Soviet dominated 60s/70s/80s childhood, were never given the opportunity to learn western European languages. Whereas those with education from the mid-late 90s onwards seemed to have an excellent command of English.  In a local café in Siauliai, the owner saw us struggling with google-translate on her hand-written menu, so beckoned over one of her younger customers to translate for us.          

overlanding baltics
overlanding baltics
Stopped in a layby, then saw it’s the geographic centre of Lithuania

A bit further down the road is the former capital city: Kaunas. Far smaller than the current capital Vilnius, but still very much worth a stop for a wander and more great local food was consumed. We stumbled upon a large group of students on the church roof, gathering peacefully to commemorate the Ukraine War. Obviously much of the world has great sympathy with the Ukraine situation and shares the condemnation of Russia’s actions there. But in the Baltic states, there understandably seems to be a particularly close affinity with the situation; an awareness that Ukraine’s situation could so easily have been their situation (arguably, as the Baltic States are all in NATO, they are less vulnerable than Ukraine, but we’ll not take that particular hot-potato subject any further… this isn’t a political blog).

Final stop in Lithuania… Vilnius. Again, we weren’t sure what to expect. But we were absolutely blown away by this lovely town! The delights of Tallin and Riga were well and truly relegated to the back of our minds as we spent a few days exploring Vilinius. Not only did we find a lovely city and a great central park-up spot, but we hit my ‘city-visit-jackpot’: a huge craft fair in town! In all our travels we have honestly never seen anything on this scale! Literally hundreds of stalls selling all manner of fabulous craft-ware and gourmet foods. The lines of stalls were never ending around the old-town streets and the quality of wares was excellent. If you’re planning on a city break in Europe, we can highly recommend Vilnius, and even more so if you check out next year’s craft fair dates (usually early March).    

Vilnius scroll-slides

Unlike the tiny Baltic States, Poland is heuuuge. A drive-through with a stop in two major cities can’t possibly do it justice. Without doubt Poland merits a return visit. But this trip, if we were going to include our other wish-list Euro-cities, we really only had time for a couple of highlights. So how were they?  

Well… Warsaw and Krakow probably benefitted from the fact that we had previously heard very little about them and therefore didn’t really have much in the way of expectations!

Slides of Warsaw

Warsaw showed itself to be a pleasant stop. Sitting in a sprawling, modern, 21st Century city is a ‘compact and bijou’ old town which makes for a nice wander and some tasty pyrogies. The impressive and imposing tower at the Palace of Culture and Science, having been a gift to the city by Stalin, is yet another reminder of the whole region’s 20th Century story.

If there’s one thing we hadn’t expected in Krakow, it was to find so many British tourists there (embarrassingly, several stag-do gangs not totally on their best behaviour ☹). Having taken just an initial half-hour wander in the old town, it wasn’t hard to see why it attracted so many visitors. Krakow now ranks alongside Tallin and Vilnius in our top-tip ‘Little-Known-Euro-Treats’.

Krakow slideshow

Just outside Krakow is one of Poland’s biggest tourist attractions: Wieliczka mine. This had been on our hit-list since we visited Zipaquirá, Colombia in 2017. Okay… be honest now… no Googling… who knows what the link is between Zipaquirá, Colombia and Wieliczka, Poland? Answer: they have the world’s only two underground salt cathedrals. Now, having been to both of the world’s only two underground salt cathedrals, we can assure you, dear Cuthbert follower, that they are both equally spectacular and both very much worth a visit.

Salt Cathedral – over 300m underground!

overlanding baltics

From southern Poland we took a quick blast through Slovakia (don’t worry… we’ll be back soon) to our overlanding country No.59 Hungary! After a short stopover in Vác (yes, worth it), we landed in a city that we had been assured never disappoints: Budapest.

Yes folks… Budapest is the real deal; a truly spectacular city worth several days of your time. Put on your comfy shoes… there’s walking to be done here, with a treat around every corner. We had great fun and took a lotta, lotta pics!

Buda and Pest slideshow – have a scroll…

overlanding baltics
At last… a meet-up with the Hays!

Before we move on geographically back to Slovakia, bear with me whilst I digress with a little overlanding history. Waaay back in 2012, when Cuthbert was a mere glint in the back of our minds, we met on-line a like-minded English couple who had a similar idea to us. Like us, Neil and Pat Hay were procuring a camper-truck to overland-the-world and we exchanged ideas. As we were in Qatar and they were in England, we never got to meet in person and our respective routes to overlanding freedom took different paths. Said paths almost crossed in the Americas. And we once unwittingly drove right past them on a highway in Dorset. Now, in 2024 in a wet field outside Bratislava, we finally met Neil and Pat in person for the first time! What lovely people they are; we hope to cross paths with them again somewhere.

Okay… back to the Euro-city-extravaganza… next stop is Bratislava. Impressions? A lovely old town, very pretty but small. Probably too small to be worth flying in for a whole weekend city-break, but definitely worth popping in for half a day if you happen to be driving through central Europe.

Scroll through Bratislava

As Bratislava is close to the Austrian border, it’s a very short hop down the road from Slovakia to a massive-euro-city-tick that has been on my bucket list since that 1981 Ultravox monster-hit. Like Budapest, Vienna is a classic and uber-popular city-break. Lots to see, stunning and historic architecture everywhere, just everywhere. What’s not to like here? Well… it’s touristy… but most of the best places are. It’s big with a lot of walking… just because they couldn’t fit that much great stuff into a smaller area.

Vienna has a ‘big-city’ rather than a cool ‘old-town’ feel… but that’s because it is a big city. Verdict: we liked it very much for what it is. Would we hurry back? Probably not. For us, it’s one of those ‘been there, seen it, done it’ kind of places. Highly recommended… once.

Vienna slideshow

It’s a loooong slog drive from Vienna back to UK. Not that there isn’t plenty, plenty to see and do on the way, but for us it is mostly going over old ground. We’ve spent a lot of time in central/western Europe over the years. And that damned Schengen-palaver doesn’t allow us the luxury of spending so much time in Europe any more 😒. So we blast (well… to the extent that Cuthbert can ‘blast’ at 80kph) along the autobahns of Germany and Belgium, obviously avoiding the extortionate tolls in France, back to Calais.

Back in UK for some family time, we’re planning a summer of (finally) exploring our own country. Watch this space… maybe a little jaunt from Land’s End to John O’Groats?

Overlanding Finland – Nordkapp to Helsinki

The only route from Nordkapp is south, so that’s the way we’ll go. As we had driven north up through Norway and Sweden, why not drive south overlanding Finland all the way down to Helsinki? Sounds like a plan. On the way we did some husky-sledding, tried a ‘new’ type of skiing, hunted for gas, watched skate-racing, and drove Cuthbert over the sea!   

overlanding finland
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Arctic Winter: Destination Nordkapp

We’re in the Norwegian Arctic. We’ve just crossed the Polar Circle heading north to destination Nordkapp … the furthest north we can drive in the world. In winter. On the plus side: the snow and the low winter light makes it particularly spectacular, no summer crowds, and no midges!! On the down side: it’s chilly, driving is a bit tricky, it’s chilly, many of the tourism facilities are closed, and it’s chilly. So is a winter drive to Nordkapp worth it? And did we mention it’s chilly?

destination nordkapp
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Scandi-Overlanding in Arctic Winter

Overlanding to the Arctic Circle is a bit cool. But it’s even cooler if you go in winter. We did it in North America twice, but both times in summer. Now we’re heading to the European Arctic, in winter. Why? Because it’s the most northerly point you can drive to in the world. And because we can. Or at least we think we can. We won’t find out unless we try. We don’t have a plan yet – we can do that on the way – but we do at least know that it’s nippy up there in February, so we’ll be taking a coat and a woolly hat.

overlanding to the arctic circle in an iveco daily 4x4
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10 Years Overlanding !!

Wow!!! How the bejeezus did we get here???? 10 years overlanding!!!

Had you just happened to bump into us back in February 2014, you’d have met two newbie overlanders in a brand new, super-shiny Cuthbert expedition truck, excited to be setting off to drive the world. We had absolutely no idea how long we’d last. All we knew is that Africa was to be our first destination. But had you suggested to us that ten years later we might still be going, in the same lovely Cuthbert camper-truck… we might have had you certified.

But here we are. Sat in Cuthbert in beautiful, wintery Stockholm, Sweden bringing you our annual list of geeky and not-so-geeky statistics from the trip. Get yourself a cuppa, sit back and have a laugh at some of these little nuggets from our 10 years overlanding.

Ten years overlanding
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Overlanding Ireland: the Irish/English Summer

We’re overlanding Ireland, exploring the Emerald Isle! Yes, that’s quite a hop since you last heard from us in Canada! Back in June we shipped Cuthbert back to UK after almost 8 years overlanding the whole of The Americas. Since then we’ve been busy spending quality time with family in England and touring around wonderful Ireland. So it’s about time we did a blog to bring you good people up to date, bringing you all the hot-scoop on our travels over the summer.

iveco daily 4x4 in ireland
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Outer Banks to Outbound

What’s the point in planning if plans rarely work out, eh? There we were… taking a leisurely pootle towards the Outer Banks islands, ‘planning’ a summer overlanding the east-coast cities of DC, Philadelphia, New York, Boston and up the north-east coast. Then, it turned out, we needed to pick up the pace a bit, making a dash to Nova Scotia to ship out… pronto.

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Texas: Rocket Time

It’s always good to return to Texas. After a 3,000km dash from central Guatemala, through the whole length of Mexico in just four days, we’re chuffed to be welcomed by friendly US border guys into Texas.  Not in our 9+ years of overlanding have we ever travelled so fast!! The real reason we dashed here at warp-factor-sneeze was for a bit of Texas Rocket Time… the imminent launch of Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship rocket. Exciting, eh? Then we enjoyed catching up with some lovely friends here, and we took a trip to Paris!

starship at boca chica texas
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Antigua Easter

Semana Santa is the Easter week celebration. It’s a biiiiig thing here in Antigua, Guatemala. Every year, over a million people descend on this very cool, historic town at the foot of Volcan de Agua to see the Semana Santa processions at Antigua Easter. So what’s our outsiders’ insight into the world’s largest Easter celebrations? And how do we end up doing a post-Easter overlanding rocket-blast all the way north through Guatemala, through Mexico, to Texas?

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Guatemala – Hidden Gems

Hey Guatemala… we’re back! Last time in 2018 we saw all the big attractions… Antigua, Atitlan, Semuc Champey, Tikal… yardy, yardy, yardy. This time we thought we’d check out a few hidden gems of Guatemala. These are some very cool-looking places in the far corner of Huehuetenango province. They’re more remote, less ‘international tourism’ and much harder to get to than the usual Top-Ticks. We found that sometimes they’re gems, sometimes they’re not. But first we had to do the border stuff…

hidden gems of guatemala
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Mainland Mexico

We could regale you with exciting tales of derring-do, travelling the Mexican mainland, following crazy remote routes and being chased by bandidos through the Sierra Madre, but we’d be telling fibs! This wasn’t one of our wildest rides. Instead, we’ll regale you with tales of a fun pootle through Mexico, featuring a Pueblo Magico or two, a new windscreen (finally), some Nun’s Farts (yes, really), and a bit of ‘road-block palaver’ on the way to the border.

pueblo magico mexico
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9 Years Overlanding

Ever wondered what nine whole years of full-time overlanding looks like? Well read on… February 2023 is our nine year anniversary travelling. From Queretaro, Mexico we bring you our annual list of our geeky and not-so-geeky statistics, plus our latest map of 9 years overlanding route so far. Get yourself a cuppa, sit back and have a laugh at some of these little nuggets:

9-years-overlanding
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Baja – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Baja California is ‘good’, right? Looking back over our time in Baja it would be very easy to rave on… and on… about how awesome it is. After three months of overlanding there with fabulous beaches, delicious food, sunny skies and great company, we’re finding it hard to leave. But is there any ‘bad’ and ‘ugly’? We found a bit of over-crowding and had a run-in with Mexican corrupt police. Read on for what we hope is a balanced view of the Baja California bad side.   

iveco daily 4x4 on a beach in baja california
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Where will we be in 2023 ???

Wait… 2022… over already? Where does the time go? Another overlanding year behind us. After six years driving up the Americas from Argentina, our mission of 2022 was to complete the Pan-American Highway by reaching Alaska and the Arctic Ocean. With that mission accomplished and our US visas expiring, we came to Mexico for some winter sun. What started as a round-the-world trip nine years ago has stalled a bit in North America since Covid. It’s about time we bucked ourselves up and got on with the business of circumnavigation! So now, from a series of lovely beaches in Mexico with overlanding friends, we ponder overlanding 2023 and the big question of our time: ‘Where next?

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Baja: Beach and Taco Land

Buenos días, Mexico! We’re back for more beaches and tacos. Actually, there’s way more to Mexico than tacos and beaches but it can’t be denied… Mexico is particularly good at these. We enter the country into Baja California. Our overlanding Baja features fabulous beaches, the Baja 1000 endurance race, a new Starlink, and fish tacos… did we mention the tacos?

overlanding baja
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Overlanding Western USA – The Final Weeks

It’s been a while since the last blog. What can we say… overlanding life just gets in the way! We’ve been spending the last few weeks back overlanding western USA, hanging around the Reno/Tahoe area. We saw more California coast, had a palaver with a crankshaft seal, visited M*A*S*H*, and waited for a windscreen (yes, another!!!). Oh… and we had a look around Air Force One!

overlanding western usa - Iveco Daily 4x4 at Mono Lake California
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Curiosity USA – Idaho, Utah and Nevada

The curious thing about overlanding the USA is that it’s full of curiosities. For some, the USA is all about the iconic Statue of Liberty, Golden Gate Bridge, Grand Canyon or Yosemite. And they’re great. But if you’re lucky enough to have the time to snoop around, you’ll find countless curiosity spots. History, culture, science and general ‘well I didn’t know that’ stuff in some of the most unlikely spots. Across south-east Idaho, north-west Utah and central Nevada we’ve found some overlanding curiosities – potatoes, a ‘world’s only’, a steam train, a crime scene, a stony spiral, some rockets, a clean museum, an awful lot of salt, a lonely road and an ostrich race. Folks… you couldn’t make this stuff up!

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Overlanding USA – Park Life

It would be bonkers to visit USA’s most popular national parks in peak summer season, wouldn’t it? Well, yes it would. But it’s a matter of timing, you see. We have to be somewhere for the summer. In 2022 that somewhere turns out to be the epic Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Sure, there will be crowds. But, as the saying goes, we’ll just have to ‘suck it up, princess!’ 😉 We learned that even in peak season, overlanding national parks is still a good idea, and we learned some tips on bagging a camp-spot at the parks. But in-between the parks we visited a State Fair, saw a big-time rodeo and a real-life mermaid!

overlanding national parks
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Overlanding Alaska Lessons

Overlanding Alaska is an epic route. Far more than the sum of its places, it’s a whole experience, and it’s unique. Yes, it bears some similarity to Patagonia, but the culture and history here set it apart. It’s a very long way from anywhere, so is it worth the schlepp? Here we do a bit of general pondering our lessons learned about Alaska, and our dash through Canada en-route.

bear fishing
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