Georgia has been nominated for the title of Europe’s Most Desirable Tourist Destination by the popular British travel publication Wanderlust.

According to the National Tourism Administration, voting for the annual Wanderlust Reader Travel Awards has officially begun. In addition to the country itself, Tbilisi and Batumi are also competing for the title of Europe’s Most Desirable City.

Other nominees in the category include Athens, Berlin, Bologna, Bordeaux, Brussels, Budapest, Dresden, Dublin, Edinburgh, Genoa, Ghent, Istanbul, Madrid, Oslo, Porto, Prague, Riga, Siena, Sofia, Valencia, Vienna, Vilnius, and more.

Voting will remain open until October 17, with the winners announced at the 24th Wanderlust Reader Travel Awards ceremony on November 5, 2025, at the National Gallery in London. The awards honor the most desirable cities, regions, countries, and new destinations worldwide, as chosen by Wanderlust readers. Additional categories include adventure, culture and heritage, nature and wildlife, gastronomy, and sustainable travel.

Founded in the UK, Wanderlust is one of the most influential travel magazines, with a monthly circulation of nearly 138,000 copies and over 1.6 million visitors to its website. Each year, the publication invites readers to vote for their favorite destinations, offering participants the chance to win travel prizes worth £70,000.

Trail Magic Anyone?

After waking up for the third and final time in the shelter, I was out of food, and still injured. My short term plan to see if my leg would come good with couple of days rest had not borne fruit.

I headed south on the trail for the first time since I started in New York. It was a very short walk to the road crossing. Upon arriving at the road I was delighted to discover trail magic.

Considering how down I was feeling about my injury and inability to progress along the trail, this magical setup was just the tonic to lift my deflated spirits.

And what an amazing trail magic it was. Apparently it’s a regular thing each week during the season, and this group of retirees had gone above and beyond. As I explained my situation, I was fawned upon by the kindest people on the planet. I was ushered to a camp chair. Another chair was brought over to elevate my leg. I was given an ice pack. Ibuprofen. A plate of food was prepared for me and delivered to my chair.

It’s impossible to adequately describe just how incredible it is to wander out of the woods with an injury and be treated like this by complete and utter strangers that want nothing in return. I spent a couple of hours basking in the warmth and comfort of this company. My heart and belly were equal parts filled.

One of the organisers was kind enough to offer me a lift into town which I gladly accepted. I was dropped at the supermarket where I had been just a few days prior, and bought enough food to see me through a few more days resting up at the paid campground I was aiming to get to in the evening. After filling my pack I wandered out of the supermarket and stuck my thumb out for a hitch into the town centre with my new secret weapon attained at the trail magic.

The bright sign had me picked up in nanoseconds. I arrived in town late afternoon and headed to the library to connect and let friends and family know I was alive and kicking after a few days of disconnection.

Next Level Trail Magic

The last part of my plan for the day was to hitch around to the paid campground in Stratton. This would be the first time I was attempting a hitch along a road that is not normally frequented by AT hikers. Normally you would just hike from Rangeley to Stratton on the trail. The road between the two towns was a small one and I had concerns as to how much traffic there would be, let alone looking like an out of work homeless person with a weird sign.

I walked the short distance to the road and assumed the position with my thumb out. After an hour I had seen plenty of traffic which was a positive. The negative was nobody was stopping. It was starting to look like I was going to need to break my number one rule of no shuttles, a thought that chilled me to my core. 

As all hope seemed lost, a gentleman walked out of his house close to where I was standing. He hopped into his car and drove the ten metres or so up to where I was standing and asked where I was heading. I said Stratton and he said no problem, hop on in. I literally couldn’t believe my luck. 

Once ensconced in the car, we started chatting. The kind Samaritan said he had hiked some of the trail years ago and was surprised to see me trying to hitch near his house. I explained my predicament and my plan for recovery. It was at this point that America and its gracious people went to the next level. This man said if you all need to do is lie about and relax I could camp in his backyard. He had an outdoor shower and was happy for me to stay a few days while my leg healed. 

Here’s where it gets even crazier. The man explained he wasn’t even heading to Stratton, he just felt sorry for me as he had noticed me standing outside his house for an hour not getting a lift. He was willing to get in his car and drive me just to be kind. You Americans are playing chess while the rest of us play checkers.

The man showed me to his yard, explained how the outdoor shower worked, shared his WiFi password and said to enter his house to use the bathroom whenever I needed. The trust, care and concern that I continue to encounter in this country is amazing. I set up my tent, had a shower, cooked up my pad Thai ramen in the yard and collapsed onto my mattress to sleep.

Rangeley Recovery 

With temporary accommodation sorted, the next few days settled into a pattern of rest and recovery. I walked the very short distance each day into town to soak my leg in the lake, sit in the library and write my blog.

After a few days it became clear that my leg was not going to recover to a point where I would be able to continue along the trail in an enjoyable manner. There had been some improvement in ankle mobility but the pain radiating from my tibia and surrounding muscles was still prevalent and significant. I booked my flight home to NZ for the following week.

It was a very disappointing end to what had been a really fun couple of months. Fortunately the trail wasn’t going anywhere and I knew I could return when my old leg healed up. 

The Final Kindness

So I was left with one final, and reasonably small logistical hurdle. Rangeley is not the best connected town in Maine. With a population of about 1000 people there was no public transportation from Rangeley to anywhere. 

So could I keep to my number one rule of no shuttles all the way to the bitter end? You betcha. After a week of being encamped in the yard of a perfect stranger I said my goodbyes and headed to the main road in Rangeley with my trusty sign. I needed to hitch back to Gorham (the closest town with public transport), a mere 130km away. And not on a trail road. In fact, in the opposing direction to the trail.

This is why I was standing on the road at 6.30am. I wanted to give myself all day to see if I could navigate the myriad of roads that lay between me and good old Gorham.

It took about 90 minutes for the first hitch. In fact, I was offered three lifts in that 90 minute window by cars going in the opposite direction that all thought I was confused about which way the trail was. Again, ridiculous kindness by those people.

The first hitch was a young girl heading to work in the next town of Oquossoc (don’t worry, nobody knows how to pronounce it so say it in your brain however you like). She dropped me off near her workplace wishing me luck as I headed on down the road. I moved into position and stuck out my aching thumb once again. I should have anticipated the horrors my thumb would go through today and done the appropriate stretches.

This next road was…quiet. Like it had been put there with good intentions but no car was interested in actually using it. After an hour the girl that had dropped me off came out of her store and gave me a cinnamon roll. I mean I get that I’m Magnet, but trail magic from the stranger who gave me a hitch in Oquossuc…wowsers.

After another hour it was nearing midday and I’d only seen a couple of cars come past. The next vehicle to pass by was a high end four-wheel drive so my hopes were set accordingly low. The car slowed and then stopped, and a kindly gentleman wound down the window and asked if I’d like a ride. Hell yeah I did. 

We chatted away as we zoomed down the road and shared our respective stories. The reality was the road we were on did not go directly to Gorham so I knew I would need to ask to be dropped at another intersection to get to my final destination. As we neared the intersection in question the man said he had some spare time and would run me to Gorham. Fifty kilometres out of his way. In the opposing direction to where he was heading. I mean I’m really not sure what to tell you. I was dropped at the door of my accommodation in Gorham and with a smile and a wave as the kind stranger headed back to his day. 

Thank You AT

I’m a middle aged man who decided to take an extended holiday and walk along a trail on the eastern side of the USA. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would experience this level of generosity of the human condition. I’ve been fortunate to travel to many far flung corners of the world, and the way I’ve been treated by the Americans I have met along this journey is beyond anything I’ve ever encountered before.

A huge thank you to all the people I met on this trip. The other thru hikers, the trail angels, the trail magic providers, the hostel owners, and the perfectly perfect strangers. It is by far the most social and friendly trail I’ve ever walked, and I look forward to returning in the future once I’ve restored my legs to their former average condition. 

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This morning I got up bright and early at my quiet tent spot. I have about 37 miles to go today to get to Stevens pass. And I’m hoping to get there fairly early so that I can head into town for the night. The nice thing is that someone reached out on Facebook and offered to drive me into Skokomish. So at least I don’t have to worry about hitching a ride into town. I just have to hope that there are actually rooms available at the hostel in town.

It seems like it will be perfect to spend the night in town in Skokomish. That way I can charge everything up so I don’t have to recharge in Stehekin in a few days. That will save me a little bit of time as well. It would also be nice to get some work done this evening in town. I definitely recall not having particularly great service over the remainder of the trail.

Plus, there really would be no reason not to go into town if I could manage it. I would still get a nice big mile day in. And it would be great to get some town food and additional calories. Really the only reason not to go in would be if it was difficult to get in or out of town. My one question would be how to get back to trail the following morning. Because I would really like to get a big day in the next day. But I have plenty of time to figure all of us out. My really good buddy Ricochet actually lives in Leavenworth, the town the opposite direction from Skykomish. It’s just more expensive and touristy so it doesn’t really make a ton of sense for me to go there alone. The Cascadia inn in Skykomish is pretty reasonable and just rents small private rooms and then has communal living space. It makes a little bit more sense for me to do while hiking by myself.

The morning was really nice and I initially set out into the dark. I knew I had a river crossing to do fairly early in the day. I was super curious how the water level was going to look after all of the rain the other day. But apparently it’s been a drought in Washington, which could bode well for me. It wound up being a really nice start to the day and I did have one very long climb. Which went on for a couple of hours before I finally got up to the top. Then I immediately began dropping down all the way back. I believe I was around 12 or so miles into the day when I finally came to that river crossing. And the the nice thing was, at the same time I saw my first people of the day.

There was a couple coming southbound along the trail and they were going across the river right as I arrived. I’d seen some comments about a submerged log, which sounded kind of sketchy. I really don’t like to cross rivers on wet slick logs. But the water level was actually so low that the log was completely dry and exposed. So it wound up being super easy to cross the river the two times that I had to. And that was actually the only river crossing I would have to do for the whole day. That also leads me to believe that the ones coming up in a couple days aren’t going to be a problem either.

It was nice to have that out of the way because it had kind of been looming over me. It’s just hard sometimes to focus on anything else when there is some sort of an obstacle in your way for the day. After walking for 5–6 hours, I finally stopped off for the first break of the day. It was around noon and I had carried a Sunny D all the way from Snoqualmie to here. Which means that that Sunny D went almost 60 miles. I’ve been making a habit of doing that recently and it’s pretty hilarious. Drinks taste a whole lot better after you carry them 40-60 miles.

I sat down really briefly and ate and drank something. Then knew I would be starting to make my way up the next climb soon thereafter. I was kind of just hoping to keep my head down for the rest of the day so I could get to the road as early as possible. Some sections of the trail definitely did slow me down a little bit. But I was hoping that the later part of the day would be a little bit easier. If that was the case, then I could ideally get to the road sometime between 6–7PM.

Over the later part of the day the trail went by so many big beautiful lakes. Some were deep, almost seafoam green, and just absolutely gorgeous. Others were that bright crystal clear blue. The trail would often drop all the way down to these beautiful bodies of water and then skirt alongside them. Then would climb up and pass them, and you would get views of the lakes from higher up later on. It’s fun to see how every section of trail has its trends. Similar to the way that you go up the mountain passes in the Sierra and then drop down into the valleys below. Repeating this trend over and over. Every section has its thing.

Today I think I saw more blueberries lining the trail than on any other section so far. Most of the time both sides of the trail were absolutely surrounded by bushes covered in ripe plump little berries. I spent a whole lot of time picking and eating them. Honestly, I think I could spend my entire day doing that. I even ran into some people over the course of the day who were carrying around little Tupperware and picking berries. That would be really nice.

I tried to stay on task though and just keep moving. It wound up being a really beautiful day and was nice and cool similar to yesterday. I would definitely prefer to climb when it’s a little bit colder than a little bit hot. And I had a lot of elevation gain to do over the course of the day. I sort of forgot that Washington was like this. You wind up going up a fairly large mountain, maybe 2000-3000 feet high. Then, almost as soon as you get up to the top, you begin coming back down again. If I wasn’t tracking my mileage and elevation gain every day, I might not have even noticed the spike. I’m definitely doing a few thousand more feet more of climbing per day than I was a week or two ago.

Right around 5 PM I began going up the final climb of the day. That would take me up toward a ski lift type area. Then I would level out on the top and begin the gradual descent down to Stevens pass. I knew I would get service once I got up which sounded great. I wanted to confirm with my ride. I had sent her a GARMIN message, but she never did get back to me. I also wanted to call the Cascadia inn and see if they actually even had any rooms available.

When I finally did get service, I got a message from my ride who unfortunately had to cancel. That got me pretty nervous because I really couldn’t remember how the hitching situation was. I just recall, seeing lots of comments that I can take a while. Most likely because you’re hitching literally on the side of a busy highway. I did call the Cascadia Inn and they had plenty of rooms available for the night. But I was just worried I wouldn’t be able to get over there.

It took about 40 minutes to get down the hill and over to Steven’s pass. The trail drops straight down by a lodge and a small store with a coffee shop inside. But at this point in time, it was after 6 PM and everything was closed. I basically ran straight out to the road, eager to start hitching immediately. I was super nervous that I wouldn’t be able to get a ride.

A bunch of people pulled by and asked if I wanted to go to Leavenworth. But I definitely didn’t want to head over there. I think it’ll be a hard town to get out of tomorrow morning. And it’ll probably cost two times as much to stay there tonight. I stuck my thumb out once I got to the side of the highway that I actually wanted to hitch from. And literally only had it out for maybe 60–90 seconds before a car pulled over.

There had been a group of guys working on a vehicle next to the road. When I first showed up and started hitching, I could see that they were staring at me and it looked like they might’ve taken a couple pictures of me. Maybe they’ve just never seen someone hitchhiking before. But it was even funnier when I almost immediately got a ride into town. The look of shock and surprise on those guys‘s faces were priceless. I must have just absolutely blown their minds by showing them that not only the people still hitchhike, it’s actually incredibly effective.

The nicest couple picked me up on their way into another town. Apparently they’re going to a town further away, but they have to drive past Skykomish on their way. I can’t remember the name of the place they were going. They had a super cute dog in the backseat so I got to snuggle with the dog. And the one girl knew a lot about thru hiking and the PCT. So she wound up asking tons of questions and I had a really great time chatting with them. They even had an ice cold grapefruit seltzer for me to drink along the way. Which was absolutely delightful.

I was in town dropped off the Cascadia inn by 7 PM. Which seemed crazy because originally I had corresponded with my ride about maybe getting picked up around 6:40 PM so all things considered, having my ride cancel actually didn’t impact the day at all. Honestly, it might’ve even been a faster day because I got a ride immediately and arrived a little bit early.

I got checked in at the Cascadia Inn by the same nice guy who’s been running the place for 20+ years I definitely recognize him from 2022. The Cascadian is a super unique space. It’s basically just a hostel with a really nice shared space, kitchen, living room. There’s also a restaurant attached to the building. Then upstairs are a bunch of private rooms with beds and bedside tables. Some of the rooms have their own bathrooms and other ones use shared shower and laundry facilities. I just remember the place being super nice and clean.

Plus when I’m getting in at 7 PM all I really need is to take a shower and have some place to quietly get work done before going to bed. So this place is absolutely perfect. Once I got in, I dropped my stuff off and headed down the street to the deli to grab dinner. They would be closed by 8 PM so I had to get over there. I got a milkshake and two sandwiches. Then headed next-door to grab some drinks and a couple things at the store. The resupply options in town are basically just the deli and a gas station. But lucky for me I have plenty of food to get to Stehekin. I definitely left Snoqalmie with five days of food. Because after two full days of being out, I still have three days of food left over.

After grabbing everything, I headed back to the Cascadia Inn. While I was walking over, Ricochet gave me a call. We hiked about 800 miles of the PCT together in 2022 and then he was attempting the calendar year triple crown this year. He got injured early on and then I wound up seeing him again when he finally did get back on trail at Boots off on the AT. We hiked a handful of miles together for one day and then he permanently got off trail due to injury. It was really nice to chat with him for a long time as I got settled in into the hotel.

He’s actually planning on attempting the calendar year triple crown again next year, and I’m so excited to watch. It’s going to be an absolute blast to be a spectator in 2026.

The rest of the night I just ate all my food and drank a bunch of drinks. I took an amazing shower and opted not to do laundry. It had only been a couple days. Then wound up getting a bunch of writing and video editing done while I laid in bed for the rest of the night. It was great to get everything charged so I don’t have to worry about charging again until the PCT is complete. Then will likely be able to charge in East glacier before getting on the CDT. Or perhaps while I’m getting a ride to East glacier.

If you enjoyed this blog and would like to support my hike by buying me a soda or a snack along the way, there is a “Tip the Author” button below! It links directly to my Venmo. Any and all support is incredibly appreciated! 

This website contains affiliate links, which means The Trek may receive a percentage of any product or service you purchase using the links in the articles or advertisements. The buyer pays the same price as they would otherwise, and your purchase helps to support The Trek’s ongoing goal to serve you quality backpacking advice and information. Thanks for your support!

To learn more, please visit the About This Site page.