Can you travel 5000 kilometers with a rebuilt beach buggy from 1968? After some fixing on the buggy we felt curious to try. We made up a plan to take the ferry to Poland and from there drive all the way to Croatia through Slovakia and Hungary, and from Croatia to Belgium through Slovenia and the northern part of Italy. Due to the coronavirus situation that was still very present in most parts of Europe, our only concern was that we would have to show a negative test result every time we cross a border. However, this turned out to not be a big problem in the end.
Poland
Arriving in Gdansk, Poland, we were never even asked to show our covid tests that we had been taking in Stockholm. The whole trip with the ferry from Nynäshamn south of Stockholm to Gdansk went very smooth in general. My only regret was that we didn't pay for a cabin, as the cheaper option was to sleep in an airplane chair which we did. Although these cargo ferries are very old and nothing luxurius, they are quite pricy and a cabin for two would have been almost a hundred euros. On the ferry time had stood still since the 90's and gave me a throwback to my childhood. Polish men drank beer for breakfast and the only thing that was served in the "buffet" restaurant was sausage, meat and eggs (just getting a sandwich without meat was hard). The breakfast also looked identical to the dinner buffet; also sausage. Well, all together an interesting experience.
The first thing we did in Gdansk was to visit a Volkswagen garage to ensure that it was fairly safe to travel with the buggy. A mechanic ensured us that we should be able to drive another 20-30 000 kilometers with it, which was more than expected.
After the airplane chair night, we decided to stay one night in Gdansk before driving southwards. That night turned out to be giving me the worst hangover since my teenage years. Gdansk has a really nice old town where you can have vey nice (and cheap) food and drinks, we visited the Sassy rooftop bar where you had a great view over the city. We had some fresh and nice cocktails and a snack platter before we continued to a more local pub nearby. This pub offered super cheap shots (at least for a Scandinavian) and beers for a few euros.
In this pub we met a local couple in our age and their parents, all of them more drunk than us. Even though none of them spoke a lot of English we still managed to communicate (the alcohol definitely helped) and soon the dad of the boyfriend started ordering shots for us. Apparently the pub was famous for it's homemade shots and we got to try almost all of them in the end. After a few rounds of shots the girl had to throw up and eventually her boyfriend brought her back home. Her mom didn't seem very concerned for her daughter and stayed in the pub with us, cheering and shouting "finally no children". Half an hour later the boyfriend came back to the bar, together with his 13 year old little borther (I mean, just because your girlfriend pukes you don't have to miss out on the fun right?) and the shots continued until we eventually had to go back to our hotel not to end up like the girlfriend.
Thus, the first day of driving wasn't very pleasant. Driving a beach buggy is a lot more shaky and bumby than other cars, definitely not the best way to spend a very hangover day, but we survived and arrived in the small town Toruń in the afternoon.
The next couple of days we spent crossing Poland. We stopped by small villages and towns on the way, had great food and of course great beer and experienced the best that the Polish summer has to offer. I think Poland is a bit of an underestimated country to travel in, where a lot of people think of Soviet architecture and ugly cities. But there's so much to see and do, and so many beautiful cities with old buildings left. And the food - the Polish cuisine is definitely one of my favorites. You can eat really tasty food for a very cheap flight.
Slovakia
The next day we crossed the border to Slovakia. Once again we expected a border check where we would have to show a negative covid test result, but there was no check and we could cross without any issues. We could see the beautiful Tatra mountains in the background, our next stop after Poland. In the evening we stayed in a small village close to the mountains in an old hotel that really didn't seem to have any other tourists than us. Some old local men sat in the bar drinking when we came in. The next day we woke up early to go hiking in the mountains, and while we were driving there the air got a lot colder. We took the ski lift up the first bit of the path since we only had limited time, and hiked for another two hours. The views were incredible, and we almost didn't see any other people. Only snakes. Many snakes...
Sadly we had such a tight time schedule during this trip so we could only do one hike, but I definitely wanna go back to the Tatras another time - hiking there was almost nicer than in the Alps where it's a lot more crowded.
After the hike we continued driving soutwards towards Hungary. We stopped on the way to have a quick swim in a small lake and had some local slovakian food. Everything was super cheap, a beer just 1-2 euros and a meal a few euros. The local food was interesting to try but very heavy, a lot of cheese and even more meet, and very few (if any) veggies. The second night in Slovakia we slept in a small very local town close to the hungarian border just beacuse we found a cheap guesthouse there, that turned out to be a some kind of sports hotel for football teams, and I was the only woman in the whole building. There was no lock for the common bathrooms and no curtains for the showers, and I realized once again that choosing the cheapest accomodation isn't always a good idea. In the evening we found the only small local bar where we had beers for 70 cents! This is what I love with traveling, finding these local places, interacting with locals and just observing how they live (and how they drink).
Hungary
The next morning we left the football hotel and it was finally time to cross the Hungarian border, something that we had been nervous about since Hungary had one of the most strict entry rools and completely closed borders for non-hungarian nationals despite negative covid test results. We had looked up a small road with a small border station and once we got there the station was closed and we could just cross the border without any problems.
We stayed two nights in Budapest where I had never been before, but fell in love with the city straight away. It reminded me of Berlin with all the nice funky bars and cafes, and the night life was great (didn't end up as wild as in Gdansk tho). We had a really nice AirBnb in the middle of the center for just 20 euros per night. After Budapest we were heading to a small village an hour away called Székesfehérvár to visit our friend Máté who we know from the time we used to live in Bangkok. It was really cool to get the chance to see more of the Hungarian local culture after being in Budapest, we got a tour around the houses by Máté and his dad. His dad has been a bee keeper for his whole life and it was interesting to see his work and learn more about this old profession. We also got to try some of Mátés homemade delicious wine he makes from the grapes in his garden. In return his dad got to drive the buggy which he enjoyed a lot, it reminded him of the cars he used to drive when he was young. He also helped us to fix the exhaust that was about to fall off, which was highly appreaciated.
It felt like we never had enough time on this trip, but sadly we had to conitnue towards Croatia the same day. We stayed overnight in a small town next to the big lake Balaton, and happened to find a local bar with nice live music and seriously the best home made pizzas I ever had! (didn't even find anything close to these later on when we were in Italy). The next day we took the chance to chill a bit on the beach and took a swim in Balaton before continuing our drive.
Croatia
Our next stop and the souternmost destination on our beach buggy trip was Croatia, where we were going to visit another friend, Anamarija who used to live in Stockholm before. This time we actually got stopped by the border when we crossed from Hungary, and had to show our covid test results. The police also wanted to serach through our buggy for drugs, which also happened later on when we got stopped by a police a second time to look for drugs in our car. Our conclusion was that Sam's home built trunk made of wood looked a bit suspicious, especially in a buggy.
We made it to Samobor an hour outside Zagreb where we had two nice days with Anamarija and her family, who lived in a villa on a hill with the most incredible view from their terrace. Anamarija's mom fed us well with all kinds of delicious food and we also got to drink her home made rakia, and a lot of wine (it's no problem to drink a bit and drive, we learnt). Thanks to the great guide Anamarija we got to see all the nice parts of Samobor.
At this point, the beach buggy had survived almost without any problems or breakdowns. Sam had brought his tools with him and had to do some minor fixing on the car every now and then, but things had been going better than we had ever dared to hope from the beginning. And we had reached our southernmost destination Samobor, and Croatia, the fourth country on our trip. Next we were driving to the coast to spend some days by the beach before starting heading back up north.
Croatia is really an amazing country with such diversity, while driving West towards the coast we passed beautiful landscapes, mountains and sceneries. If we would have had more time and the weather would have been better, I would have liked to do some hiking here as well. But we got caught in a few rain storms, and this was the first time we got to try Sam's home made plastic covers for the sides of the buggy. It felt a bit like driving in a plastic bag, but kept us fairly dry for a while at least. But a beach buggy is really not great to drive in rain.
Once we got closer to the coast we got out of the rain and the weather got warm and sunny. We were drinking to Krk and then continuing to the Pula peninsula in the north and had some amazing views over the water and beaches while driving the mountain roads. The first swim I had in the Croatian blue and clear sea was amazing. We stayed one night in the small beach town Lovran in a guesthouse owned by the nicest German older couple. During the next two days we were driving around the peninsula and mostly enjoying the incredible views and the nice weather. This part of the trip was definitely the nicest to drive with the buggy. It was such a cool experince to drive in a completely open car on the small and steep mountain roads (although a bit of a challenge sometimes when the roads were way too steep or narrow). Even better was that I could wear just a bikini while driving and could work on my tan and enjoy the sun even more.
Slovenia
Everything comes to an end, and even though I would have liked to stay on the Croatian cost forever (my dream house would be that little white stone house with blue windows up on the mountain! When I'm retired I will move there) we had to continue northward. Our next stop was Slovenia, where we stayed one night close to the old medival town Piran. Slovenia was a bit more expensive than Croatia but the scenery very beautiful as well. I just love the sea view so much. We had some amazing fish and mussles as well in a local fish restaurant and even got to experince a jazz festival in Piran.
A funny things with traveling with a beach buggy is that you get a lot of attention, all the time. In most countries people would always stop and look, wave, smile or laugh when they saw us coming with the beach buggy. It felt good to be able to spread some happiness. Especially children loved the car for some reason, and would always get super excited when we passed them. Maybe it looks like a toy.
Italy
Our next destination and something we had been looking forward to a lot was the Italian Alps and the Dolomites. It was time to test the buggy once for all and see it's performance in real high mountain environment. We crossed yet another border to Italy and took the chance to stop by Decathlon in Trieste to stock up with all the equipment needed for some hiking and camping in the Alps. This was before we had found out that it's strictly forbidden to do wild camping in Italy, especially in the Alps. Which turned out to be such a disappointment for me. The first night we had to pay 40 euros just to be able to put up our tent (we couldn't find any hidden place in this area where we could have been putting up our tent without risking a fine), and this was hard to accept for a Scandinavian like me who is used to be able to put up a tent anywhere in the nature. Nature is free and should be accessible for anyone.
The next night we manged to find a fairly secluded spot for our tent and could do wild camping. These two first nights were unforetunately the only nights that we could sleep in the tent, due to the rain storm that was approaching fast. We sadly also had time for just one proper hike in the Dolomites due to the fast changing weather, but at least this hike was once of the most beautiful hikes of my life. We hiked up to a small lake with incredibly turquoise water called Lake Sorapis. Although it was pretty busy on the path while hiking uphills this hike was definitely really worth doing. In total it was about 12 kilometers of hiking, but the hike wasn't very steep so it felt quite doable.
The last two nights in the Alps we spent in a town called Bolzano, where we were lucky enough to find a Couchsurfing host who could both offer us a bed and show us around in the city. Our host took us to a really great restaurant that we probably wouldn’t have found by ourselves, perks with Couchsurfing!
Austria
The crazy storms and rains that had hit the south of Germany were now heading south again, and we realised that we had to continue driving not to get stuck without being able to drive through the rain for many days. We started driving towards Austria, crossing the mountains. However, we weren’t fast enough and the rain caught us. And it wasn’t just a soft rain…. I think I’ve never been experiencing such heavy rain. Since we were in the middle of the mountains, we had no where to take shelter or hide from the rain, so we just had to keep driving. After two episodes of aqua planning we eventually found a small bar where we could dry up and wait until the rain was getting slightly less harsh. A beach buggy is definitely not meant for a weather like this… Eventually we finally arrived in Innsbruck in Austria, where we were staying for one night before continuing towards Germany.
Germany
Once we reached Germany, we could no longer deny that the buggy needed some care: the engine had been running worse and worse, and we still had almost 1000 kilometers left to drive before reaching our final destination.
We had to find a garage where Sam could work on the car, so I started researching and found some Volkswagen groups on Facebook where I decided to try my luck and wrote a few posts. Not much later I got a reply from a small Volkswagen garage called Strive for Cars in Augsburg in the south of Germany, not far from where we were. They offered us to use their garage and also assist us with the engine.
Their help turned out to be more than we could ever have expected. We arrived late and parked the car in their garage, and by the time we return the next morning one of the guys had done a deep cleaning of the whole (very dirty) engine. The owner of the company showed up a bit later and helped us both with assistance and many car parts, and refused to let us pay anything for it. These guys were true Volkswagen enthusiasts and were so impressed by our old buggy that had made it through so many countries and roads, so they genuinely just wanted to help us make it until the very end of the trip.
It's amazing to meet such genuine and helpful souls, with hearts full of gratefulness we continued our journey.
We stayed one more night in Germany, in Stuttgart, where Sam had to spend a day working and I took the chance to explore one of the main parks called Rosengarten. It was one of these moments when I really felt like running, so I ended up going for a two hour run around the whole park and saw all the animals on the way (yes, it's pretty much a zoo all around the park).
Our last German experience before crossing the border to France, was a visit to a traditional German Beer Garten (probably the last beer garten before the border). That meant half a liter beers, potatoes and wurst. Feeling complete with our short but successful time in Germany we snapped the beer and wurst to wine and croissants instead when we crossed the border to France.
France and Belgium
The last day of the trip we were spending solely on driving, crossing France, Luxembourg and then finally reaching Belgium. We had time to expensive some of the nice French cuisine, and see some of the idyllic countryside, before things started going wrong. Less than 100 kilometers from Kapellen where Sam's mom lives, one of the back wheels fell off. Literally.
I was driving on the highway and had a bad feeling, something felt wrong. Just in time I decided to turn off the highway and drive on a smaller road, and shortly after the wheel fell off. It might sound dramatic but went so fast so I barely had time to understand what happened before turning into the side of the road.
Luckily nothing worse happened, and a nice French guy stopped when he saw the incident. With his help, Sam managed to put the wheel back on the buggy, and attach it better so it would last the last 100 kilometers.
I wish I could explain more in detail what happened, and how the wheel could just fall off, but I'm not a car nerd enough.
However, you can imagine that we felt happy to finally reach Belgium. Despite loving to drive the buggy, we were both quite exhausted and it had been a bit too intense the last few days of the trip.
After 3 weeks on the road, going through 11 countries and driving almost 5000 kilometers we could now finally spend some relaxing days in the Belgian countryside.
Would I do it again? Without hesitation, yes.
This was probably the trip of my life, and the road trip experience you can have with a beach buggy is something special.
And who knows, maybe we will be able to do the overlanding with our buggy one day, all the way to Asia?