Latest / Fit for Hiking / Ep. 126 Moving Abroad + Swiss Hiking Adventures with Alex Bornhoft
Transcript
- Moving abroad + Swiss Hiking adventures with Alex Bornhoft Hi, my name is Brady and I'm a long time fitness professional and Midwest girl turned mountain living hiking addict. In combining my knowledge of fitness and passion for hiking, I've helped hundreds of women get lean and strong for the trails. Think of this as your one stop shop for both education and inspiration on all things female wellness, trail talk and adventure. Hiking, female metabolism, motherhood, nutrition, travel and fitness are all topics you'll hear discussed here. If you are outdoorsy and active, looking to level up your health, unlock your potential, and become inspired to live your most vibrant life, you're in the right place. You're listening to the fit for Hiking podcast. What is up you guys? Welcome back to another episode of the fit for Hiking podcast. This is your host, Brady. Today we have a special guest on the episode today chatting about all things Switzerland, hiking, trekking. I'm so excited. We have Alex Bahnhof here today who is the founder of Wander Wego Co, a hiking consultancy based in Zurich, Switzerland. She has lived in Switzerland for over seven years and completed hundreds of hikes and dozens of hut to hut treks across the Swiss Alps. Alex helps hikers plan personalized alpine hiking adventures so that they can navigate the trails independently and confidently. Thank you so much for being here, Alex. Thank you. I'm excited to talk today. Yes. Me too. Okay, so tell us a little bit about your backstory. What made you so passionate about trekking and led you to where you are today? Yeah. So I feel like I'm a the least likely person to have built a hiking business because I did not grow up. I did not grow up outdoorsy at all. I'm from Southern California originally, and I was always like an active kid, but I just wasn't really that outdoorsy. I was always like inside reading a book. My family didn't really camp or hike a lot. So, um, you know, we did a lot of things, but we just weren't really into outdoor adventures. Um, and so hiking didn't actually enter my life until I met my now husband. I have to give credit where credit is due. A lot of people are so surprised when they hear that he introduced me to hiking because of what I do now, but that is the truth. Um, like, one of our first dates was actually a hike and I said yes to it because in my mind, like hiking was just a walk outside. So I didn't really have a concept of what, like a hike actually was. Um. So. And I was like, how hard could it be? And it ended up being this 15 mile hike. It was called the Deep Sea Trail, which is in northern California near Veer Woods. And needless to say, I was not prepared. But I really liked it and kind of got like, Hayes in you. He's like, it's a hike. It's 15 miles. Oh my God, I was so 7.5 miles out, like each way. And I was like, okay, this is not this is more than a walk outside. That's intense. Intense. Yeah. But you know, he I guess I liked him. I married him. I worked out, yeah, I worked out. Um, so then we started, you know, kind of hiking local trails in California. Got more adventurous as I learned a bit more about hiking with backcountry camping trips in the Sierras, and then even started doing, you know, more like international trips around hiking. But I will say, um, it wasn't until we had the opportunity to move to Switzerland, um, that I really got into kind of hiking more seriously. Um, because once we got here, we were just. Surrounded by all of these, like amazing and incredibly accessible mountains. Like, we joke all the time that it's like hiking Disneyland just because everything is so easy to access. Um, and so hiking became really our default weekend activity. And the more I hiked and learned more about hiking in the mountains, the more I just, like, fell in love with it. Um, so the business happened almost by accident. When we moved, I started a blog, as many people did in the mid aughts. You know, the mid 20 tens, um, to keep friends and family updated. And I started writing a lot about hiking because that's what I was doing most of my time. Um, and then over time, it just organically evolved into this hiking resource. People started reaching out like expats, travelers, even locals asking for recommendations and help planning their routes. But for a long time, they didn't have the capacity to help because I was working remotely and I was just busy with other things. But a few years ago, I realized that I, you know, could actually formalize this and take everything that I learned and turn it into something useful. So that is how the Wanderer Co was founded. Um wunder weg means German or means uh is the German word for trail or path. Um, and so that's sort of the play on words there. Wander. We go wander Weg. And it's just a way for people to create their own paths through Switzerland. Like the same way. Hiking, you know, helped me find my way here. So. Yeah, that's that's just a little bit of how it's got how it got started. That's amazing. And what brought you guys to Switzerland seven years ago? Uh, just my partner's job. Um, although he would get mad at me for saying that because we really wanted to move to Europe and just wanted to live abroad somewhere, um, that we had never been for a few years. So we actually kind of actively looked for roles that one of us could transfer to. Yeah. Um, and he just, you know, we found an opportunity in Zurich and didn't really know anything about Switzerland at all. We actually picked Zurich because we thought the city would be a little bit boring. And so we would just travel a lot and didn't even really pick it for the hiking, but it just kind of happened. And then we got we moved to Switzerland in July of 2018, kind of right in the middle of peak hiking season. And after a few weeks, we just both looked at each other and we were like, we are not leaving for a while. Oh my gosh. Almost eight years later, we're still here. That's so cool. That would have been quite a change. Like moving abroad is a big thing. It was really it was a big change. And one thing that was really hard for me was this was I had lived abroad in other places and done a lot of traveling, but this was the first time I had moved somewhere where I didn't have a I wasn't moving for my own job, I wasn't moving for school, so I didn't really have, like a built in social circle, um, in, in other ways that I had moved. And Switzerland is also just really culturally different. I know it doesn't might not seem that way, but it is a little bit reserved and it's kind of hard to break into the culture if you, especially if you don't speak the language. And again, if you don't have a local job or local support. Um, so hiking actually became this incredible mode of integration for me. Like it became, it introduced me to places I never would have discovered. It helped me understand the culture a little bit more. Um, Switzerland is also a really diverse geographically, linguistically, culturally, and by traveling to different places, I was able to understand the country like a little bit more. And it really gave me this, like kind of grounding sense of belonging. And I really I had this epiphany a year or two ago, but I realized that there's still a lot of times that I feel like a foreigner in Switzerland, you know, even now, having a grasp on the language, even having local friends, it's just hard not being in your native country. But, um, I don't really feel like a foreigner in the mountains, so that's a really special part of it for me, where I actually feel like this is the place that I belong. Um, and I actually, I actually introduced a few Swiss friends. I took them to their first mountain hut, which was kind of a cool experience because it was like this big accomplishment and full circle moment for me where I was like, hey, actually, maybe I have like a place here where I fit. Yeah, that's so amazing. I do think like. Hiking and outdoor play. An adventure has such an ability to help people build confidence on such a smaller scale. I experience the same thing when I moved to Colorado from the Midwest. Like it? Obviously nothing like moving to a different country, but it did feel so daunting and like foreign to me. It's hard moving no matter what. Like you're restarting your life somewhere new and hiking felt very grounding for me as well. It felt like this thing that I got to kind of forge my own path in a new place, and that was something similar to you. I never grew up doing anything outdoorsy, so I do think just starting a new hobby in a place that is overwhelming to you, it helps you become so much more confident because you're like really having to put yourself out there 100%. Totally. Um, yeah. It's just it's it's such a and it's such a great activity. It doesn't take, um, a ton of money to get started. It's really accessible to anyone. So, I mean, for me, it became this, you know, like, sense of belonging, but it can be so many different things to to anyone. I mean, it's I sort of can't believe that I spent so much of my life not hiking. I know well, and like I said, the lack of barriers to get started, I think is so helpful when you do move somewhere where there's a lot of outdoor adventure opportunities. So many of the different hobbies are really daunting. At least that's how I felt like having done none of them and then moving somewhere where everyone did everything. I was like, well, what can I actually do? Like realistically start out with right now? And hiking was like, okay, like I really just need shoes and like a backpack and I can do it. So I love how accessible it is to pretty much everyone in some way, shape or form. Yeah, that's funny you said that about the all these people doing different activities, because I feel like Colorado and Switzerland are really similar in this. But the golden rule here, I'd say, is that no matter what you're doing, there's always someone doing something more hardcore than you. So you could feel really accomplished, that you've hiked up this super difficult peak, and there's someone hauling up their mountain bike or someone who's base jumping off of it. Right? So it's really it's really cool to be surrounded by so many activities, but it's a little bit like, okay, let's, uh, the walking is good for now. Yeah. You gotta find your place kind of in the midst of all of it. Totally. So tell us a little bit how Swiss hiking is different from us hiking, just in terms of, like, the logistics. Because when you're planning a trip, like to a different country, you do have to factor in all those differences. Yeah. So I think it's I mean, you can tell me too. So I'll rattle off a few things. And I'm curious to know if if this tracks with your experience with hiking in the US. But the first I'll say that I think a lot of people don't expect is that in Switzerland there's the human presence is everywhere, so you're really never that far from civilization. You're often hiking through, you know, a lot of private land, maybe alpine pastures, a village, a hamlet, um. The mountains here again are very accessible, but that kind of means that you're never more than a few hours from. Yeah. Like civilization. So it's not this, like, wide, expansive wilderness you get in the US, where you could hike in a national park and not see people for, you know, days. Sometimes if you're in really in the backcountry. It's. Yeah. It's not like that. Um, and I actually I tell this to my mom, I solo hike a lot and she always gets a bit nervous. And I'm like, I promise you, I'm really. I'm probably 30 minutes from a farmer in, like, any direction here. Yeah. And even if you're up high in the mountains, you know, again, there's like, there's a hut system which we'll talk about in a bit, but you're really kind of there's not that true feeling of being completely off the grid. Yeah. Um, and that, I think, is what, that that's the balance of it being so accessible. Yeah. But I think that's a, that's a surprising thing to some people. Mhm. I kind of like that though as far as just comfort of solo hiking or going out with like friends, like a group of girls, just it's a bit comforting to know that you're not that far from other people at any given moment. Exactly. It's, um. Yeah. It is very comforting to know. And as a bonus, too, you often don't have to bring as much stuff with you because, um, there's many huts and places you can stop that along the way. So that's a really nice logistical point. Um, and the second is that, again, this goes along with it is that is the public transit integration here. So almost every hike is accessible by some form of public transit, like the Swiss train system. I think everyone's heard of it. It's well known it has a well-deserved reputation of being amazing, clean on time. All of that stuff. Um, but there's also a huge network of like trams, buses, ferries, funiculars, gondolas, kind of every form of transit you can think of that gets you to and from the mountains, even, you know, all the way up on top of the mountains. And at least in California, I wasn't really used to taking a gondola or any sort of, you know, public transit anywhere. You know, you definitely had to drive for hours often to get to a certain trailhead. And if you weren't doing a loop or an out and back, you kind of had to navigate how you were going to get back to your car or something. And you don't have to do that here, which is which is great. Um, I've unfortunately gotten far too used to hiking up a mountain and taking the gondola down to save my knees. It's like, um, sometimes on my cheat days I'm like, oh. Just like, find a gondola. Hike up to it and then avoid the descent and save my knees a bit. Yeah, but there's also, like, really fun ways to get down. You could take a mountain coaster down sometimes there are these little bikes called trolleys that you could also take down the mountain. So they've really figured that out. You know, that's so cool. Getting up and down the mountain thing. Yeah. Which is also really fun. Most of those things are made for kids like the coasters and the trots, but they're really fun for adults too. I mean, yeah, we have a great we have a great time doing. Absolutely. It is great for kids. I think about that every time I summit, like a really high peak in Colorado. I'm like, I would give anything to just like take a little shortcut down to save my knees because like, you've already experienced the mountaintop and now you're like, I just want to get down. Totally. I know there's there's this funny, I think real or something on Instagram where it's like maturing, isn't it? Is realizing that it's not the hike up that'll kill you, it's the going down. And I'm like, yeah, true. Yeah, it's really the after 30. It's so real. Totally. Um, so if someone was looking to plan. Yeah. So someone was looking to plan a trip to Switzerland to go hiking, how would they decode the Swiss trail rating system and all the signage to pick routes that match their ability? So first the trails are really well marked and very well maintained. So it's very difficult to get lost on a trail in Switzerland. It's if you're on an official trail. Um, yeah. You know, maybe you could wander off onto a farmer's trail, but for the most part, it's I really never gotten lost on a trail because they're so well marked. Yeah. And they have. So they break down their trails into different categories. So they have three main categories of trails. The first is what they call hiking trails. Um, these are marked as yellow trails and they're called hiking trails, but they're really just more walking paths. So these generally have pretty easy terrain. Some of them are even paved and will be marked as stroller friendly. Um, and these don't require any sort of technical expertise or gear. You could do it in regular walking shoes. You probably don't need any kind of like, hiking equipment. Um, and those are your basic kind of easy trails. I will say this doesn't really apply to elevation gain or descent, so these trails can be very steep. But, um, everything else about it is quite, uh, quite easy terrain. A lot of the times these are the trails that connect villages or alpine villages. Okay. Um, then there are what they call mountain hiking trails. And these are marked as red on a map or red white. And these are what you think of when you think of as. Traditional hiking trails. So this will have like rocky, uneven terrain. There might be some like exposed passages. They'll be secured with some type of chain or wire or something like that. But for these you you would want to have proper hiking gear. So you definitely would want to have hiking shoes or trail runners, maybe some poles, but you don't need any additional equipment like know via ferrata stuff. Um, they don't require technical difficulty, you just need probably stamina, endurance, and again, some basic hiking gear. And most of the iconic trails in Switzerland fall under this category of of mountain hiking trail. And then we have alpine trails. These are marked as blue white and these are more so um, like mountaineering trails. So you might not necessarily need proper equipment, but they might be very exposed, a little bit more dangerous boulder hopping. Sometimes they do cross the glaciers or things like that. And I would recommend people to stay away from those trails, really, unless they know what they're doing and they have a lot of experience and they've done the proper research on those trails. Okay, but once you understand that all the trails are marked and any resort or map will have these color codings, and so that gets you, I think at least like 50% of the way there. Um, and then they always give you the elevation and the distance. So I do think when picking a trail, you do have to have some knowledge of your own ability. Um, and this is where I think that sometimes people forget, you know, to, to do the elevation gain over distance calculation and make sure that they understand sort of what the steepness of the trail is like. Um, but Switzerland is really great in that they most of these trails, you'll be able to look it up online and get that information. Um, and as long as you're not on one of these blue trails, I think that most people can handle a lot of these. A lot of these, uh, mountain hiking trails and definitely the Wander Weg hiking trails. Okay. That's so helpful. Um, yeah. And you mentioned, like, the hut to hut type of hiking. So what is staying in a Swiss mountain hut actually? Like, what do you need to bring? What does that usually look like? Yeah. I mean, the mountain hut experience I think is so special. And there are huts all over the Alps, not just in the Swiss Alps, in the Italian Alps, the French Alps and all of that. But I do think that the Swiss hut culture specifically is very unique. Um, so quickly, when I talk about mountain huts, I'm talking about literal accommodations in the mountains. So there are different places you could stay on a multi-day hike. You could stay like in a village or an alpine town, in a guest house, or, um, a mountain hut. And that's kind of a more remote experience. So I'm talking specifically about this hut experience. Um, and they are literally all over the mountains. Some are really accessible and may be close to a gondola. Some are way high up in the mountains, and you have to cross a glacier to get to them. They really run the gamut. Um, and they're a really big part of Swiss culture, like some of them have been around for 100 years, built for the very first mountaineers, and obviously they've been renovated and refurbished since then. But, um, they're just a really ingrained part of, of the mountain culture here. So they're all unique. But in general, this is what you can expect. You, you know, you hike all day and then you finally arrive at the hut, which is always a really exciting and kind of a bit of a relief depending on how long the hike has been. Um, you leave your boots in the mud room, you slip on your house shoes. A lot of the times they're crocs, but sometimes they're just a type of slipper. Um, and then you enter the hut. A lot of the times from late afternoon onward, people start gathering on the terrace. If it's nice out or in the common room, and dinner is always at a set time, it's generally at around 630. Which I know is a little bit early, but I'm always famished by 630. So I'm very happy to have that early dinner time. Um, and it's really important to be on time because everyone eats together. The huts are always family style, so you're going to be sitting with other hikers. You get a three course meal. Um, normally, like a soup or a salad, a main course and then a dessert. And the food is generally always pretty good. I think it's one of those things where you can't tell if you're just so hungry for your day of hiking that everything tastes good. Um, but really, I think they do a really nice job of giving really hearty food designed to refuel you after a long day of hiking. And they're really great about accommodating different, you know, dietary restrictions, which I think is really cool considering they're working in these like, tiny kitchens. So, um, and they always come around and give seconds if you're hungry. So you'll, you'll never go hungry in a mountain hut, is what I'll say. Yeah. Um, and then after dinner, people hang out. You can look at the stars, and then it's lights out at 10 p.m.. Um. Mainly because people are leaving early in the morning. People want a good night's sleep, so I kind of think of them as like hostels for hikers, because that's a bit what it feels like. Um, and you stay in dorm. The classic way to stay in a hut is to stay in a dormitory. And these there's a wide spectrum of dormitories and Swiss mountain huts. The classic way to sleep is one long mattress, and there's just sort of pillows and blankets in each little section, and you're kind of sleeping right next to your neighbor. Um, it's very cozy. Um, now there's like, bunk beds and, you know, partitions. So it's a little bit more comfortable. And they could be like four people to a room, but also six, eight, 12. I've stayed in a hut where everyone was in one room and it was like 25 people. Oh my gosh. So you need to bring earplugs and an ear mask for sure. If you want to get any type of a good night's sleep. Um, and you also need to bring a sleeping bag liner so the hut will provide, uh, pillows and like a duvet or a comforter and the sleeping bag liner, not the full sleeping bag, but this is just sort of acts as a sheet. Um, and then the the bathrooms are also generally mixed gender and communal as well. Um, most of them have flush toilets. Sometimes they're compost toilets, depending on how remote the hut is. And they all have running water, but it's probably very cold and some have showers, not all of them. And if they do, it's normally like a paid token system and it might not be hot water. And I will be honest and say that out of all the huts I've stayed in, I've showered maybe a handful of times. So I generally just hope that there's an alpine lake along the way, or just embrace the weirdness. I just embrace it. That's what I tell. That's why I tell clients I'm like, listen, no one else is showered, so don't stress out about it. Everyone's been hiking, no one's showering. And yeah, it's it's all it's all part of it. Exactly. Um, and then you have an early morning. Normally breakfast is at, like 7 a.m.. Breakfast is a little bit lighter. Just like tea, coffee, yogurt, bread, cheese. Um, and then you lace up your boots at about 8:00, and then you do it all again the next day. Yeah. Um. It's great. I, I love it. I think it's such a fun, special experience and definitely something anyone who loves hiking, I think should experience a hut to hut at least once I did my first hut to hut, it was in Italy, so we were in the Dolomites. So probably a little bit different, but a little bit the same. And I loved it. I thought the huts were so cool, and I really enjoy the fact that you don't have to carry as much. You're not bringing a ground pad, a tent, a sleeping bag, like all of this heavy stuff, all the food. Like, usually there's just so many considerations for how much you have to pack, and then your pack is so heavy. Like, I think we literally got away with wearing day packs and just like cramming the layers in there. And it was such a different experience. Like my back wasn't aching in the same way. Um, so that's such a plus. And I'm curious if it's the same and that, like, those are kind of the only options. You can't just, like, pitch a tent and camp in the middle of everything. Right. So yes and no. So technically, wild camping is called wild camping gear. That is allowed. There are just like considerations. So you have to be above the tree line. So that's normally around 1800 to 2000m. So you have to be pretty high up and you like can't be near you can't be near a hut, you can't be near a farm. Um, you can't be in, um, like protected land. So you can do it. But there are just a lot of rules and regulations surrounding it. You have to pitch kind of late at night after sundown and then leave in the morning. Um, I think the Dolomites is different because you technically there's regulations where you can't camp, right. And in Switzerland you can. But honestly, you know, we shipped in a container in a container ship, all of our backpacking gear to Switzerland and have used it twice. I think because we just rely on the hut system. And to your point, it's so much easier to get out there and you get really used to having like a hot meal at the end of the day, um, especially if the weather's bad to not have to like, pitch a tent when it's raining or cold outside. It it is so luxurious. It sort of has like why not do that? Yeah. But so it is possible and people do, but there's just um. Quite a few considerations, and it's a bit hard to figure out where you can and cannot camp. So I always tell people, especially if they're coming on a, on a, on a visiting trip here, to just rely on the hut system. And it's something you do have to book in advance. Correct. Like based on your route, you do need to book them in advance. Um, it's not as intense, I think, as the Dolomites or some of the if you're not on a really popular route like the tour de Mont Blanc or the Outer route or the Alta Villa one, you do need a book in advance, but it's not as competitive as some of those very, very, very popular routes. Yeah. So the nice thing about most Swiss huts, Swiss huts is that a lot of them have an online reservation system now, which is great because I also hiked in the Dolomites a few years ago, and you had to email the hut wardens. And wait, it's really, I think, a wild goose chase. Like trying to figure out how to book these huts and you're doing it like a year in advance. You're doing it a year in advance, you're basing your whole route and then kind of have to wait. And if you know one hut falls through in the middle, you're kind of like, okay, I guess I need to reroute my whole thing. It's tricky here. It's much it's much easier. A lot of the huts are bookable online, and you can, you know, you get a reservation confirmation right away. Um, and if you're, if you're doing things a little off the beaten path, you can really get away with booking just a few months in advance, no problem. The exception being if your days happen to cross over a Saturday and Saturdays. That's when all of us locals are trying to get reservations because we just go, you know, for a hot overnight. And those days hook up really, really fast. So if you're looking at your days and you see that your date, your, you know, your your route passes over a Saturday, focus on that hut first and then kind of book around it. Because those ones, I mean, the second thing started opening up. I do all my Saturday night bookings, like in January. Yeah. And just hope for the best. That's good advice. Yeah. So but the rest of them like if you're if you're doing a hike during the week, it's pretty low key. It's pretty relaxed. Again, unless you're doing one of the really popular internationally famous trails, those you do need a book pretty far in advance. Okay. As far in advance as they would allow. And as soon as you have your dates, I would book it. Okay. Um, but if you're for anyone who's, you know, maybe listening to this early next year and want to do a hike, you know, in the early summer and you only have three months, don't despair. There's there's tons of lots of people. Okay. Yeah. So what are the top mistakes that you do see from American hikers coming there? Um, so let's see. So first is timing, I would say, um, planning trips to early in the season. Okay. You really cannot do a a Hutt to Hutt, multi-day Hutt to Hutt trip in May or even early June. Um, most of the huts don't even open until the end of June, some early July. And you can definitely come for a hiking trip in the spring. It's beautiful. The waterfall, the waterfalls are, you know, running and gorgeous. But if you want to string together a hut to Hutt, um, you're going to have to go a bit later in the season. Okay. Um, I would say planning too much in one trip and not giving yourself, like, a buffer day when you arrive. Uh, use the local apps. So there's a lot of local apps local to Switzerland, like the our transit app, our hiking apps. You can get you can get by with Google Maps in all trails, but there are a few local apps here that are great, and they would make your trip so much easier when you're in country. And then finally, I would say only staying in the Berner Oberland or the Jungfrau region that is the most popular part of Switzerland. It is popular for a reason. It is beautiful, but the Alps are massive and expand way beyond that. And so if you want to get a little off the beaten track, there's there's tons of hiking to do throughout the country. And if you're willing to travel a bit more and do a bit more research, then you could get to these really local, authentic places that have the same exact views as the region. But, um. With far less people. Yeah, that's really good to know. And I feel like that's where having, like, someone planning a trip for you who knows these things is so valuable. Yeah, that's. And that's the hard part. So I know a lot of people want to get off the beaten track, but it's it's easy to get overwhelmed. There's a ton of hiking in Switzerland, and a lot of this information isn't easily accessible online. Some of the websites are in German. Um, you kind of. You sometimes have to know a bit more. You have to know how to do the research. You have to know what you're looking for. And that's really hard if you've never been to the country before. So that's why I decided to start my business, just to have a local expert on the ground. So you could book like a consult with me. And that's really just a video call where I learn a bit about your trip, and then we just answer questions. I give personalized recs and give you a starting point for where you can do your own research from there. But again, it's just helpful to have someone to say like, this is where you should be looking, and then you can go from there and plan your own trip and then also custom itineraries. So that's mainly for people who want to do a head to head. But again, the same problem. They maybe want to get off the beaten track. They want to find these local huts, but are just having a hard time finding the information or frankly, don't have the time to put in the hours and hours of research that it takes to plan a hiking trip. I mean, I'm sure you felt this way planning the Dolomites trip. You go down these holes and start researching for hours, weeks on end and it's a lot. So I try to cut out that overwhelm. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. So that's what I try to do and try to help people, um, plan a hike with a bit more confidence and then also teach them how to use all these local apps. So when they're in country, um, you know, I think that the training for your hikes is super important. So making sure you're physically prepared, but also making sure you're confident that like if something happens and I need to reroute my trail last minute, or if my knees are really just giving out and I, you know, don't know what to do, I want to make sure that when people are in country, they have the confidence to reroute their trail or to stay somewhere else, or just know what to do and feel a bit more empowered to make those decisions when they're there. So for me, that educational component as well is, is almost just as important as, um, the physical training and everything else. Yeah. That's so valuable. I wish I would have had someone like you help me plan my trip to the Dolomites. I mean, it turned out great, but it was so time consuming, and you just really do feel like you're decoding a different language when it comes to all of the trail stuff the hut to huts, booking everything, knowing what route you're doing and you're planning a whole other foreign trip. You know, like all the other things about the trip completely, that it just probably gives people that peace of mind and just one less thing that they have to put their brain space into when it comes to planning the trip. Exactly. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, a lot of these. Most of the time people aren't coming just to hype, right? They have a whole other trip they're doing, especially if they're coming from North America. You know, maybe they're doing some other traveling, going to other countries. So this hopefully just cuts out a piece of that. Yeah, absolutely. So where could people connect with you and like kind of learn more about looking into your services if they are planning a trip to Switzerland for hiking? Yeah, they could just go to my website. It's the wander we go Cocom that's for information on me and all my services. I also have a free hiking guide up there right now that people can download. If they want to learn a bit more about hiking in Switzerland. Uh, I have an Instagram called wander. We Go Next, and that's where I just share all the hikes that I'm doing on the weekends. I guess now we're in winter, so it'll be more snowshoeing and skiing content and also just about life in Zurich and and what that's like. And then if they want to see the more personal side, I also have my blog, which is just wander we go and that's just hiking stories. Other trips through Switzerland. Stories about life abroad, all of that. So any of those ways people can get in touch with me and learn a bit more? Awesome. That's so cool. We will link those in the show notes to. So you guys listening can see all of those resources. Connect with Alex. All of that good stuff. Um, awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on today. This has been such a fun episode. I've learned a lot and hopefully this will be really helpful for the listeners too. Great. Thank you so much. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for tuning into this episode of the fit for hiking podcast. As always, I hope it leaves you feeling inspired and informed on how to take your health and adventure into your own hands. For more content like this. Be sure to follow along with my daily posts at Ponytail Underscore. On a trail that's ponytail underscore on a trail. You can also stay up to date on my new episodes being released at Fit Underscore for hiking, and find more free resources at ponytail on Etrailer.com. Happy and healthy trails.