These young people for whom
\ntrekking became a genuine lifestyle, have gone visiting the country gleaning
\nmaterials from all the places they visited with a view to promoting Romania’s
\nmost beautiful regions. Marian Oancea, project manager and chair of the
\n‘Zigzagging through Romania’ Association told us more about this project.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Marian Oancea: Zigzagging
\nthrough Romania Association is a project, which was founded in 2014 with a view
\nto promoting Romania’s natural beauties. We started out as a group of
\nenthusiastic young people and after a while we got organized so that we may be
\nable to promote the beauties of all of Romania’s counties. We stay about 40
\ndays in a county, trying to gather enough material to promote that county, such
\nas photos, articles, videos, which we later make available online so that they
\ncan be used by others as well.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
In the past five years these young
\npeople have created another lifestyle, as Marian told us: <\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Marian Oancea: We did
\nnothing else but stayed in every county, learned about the people and their
\nstories, and that made us to really fall in love with this country and its
\nbeauty.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Cosmina, another member of this
\nassociation told us about how she was influenced by this experience.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Cosmina: I used to be very
\nlackadaisical; wouldn’t go trekking in the mountains or wake up in the morning
\nto visit a certain tourist objective. So, I have been out of my comfort zone
\nfor years now and that has changed me, disciplined me from many points of view.
\nNot that I am a very organized person now but I can see things from a different
\nangle.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Cosmina has also told us how this
\nassociation actually works. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Cosmina: We actually spend
\n40 days in every county and trip-planning is done beforehand. We start
\ncontacting people from the travel business area of that county in order to find
\nout what places are worth visiting and what stories we can learn. We are
\nfocusing on less-known tourist objectives, which we later promote on our blog.
\nOn the first day we go to the Information Center to see how they do tourist
\npromotion and we start spending three-four days in every area of that county,
\nbe it town, village according to the region’s tourist potential.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
So that’s how they ended up talking about 36 counties, which find their
\npromotion stories online. The online content needs, of course, to be updated,
\nso the project to which these young people have dedicated themselves does, in
\neffect, never end, Marian says:<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Marian Oancea: Apart from the online environment, which we are now
\ntrying to update as much as we can, so that it is accessible to any type of
\nuser, we’ll also try to create a platform that personalises our travel
\nrecommendations according to specific target groups to save people time and for
\nthem not to end up visiting tourist sites that are not suitable to them. I have
\nseen so far 2-3,000 tourist sites and a lifetime is not enough to see
\neverything, so it’s nice when someone helps you make a selection before you
\nstart on your journey.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
These young people really love
\nRomania. Here’s Marian again:<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Marian Oancea: First of all, you don’t need a map to see beautiful
\nthings in Romania. The only thing you need to do is open your eyes and enjoy
\nwhat’s around you and even imagine your are a local, put yourself in his or her
\nshoes, talk to the people, relax and start appreciating all the beautiful
\nthings around you. I think the biggest challenge people in general face is
\nbeing able to maintain this positive vibe and see these beautiful things.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
It’s an experience that poses many different challenges, as Marian told
\nus:<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Marian Oancea: The greatest joy was being able to embark on this
\njourney with our friends and having a great time whenever we visited a new
\ncounty. The least pleasant part was leaving some other friends behind, as well
\nas our families, who weren’t very supportive of what we were doing in the
\nbeginning and who we have managed to convince in time that we would be able to
\nsee the whole of Romania in this way.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Marian wonders in fact:<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Marian Oancea: Why is it that young people don’t appreciate this
\ncountry more? I think the answer is because their parents don’t know the
\ncountry very well themselves and so they don’t instil this sentiment in their
\nchildren, so that they would pass it on and embrace this Romanian spirit.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The example given by these young people is an invitation to get to know
\nRomania better and set about to discover it with enthusiasm. <\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
(translated by Cristina Mateescu & bill)<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A group of young people realized they actually live in a lovely country and set out to know it better<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":135865,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42520],"tags":[43222,43221,116464,43223],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-135864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inside-romania","tag-cosmina","tag-oancea","tag-romania-en","tag-zigzagging"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n