A group of young people realized they actually live in a lovely country and set out to know it better
These young people for whom trekking became a genuine lifestyle, have gone visiting the country gleaning materials from all the places they visited with a view to promoting Romania's most beautiful regions. Marian Oancea, project manager and chair of the 'Zigzagging through Romania' Association told us more about this project.
Marian Oancea: "Zigzagging through Romania Association is a project, which was founded in 2014 with a view to promoting Romania's natural beauties. We started out as a group of enthusiastic young people and after a while we got organized so that we may be able to promote the beauties of all of Romania's counties. We stay about 40 days in a county, trying to gather enough material to promote that county, such as photos, articles, videos, which we later make available online so that they can be used by others as well."
In the past five years these young people have created another lifestyle, as Marian told us:
Marian Oancea: "We did nothing else but stayed in every county, learned about the people and their stories, and that made us to really fall in love with this country and its beauty."
Cosmina, another member of this association told us about how she was influenced by this experience.
Cosmina: "I used to be very lackadaisical; wouldn't go trekking in the mountains or wake up in the morning to visit a certain tourist objective. So, I have been out of my comfort zone for years now and that has changed me, disciplined me from many points of view. Not that I am a very organized person now but I can see things from a different angle."
Cosmina has also told us how this association actually works.
Cosmina: "We actually spend 40 days in every county and trip-planning is done beforehand. We start contacting people from the travel business area of that county in order to find out what places are worth visiting and what stories we can learn. We are focusing on less-known tourist objectives, which we later promote on our blog. On the first day we go to the Information Center to see how they do tourist promotion and we start spending three-four days in every area of that county, be it town, village according to the region's tourist potential."
So that's how they ended up talking about 36 counties, which find their promotion stories online. The online content needs, of course, to be updated, so the project to which these young people have dedicated themselves does, in effect, never end, Marian says:
Marian Oancea: "Apart from the online environment, which we are now trying to update as much as we can, so that it is accessible to any type of user, we'll also try to create a platform that personalises our travel recommendations according to specific target groups to save people time and for them not to end up visiting tourist sites that are not suitable to them. I have seen so far 2-3,000 tourist sites and a lifetime is not enough to see everything, so it's nice when someone helps you make a selection before you start on your journey."
These young people really love Romania. Here's Marian again:
Marian Oancea: "First of all, you don't need a map to see beautiful things in Romania. The only thing you need to do is open your eyes and enjoy what's around you and even imagine your are a local, put yourself in his or her shoes, talk to the people, relax and start appreciating all the beautiful things around you. I think the biggest challenge people in general face is being able to maintain this positive vibe and see these beautiful things."
It's an experience that poses many different challenges, as Marian told us:
Marian Oancea: "The greatest joy was being able to embark on this journey with our friends and having a great time whenever we visited a new county. The least pleasant part was leaving some other friends behind, as well as our families, who weren't very supportive of what we were doing in the beginning and who we have managed to convince in time that we would be able to see the whole of Romania in this way."
Marian wonders in fact:
Marian Oancea: "Why is it that young people don't appreciate this country more? I think the answer is because their parents don't know the country very well themselves and so they don't instil this sentiment in their children, so that they would pass it on and embrace this Romanian spirit."
The example given by these young people is an invitation to get to know Romania better and set about to discover it with enthusiasm.
(translated by Cristina Mateescu & bill)
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