Welcome to the Stunning Outdoors – a blog created out of our love for nature, travelling and photography!
We both have been outdoors enthusiasts since very young age (Ela has conquered Rysy – the highest mountain in the Polish Tatras when she was 13 years old). At the time Poland was relatively closed country and we couldn’t travel as freely as we can now, but despite this we spent a lot of time in Polish and Slovak mountains, enjoying the great outdoors and naturally developing our love for mountains.
The passion for hiking developed even more when we moved to Scotland, a country rich in majestic hills and mountains. We do 1-day hikes as well as multiple day hikes and wild camping overnight, we also love discovering hidden gems of remote shores, little white-sanded beaches of the North. In few words we travel in search of tranquillity of mountains, rocky shores combined with crystal clear waters. This blog is a place where we want to share with you our adventures, pictures and more. We also want this blog to be a place where YOU can share your walking ideas with us, a place where we can support and inspire each other to be outdoors as much as possible.
We strongly believe that reconnecting with nature can help us to re-balance and put our lives in perspective, that we come back refreshed and stronger after time spent in the wild.
We want to connect with everyone who shares our passion, not necessary hard-core adrenaline seekers, but people who love to travel and search for walking and hiking ideas. We want to be ambassadors of the great outdoors and create space where you can find details of short and long hikes and walks in various countries, road trips and cycling ideas. We travel slow and often talk to locals to find paths we want to walk on. We don’t focus on providing guidance for beginners and most hikes we do would require some walking experience already. However, one needs to start somewhere therefore don’t worry, we share easy but rewarding walks as well. In a nutshell we focus on providing route ideas for self-guided walks, information on camping and wild camping possibilities etc.
We believe that driving through awesome scenery won’t provide the same experience as spending half day to explore the area by foot. We believe that less is more when it comes to road trips. Hope you are already convinced that this blog is a good space to hang around and let’s get inspired!
Recently we took time off and travelled for few months in our self-converted camper van. This is a new blog, but we aim to write a new post every week. Therefore please sign-up to stay tuned!
What Ela says about Bea
She’s not your regular chartered accountant! Bea has always been very passionate about the outdoors, especially mountains. When we met (in early 90s!) it was her who introduced me to hillwalking, I can never thank her enough for that! Nowadays, she still is a driving force of our team. I greatly appreciate her navigational skills, her never ending enthusiasm, the ever-present ‘let’s go a little bit further, let’s see what’s around the corner’. Bea also has an incredible gift of finding stunning locations, remote hidden gems. And lastly, she has thousand ideas per minute… life is never boring with her! Within recent years she developed great curiosity and love for ‘northern countries’, I can’t wait to see what’s awaiting us in near future.
Bea on Grytetipen summit, Senja, Norway
What Bea says about Ela:
Ela is extremely enthusiastic, always! New place, new mountain, cycling up the hill- she is always up for it! She has this tendency to always be in the lead while trekking as she always knows where to go. And she is never in a rush when being outdoors as there is always picture to be taken or a rock to be checked out. Her passion, apart from photography, is geology; therefore the best souvenirs she brings home are a good picture and a heavy rock!
She has plenty of stories to tell while we take a walk and I love to listen to them! She is also really good with languages which helps us greatly. She can book accommodation in every language just after couple of days of being in a country!
Ela exploring the remote shores of Helgeland, Norway
We hope you will find this site helpful, resourceful and inspirational. Hope to see you again soon!
Ela & Bea
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