My Slovenia Habit

As the owner of a travel business, I sometimes compare my predicament to that of a drug dealer. You see, it takes great discipline to maintain focus when you have unlimited access to the drugs, especially when both your team and your clients are constantly singing their praises. And yet, as every responsible drug dealer will tell you, every now and then you need to get high on your own supply – if only for the purposes of quality control. And so it was that in July I flew to Venice, picked up a rental car, and drove 2 hours to the border in Slovenia, to understand what all the fuss was about. 

For several years now our clients have been RAVING about their Trufflepig trips in Slovenia, gushing you might say, and while I know first hand how good our in-house planner Claudia Schwenger is, not to mention how amazing our Slovenian friends and partners are – well, it just felt irresponsible of me not to do a little “research” of my own. And if you haven’t yet guessed the outcome (we drug dealers are predictable if nothing else) – it was amazing and I still haven’t come down.

For me, hospitality is the ultimate expression of a culture, and yet I find hospitality these days too often formulaic – corrupted, co-opted and hollowed out by the industrialization of tourism. Slovenia, by contrast, delivered me one of the most genuine welcomes I have experienced in decades. Here I found real warmth and character were accompanied by polished service, rather than replaced by it. And it doesn’t hurt that the country is beyond blessed with beauty of every variety imaginable – all in a tiny, tight package that means you never have to drive more than 2 hours to experience something new. 

With just 8 days and nights to play with, we biked through the rolling hills and vineyards of Goriška Brda, got our hands dirty truffle hunting in the Karst region, went spelunking in Europe’s deepest cavern, learned history through our stomachs in Ljubljana, circumnavigating picturesque Lake Bled on foot, ate at a Michelin 3-star and then went hiking in the magnificent Julian Alps. Slovenia contains multitudes. 

Despite the long hair, leather pants, mutton chops and many other bad decisions from my youth, I have never been a drug dealer. But in my humble opinion Slovenia is the closest thing to a cure-all, and I suggest you go now as it’s about to blow up.