I’m a designer by trade, but my incessant obsessions have always been culture, nature, history and mythology, particularly of my lovely homeland Bulgaria and the wider region of the Balkans. I’ve travelled a fair bit – I’ve taught English as a volunteer in Chilean Patagonia and I’m currently doing a master’s in North Germany – but I’ve never been able to get Bulgaria and the Balkans out of my mind
, so with this blog I’m giving an outlet to this passion of mine. I love hiking, antique architecture, the Middle Ages, off-the-beaten-path destinations, languages and traditional food and drink, so expect to be reading a lot about those! In Bulgarian, ‘kashkaval tourist’ (кашкавал турист) is a joke term mostly used to refer to amateur hikers – those people who go to the mountains bringing ample lunch food and stopping to have an hour-long picnic as opposed to following the strict schedule of ‘serious’ mountaineers. Since kashkaval is a delicious kind of Bulgarian yellow cheese (a must try when visiting the country!) and this blog focuses on tourism opportunities, I thought it fitting to use the term as the name of my blog. Hence the cheese grater-turned-suitcase I’m using for the logo!
