I. Norway

Like usual, to the beginning of any book, essay or newspaper article, you wonder what you are facing. You see the mountains of words ahead that you will dig through and ask yourself what would be in it for you… is this another person who had the privilege to make a journey through the relatively overpriced Norway and now wants the world to know, how great they did. Oh yes, absolutely and most certainly! Where would my ego go if I wouldn’t attempt to make the most of a great time I had and while at it showcase it to the world?
This journal in front of you is supposed to be a little more. It’s written for my family and dearest friends as much as for the Community of Gen.ZM. I went through incredible times and this was certainly one of them. BUT, it’s not about showing off or simply pointing out that I did something, that you haven’t had the chance to, yet. No! This instead is supposed to be a guideline. This story presents the real struggles of my first ever backpacking attempt and I picked the freezing march of Norway for it. I didn’t know before that I would live a couple days in the neighbour street of the King’s palace. I certainly didn’t plan on sleeping right next to 400 metre cliffs in stormy nights and most of all - I had no clue to encounter buddhist monks on the way and make a few days living together with them happening. 

The story outline is set and if it wasn’t for more I could just stop right here. If I did short clips and post them on Social Media, your idea about the happenstances would be about this much. But we’re in it for more. I’m sitting here, penetrating my keyboard, because I know that there are unique insights, teachings, ideas and perspectives, useful to anyone and that you can not only throughlive this whole adventure side to side to my words, but that in them lies evidence, that you can do anything I did just as well. It is the living statement of possibilities that I am trying to hold on ‘paper’. It’s supposed to be a guideline when it’s about traveling or doing new, unexpected things. My tellings want to take you by the hand and send you on a journey inside of our imagination. Moment by moment which I describe, you will further on realise that they are all real and that there are no fictional jumps. Nothing unreal happening, expect the natural flow of things, which I’m still struggling to see as normal. To live Life the way you currently do it, was a choice. Maybe unconscious and full of decisions stretched over such a time period, that you lost sight of how things came into place… take those pages ahead to reignite that inner fire, striving to live your time on earth to the fullest. To make those dreams happening and to find yourself at the place and the time, where your potential is needed most. It certainly exists.

Travelling doesn’t have to be your holiday occupation seen as free time. During travel you meet the people who will further on influence your Life to the fullest. You will get to know yourself in various situations by simply observing how you react. Your social facets blossom and your insights about Life and Nature on Earth are cleansed from the dirt of long and weary routines. Here you can breathe freedom and live Moment by Moment. Your Mind opens towards the beings of the world and you make some first hand experiences instead of being held down to be a passive consumer of content like News, Movies and Social Media. You find your active role and see yourself as a part of the world, in which stuff is really happening. That’s you! 

I’m optimistic that there is a way and traveling is a good path towards it. I’m telling you this, dear reader, unknowing about your current life situation. If its you, who sat in the same job for way to long and you have the feeling to only ever have experiences things in smaller parts, then here lies the opportunity to think beyond when planning your next holidays. - If you are a person in the time of school or shortly afterwards, maybe in studies, too busy with great learning efforts so you didn’t get the chance to reflect on if what you’re doing suits you - if you never got the time and chance to get to know yourself, to find your passion and love for things, to understand the world and your own being into it - I write these words exactly for you. I wish that you don’t take a random choice to simply do at least something, but pray that you consider traveling for this is where real Life education comes from. Where we get to know who we are and in what world we are placed. Human studies. Here you grow the roots of free and independent thinking, which is so most crucial for this current world. Get to know what we are fighting to keep, see the natural beauty of this planet and when you have seen enough - ask yourself! Who are you?

So, who am I and if so, how many?

I’m an idea. I’m a path of freedom, unity and clearness. 

A force stronger than nature pulls us into our places but we can tense and resist to stick right where we are. I tried to let go and it took me into the worldly realm. From a year in Canada into the freezing Norway, after which I walked from Alicante, Spain back to my origin in Germany, Berlin which took 14 weeks. Followed by another whole year in Tansania, by then backpacking barefoot for 7 weeks solo without any money. I’m writing these words in loving memories of the fabulous way, that brought me to where I am now. Tanzania, East-Africa. Volunteering once again, knee deep into a year’s experience. What most people don’t get to see, is that traveling is a life style. The time you have and the way you spend it, will be the life you look back on. It’s the stories you can give to your children, it’s the perception of your own Self. And let’s recall - it’s a choice. You can make this choice just now. Right in this Moment. And through the following days and weeks, your idea will adapt, change, get more specific and nurtured. Inspiration is everywhere and it’s about your own way, so try to be most creative. Follow me through Norway and see if this is something for you. It’s traveling with minimum resources, camping in the wild, very limited money but it is the richest ever possible in human value exchange and the memories it will create will have the value of gold. You can relive such an experience anywhere, at any time. If you want.

Alright, you managed to come through the discombobulated life statements of a 20 year old. Well, hi! I am Lennart, the being on the other side of the screen. I see you and I appreciate you reading to the fullest. Back in the March of 2025 I was still 19. I finished volunteering on Vancouver Island, had started wood work as an apprenticeship, carpentry, and fled after three months. Self studies accompanied me through the winter time, as much as writing my first book. In the depths of clearness during 19 days of New-Years-Fasting, 461 hours without food, something became clear to me. Being lost in the immense size of the reality we’re living in, is one thing. I fell in love with this feeling to be lost, without a destination and appreciated it through words of poetry, which stated that being lost means, that you are still striving, still reaching for the stars instead of settling on what is. Choosing comfort over the adventure of life wasn’t my plan anymore. It’s about to not rest, to not give up and to be done with the life forces. But I figured it would be more enjoyable to feel lost while being in the broad and big world, instead of sitting at home at the kitchen table not knowing what to do. I did the classic and thought about breaking out. Out of daily life routines, out of the known and usual. Then I did the thing, which is rarer than thinking of something - I started acting. Acting through planning. Only that at first. I want you to do that, too. Take a piece of paper and take it sideways. Write the name of your dream country in the middle, draw a small circle around and leave it like that for now. Do it and it will evolve into the next adventure. It is just about taking first actions. Go ahead! Stop here and choose to be an active reader who is ready to face a small butterfly change in your own life!

I simply liked the idea of Norway in the setting that was already vaguely existing in my head. I had 600 Euros which I could call my own and a whole month of March without any plans in it. Yet. I took an online map and started imagining routes from city to city. For me it felt beyond important to do the planning of a Norway tour with only the pictures of imagination I had in my head about this country. Not a single Google Scroll of pictures happened, no YouTube videos and no panorama documentaries about Scandinavia. Life gifts good karma if you approach new things without expectations. And pictures can ruin a lot for me, personally. Up to you!

I used my artificial large language model helper to come up with genius routes and my colleague of the mind failed due to lack in creating non existent, creative projects. Hail to the human brain instead! I managed to plan a route in a little less than three hours but never ended up using it. Except for the starting point -Oslo. I did the rest of the planning on the way. From the warmth of one Café to the next town and its nature with my tent until I find the next place to rest and use my phone without losing fingers while at it. The DIN-A4 paper with all these fancy ideas in front of myself was just for my parents who had been through a rough time of worries. A fasting son pushing human limits of starvation and now the idea to make Norway happening during Winter, when they know I have only camped in our backyard as elementary school kid before. I felt not just a little sorry and therefore praising them awareness, caution, enough warm clothing and a knife were important. Also they made me learn how a Grizzly looks like and how to behave in an encounter. The most useless knowledge in the world, I can promise you. Give a movie called ‘The Revenant’ a try, a wonderful movie which blisses you with a little more insight and caution. For Canada my parents told me, that Vancouver Island is filled with many Black Bears and their saying was to make noise and fight back. Now for Brown Bears in Norway they say to pretend I’m dead to all costs. Delightful… back to the planning and the organisation. And props to my German Mind to take planning with so much ease… is that the ignorance of youth I’m smelling?

My mom was an active force when it came to equipment. You need a small but good tent? My mum found one and until today I’m sleeping inside of it, even now in Tanzania. Here’s a link from which I don’t profit. I started the practise of sleeping in that tent right when I got it. Unfortunately that was only a week before I went off. So sleeping on an inflatable mat seems to be most awkward and you will certainly hate it. Therefore I took it before I got the tent into my room, where there stands a bed that I have used three times in the last four months. I put the mat on my grey thin room carpet on which I usually sleep and started to get used to the blue inflated mat night by night. Having air in between you and the frozen ground will prove essential, so I figure, laying in my tent freezing to death with new fallen snow around me, still in Germany, Bavaria. Ok, so it must be about a fabulous sleeping bag, which keeps you alive and warm, right? Those warm and comfortable wool condoms. Yes and no. It’s a technique on which I will need to work throughout the journey in order to keep my toes where they are and to not humidify the inside of my clothing’s shell. Two nights without any sleep were the first ever experiences I made when camping in our backyard surrounded by snow. Amazing - totally couldn’t have lived without it. My respect grew of what was ahead. Rarely I realized that I had zero clue about what I was about to do. Good for me.

Looking back I now realize that people have actually asked me, if I would know what winter in Norway looks like. Those people have been there, seen it, knowing that March is a well integrated part of this winter time. I can now see how I clearly erased them from my consciousness until now. It really seemed as if nothing could stop me and it could’ve costed me more than just financial trauma or a few lost toes. But Beginners Luck determines: the first try is for free. And if not, the first one will be the last. Shortcut!

Also almost for free was my backpack and until today I haven’t regretted many things more than this purchase. That honestly is a stylistic lie, pardon… the Backpack costed my leftover budged from the carpenter apprenticeship 30 Euros and it exists even today, after in total 17 weeks of backpacking until November of this year. But a little spoiler: for December I planned on doing a one month tour through most of Tanzania, through the Serengeti, along Mount Meru und the Kilimanjaro over to the Indian Ocean cost down to Dar es Salaam. Save that journey to your reading list if you’re interested already, or stick to the holy chronology if your mind is enduring enough. My backpack doesn’t own a single detail to it, that hasn’t ripped by now. I learned how to knot properly and how to sew rips close, all thanks to this Honker.

If we look at what I packed, I spare you with some details but mainly it was a lot of clothing, two pairs of shoes, a survival kit and a first-aid kit, the tent in form of a long and thin chunk, my super bulky sleeping bag, one sketchbook and another one I will receive as a gift from Nina. Nina is somewhat of a soulmate of mine and so is her companion Martin. Martin?? (Vielleicht linke ich Spanien und Personenbeschreibung dazu) You know him? How come… did you snitch and discover Spain first? That’s fine. Martin and Nina were some of the last faces I saw before heading into the bus at Berlin. And Nina gifted the impactful but small book ‘Das Haus der Frauen’, ‘The House of Women’ which we will discuss throughout the journey. 

I put my backpack on and step onto a scale. I don’t want to become too personal now, but the number of my body weight, which was still trying to reattain what was lost throughout the fasting period from the beginning of the year, saw itself added by another 24 kilograms. Problem being: I haven’t added food nor water to the floppy mix yet and was surprised that my back taught me a lesson about how it feels to be an idiot. I sighted in agony and will only learn through time, that the human body is able to adapt to almost anything. Starting from week two I will walk straight again and my back muscles will be capable of carrying my friend of the behind over long distances and up into mountains of the Preikestolen. 

Thanks to my beloved family for being supportive and sweet even for such a moronic way of living. They smiled and worried and made my heart ache. Therefore this story is a gift to you, since you have gifted life and opportunities upon myself. Cheers guys!

Here we are. Sitting by yourself in a bus. It’s a weird, not new, but still moving feeling. What lays ahead is only the unknown and that moment of entering it, is when you leave everything behind that you knew before. It’s a funky mix of excitement, respect and love for freedom. The seats of the Flexi-Bus I’m sitting on are rather comfortable, the person to my left rather friendly when he’s awake, but a monster of snoring when falling asleep during the nine hours of driving through the night. We get through one control and my German passport is luckily valid. In the morning it is Copenhagen, slowly opening in front of us and here I will spend a day walking through the entire city to reach the other end, from where my ferry will take off towards Oslo. 

So there is one day we are about to spend walking through Copenhagen and one upcoming night we will again spend moving on a vessel - this time the ship, which arrives early at eight in Oslo, where snow will start falling very soon after.

You might wonder if one is scared to be the first time around with your backpack and tent. Without company in a foreign country, a cold one, too, zero plan and less than zero experiences… I for myself was just wondering about how it would be like and was excited for the following. To be able to feel fear, I assume one needs an imagination of what’s going to be happening. I for myself was totally clueless and very ignorant towards potential dangers. Also I have a trust in myself, beyond reasonable levels, and since my life wasn’t confronted with real issues yet, there wasn’t a reason to make some potential dangers and risks up. With other words: I was really doing good. Just new things to see and do and more freedom than usually. What’s not to like?

Therefore I can now welcome you to the journey. Let the impossible be our chance to everything.

Despite those pictures being rather random, I will integrate this sort of picture adding to the end of each chapter on Norway’s path. Then in the following chapters these pictures will be connected to the written happenstances, tho. In the middle of the writing process I would find them distractive towards our imagination’s work. Would you buy a book with colored pictures in between the lines?

Stay true until then! Try something new, everyday, greet somebody warmly, be in a Moment as if this one will turn into a golden memory of your age. And keep on going. Nothing is lost!