🩰 Around the World in Climbing Shoes: 2024–2025 Sabbatical

From lush jungles to rugged coastlines, sandstone cliffs to alpine granite, Jeff and I dedicated the last year to climbing and exploring some of the world’s most stunning destinations. Here’s a location-by-location guide to our adventures.

The start of the sabbatical

The first three months of 2024 were an absolute chaotic turmoil, but we finally picked up the pieces and started our Sabbatical!

We quit our jobs, sold our car, sold our condo, literally gave away all our furniture, and put all of our remaining possessions in a tiny storage unit.

🌴 Costa Rica: Envision Festival & Climbing

First stop Costa Rica for some hikes, climbs, nature, music, and friends.
With one gigantic backpack and one ukulele each, we set off around the globe together as life partners, climbing partners and love of each other’s lives.

Climbing: Two spots we climbed at around the country Cachi and Farallon Flamingo
Stay & Logistics: Stay at Cachi, that’s all. Flamingo has AirBnBs
Highlights: Climbing in the jungle and belaying in tide pools. Attending Envision Festival with Sasha and Kate.
Reflections: Envision was an amazing time, meeting new friends, doing lots of yoga and workshops, eating Krishna Kitchen food and of course dancing our butts 🍑 🍑 off all night for a week.

🇮🇳 India: Sandstone & Spirituality

Firsts:
✅Sleeper train!
✅Tuk tuk
✅ripped off by a tuk tuk
✅time in India for Jeff (Priti has been here 5 times)

Badami – Bangalore

Hanging with the monkeys 🐒 climbing next to a temple, riding on Tuk Tuks and visiting temples carved into the rocks thousands of years ago.

Highlights: Sport climbing on beautiful sandstone in Badami
Notable Routes: Sloper 7b, Fridge 7c+ (no send)
Stay & Logistics: We stayed in a room hosted by Umesh where climbers often stay. Contact Ganesha who is the best PR guy for Badami
Reflections: I have visited India 5 times previously, but this was the first time for climbing. I absolutely loved South India, way more than North India (sorry!) and the climbing in the Temple Area was really well set up, with shade at some angle all day.

Mayapur & Vrindavan

Our last week in India, we spent some time in West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, visiting temples, eating a wide variety of cuisines, and finishing a 15 mile hike around the popular pilgrimage site of Govardhan Hill. We visited Mayapur during Gaurapurnima, the auspicious appearance day of Lord Gauranga, in his birthplace. It was absolutely packed, in a shove or be shoved fashion. I threw Jeff into the deep end with the spiritual tourism and it was not entirely pretty. Elephants, people and tuktuks crowded the streets filled with incense, flower garlands and saris. Huge vats of prasadam were served on banana leaves to the hoards of pilgrims. We visited Vrindavan and had shoes stolen, and were pushed on our way through the sacred fenced monkey gardens of Lord Krishna’s birthplace. It was a trial by fire. Over the course of 20 days in India, we hit three corners of the country and couldn’t scratch the surface. There is so much variety and exciting places to explore in India that will deserve many more trips.

Experience: Pilgrimage, spiritual reflection, and utter religious tourism chaos
Reflections: I cleansed my mind and soul in the Ganges, but my phone could not withstand such purification and a little water killed it. The chaos of modern pilgrimage proved to be too overwhelming.

We spent our anniversary today at the Taj Mahal and it was truly a remarkable experience. Definitely NOT a basic tourist trap, but an absolute must-see on anyone’s bucket list.

🇬🇷 Greece: Tufa Paradise

Leonidio

We met Ian Cooper who became our climbing coach, and Daphne. We also met up with Jeff and Rose Klassen who we knew through Clipping Chains, a financial freedom climbing podcast that we both did an interview on. We also met tons of others climbers like Jan, Sascha, Alexis and Soae traveling in their van through Europe.

Highlights: Climbing with coach Ian Cooper, Daphne, Jeff & Rose Klassen (from Clipping Chains), Alexis, and Soae, Jan, Sascha. Jeff redpointed his first 7b+
Stay & Logistics: Tons of cute AirBnBs. Check out the local climbing hang out Panjika, related to the climbing store and guidebook author. There’s also community yoga and acro.
Reflections: Great community here. Lots of crags but you need a vehicle. Nearly every season is climbable.

Kyparissi

Highlights: Babala was inspiring and quite new. Watermill was more accessible for me
Stay & Logistics: AirBnB, or Kyparissi lodging. Or Van down by the beach
Reflections: Van life at the beach and climbing at the Waterwheel and Babala were the local lifestyle flavor of choice. Idyllic remote work van-migratory patterns observed

Kalymnos

Highlights: Island scooter vacation climbing. Met up with Eric and Alli and Doug from Washington. I redpointed my first 7b+, Tufantastic. Tufas galore!
Stay & Logistics: AirBnB. Fly in to the island. Buffer days for weather to leave as the planes might be delayed.
Reflections: Lots of crags and styles. A climber tourist vibe. Great quality climbing.

Athens

Highlights: Restoration on the Parthenon is still ongoing (neverending).
Reflections: Real big history. Makes Rome look kind of recent.

Climbed THE OTHER Mount Olympus (there is one in Washington) with 45mph gusts. It’s so close to the Aegean Sea, you can see it from the summit. 12.2 miles 8:35 hours 7,180 feet elevation gain

Manikia

Highlights: You can climb routes that are very very new! This is Greece’s newest crag and it’s sparsely visited. Watch out for portable holds and uncertain grading. If you send your hardest route ever, watch out for it being downgraded later.
Stay & Logistics: Hotels which can be expensive, since it’s still a tourist destination by the beach
Reflections: Nearly climbed a 7c+ which would have completed my year goal very early! It seemed soft though 🤷

Meteora

Highlights: Meteora is lots of runout cobblestone climbing on really spectacular and unique towers, often capped with monasteries, half still operating.
Stay & Logistics: AirBnB. It was too hot when we came. Cams are useful for some routes, but maybe you can leave them behind and climb the similarly runout sport routes.
Reflections: Very cool area to see, even just as a tourist. Not sure I need to go for round 2 for the climbing itself, but it’s a worthwhile adventure in so many ways. At least to feel like you are in an AI generated reality which includes climbing and heavily features monks.

🇮🇹 Italy: Limestone Cliffs

Finale Ligure

Finale Ligure is well known as an Italian seaside climbing destination. We found out that this classic crag is quite stiffly graded and bolts are spread out. Those older routes put up in the 70s and 80s kept us on our toes and our egos in check. Val Pennevaire nearby was more modernly graded and bolted.

Here’s a sample of crags and climbs around Finale Ligure that we have climbed at.

Grotta dell’Edera – super classic cave that you can approach down a fixed line from above, or through a cave with headlamps from below
Monte Cucco – pocketed, reachy, sequencey and spaced bolting in Finale
Emisfero – easier climbs in Pennevaire, crimpy, similar for Nevermind crag in WA
Eboristeria – in Pennevaire, modern fun crag woth some roofs. Popular!
Parete Dimenticata – we totally sandbagged our new climber friends on some 5c’s/5.9s that felt more like 6b/5.10c. Of course this was in Finale Ligure area.

The Classic Finale Ligure areas (aka from the 70s) are very fun climbs, but so hard for the grade! I think the grading comes purely from the sizes of the pockets on the route, not the angle of the rock, technical nature or upper body strength required 😉

Experience: Coastal climbing, social vibes. Very very sandbagged and runout routes in the original area. Modern grading, bolting and climbing in Val Pennevaire

🇫🇷 France: Limestone Runouts & Olympic Inspiration

Céüse

There’s a steep learning curve at Céüse, dealing with the runouts and stiff grades and lead-head trouble, but my head game improved a lot over the trip.

The cliff attracts so many talented climbers. We met a lot of amazing new friends who taught us a lot, including the importance of lake-side rest days!

We were very fortunate to have crusher @alisa.etoh.owens as our roommate who has been here many times and gave us a thorough introduction to Céüse climbing, inspiring us to pull hard! Lots more routes on the bucket list to come back for next time. 🎉

Highlights: Climbing with Alisa, Thomas Prenn, Alex. Met Jordan Canon and Jan Virt!
Routes Climbed: I redpointed the best 7a+ in the world, Angel Dust as recommended by Jonathan Seigrist. Jeff redpointed many 7a-7b’s
Reflections: Personally this trip was a kick in the butt to my ego. I had fun paragliding down from the cliffs with Sebrand and Jeff had less fun with the turbulence

Paris Olympics

On a spur-of-the-moment stroke of brilliance, Jeff and I bought outrageously expensive tickets to go see the rock climbing competition at the Olympics in Paris. Little did we know at the time, incredibly affordable tickets were issued at a certain time every week and you just had to sign up then. When we later learned this, we bought tickets to the remaining climbing events very cheaply. I regret nothing, because it truly was an incredible experience

Jeff’s family came to visit us for the first week on their first ever Europe trip. They stayed with us in a lovely HomeExchange in the 4th Arrondissement. They were absolutely in love with Paris. ✨

After they left went to five of the climbing Olympics events including all four finals (Men’s and Women’s Speed, Men’s and women’s Lead/Boulder). Our dear friend, the famous Italian movie star 😍, @thomasprenn came to stay with us and watch the Olympics.

Seeing all of this talent on stage was the opportunity of a lifetime, and the excitement in the stadium was off the charts. Adam Ondra for his (likely) final Olympic appearance; Brooke Raboutou and Sam Watson bringing home medals for Team USA 🇺🇸; the GOAT Janja Garnbret showing absolute determination 🥇; plus getting selfies with celebrity hero’s of ours in the crowd (Alex Honnold, Lynn Hill, Chris Sharma, Sean Bailey).

Experience: Lots to do in Paris, also some nice climbing gyms
Reflections: Grateful to host Jeff’s family! Attending climbing competition, table tennis, water polo events, with Thomas Prenn was the experience of a lifetime

🇩🇪 Germany: Urban Exploration & Community

Frankenjura

We so happened to sit next to Jana at one of the Olympic climbing events and she heard us discussing where to stay in the Frankenjura, when we headed there next. She invited us to stay and we happily were the first paying guests of their amazing downstairs apartment.

@janamuenzenberg and @chrstph.klbl were the very best hosts, and their son was the cutest kid.

I am SO GLAD that we visited the classic Frankenjura. The crags are spread out but we visited some of the classic routes and I loved the quality pockets and bouldery movement. The Routes are test pieces put up by Wolfgang Gülich, Kurt Albert, and newer hard classics by Alex Megos and others!

Highlights: Stayed with Olympic friends Jana & Christoph, reconnecting with Daphne, Alexis, Soae.
Reflections: Sadly I did not meet Alex Megos

Berlin: Kletter gyms, dancing at Sisyphos; met Benny, Stephie, Bianka.

🇮🇹 Italy Continued: Arco, Rome & Sicily

Arco

This Italian town boasts legendary rock climbing with over 5,000 routes, some extremely polished from over 50 years of climbing, to hardly touched but beautiful lines. There is multipitch and single pitch climbing for every season and weather. The classic Arco Rock Masters festival and competition took place when we arrived and we got to watch Adam Ondra, Jessica Pilz, Camilla Moroni, Laura Rogora, Stefano Ghisolfi, Hannes van Duysen, Yannick Flohe, Filip Schenk, Sara Copar compete. Lynn Hill famously competed here in the 90’s.

We also had the pleasure of meeting Mr Mountain Planet! So fortunate!

We also enjoyed the Paraclimbing event at the end of our three week trip. What an incredibly inspiring event!

Lauren (from Seattle) and her mom joined us for a day of climbing at our favorite popular crag, Massone.

Highlights: Projecting two routes at Massone. Not Normal 7a+ and Loacher 7b+ Jeff and I both redpointed

Rome

We spent three busy days hitting all the major tourist highlights, the most impressive being the Pantheon, the Sistine Chapel, and the Spanish Steps. We didn’t expect much from the food, but turned out to be the best food by far that we’ve had all over Italy (probably a controversial statement)! Best pizza, best pesto, best pasta, best tiramisu, best art, best culture, best vibes. We only have superlatives to say for this city. The only downside is that it is crazy expensive, so we had to stay an hour outside the city to find something affordable, taking the convenient train into the city.

TIP: the first Sunday of the month is free museum day (which made for one really busy day!).

On the way to Rome, we also stopped at Florence (Birth of Venus and Michelangelo’s David are must-sees!), Siena, Tuscany, and Terme di Saturnia.

The idea is to drive from one major climbing destination (Arco in northern Italy) to another and do a little Italian road trip driving slowly down to Sicily (San Vito lo Capo) where we will spend a few weeks climbing in the sun 🌞 🌈

Sicily

San Vito lo Capo is a climber’s paradise!

🚙 SUV recommended for rough, dirt roads to many of the crags.
👓 Also recommend site-seeing and climbing in Palermo.
🖐️ the rock is rough on your hands, so climber hand-care is key
🍕 come hungry, the food is amazing!

San Vito lo Capo: Beach climbing and relaxing.

Sardinia

Ulassai, Sardinia is a great climbing vacation destination, with world-class climbing steps from town, a 30min drive to the beach. Being located high in the mountains, it is climbable year round, mosquito-free, and has a great local climbing community. The recent film “Still Alive” highlights @klaas_willems’ life, climbs, and impact on the region. #stillalive

Cala Gonone Highlights: reunion with the Smileys at Millennium Cave. Boat ride to Cala Luna with dozens of scary, rusty routes right above the beach.
Multipitch Routes near Cala Gonone:
⭐️”Dillosauro” (6c, two pitches) on Jurassic Park crag
⭐️ “Solo Incantatore” (6c, five pitches) on Aguglia di Goloritzè
⭐️ “Cromosomi Corsari” (6b+, seven pitches) on Pedra Longa

Masua is a small village in remote SW Sardinia with epic coastal cliffs hosting a multitude of historic multi-pitches above the water. We visited a massive crag called Castello dell’Iride (sharing the same cliffs with the gigantic multi-pitches). It’s the most popular single-pitch sport crag in the area and just steps from the parking lot with a great beach and stunning views. @mauriziooviglia recently also bolted a new crag called “Pandora”, which is just to the left of Castello dell’Iride. SW Sardinia is a wonderful surprise. It’s no wonder people get lost here and never find their way home.

Corsica (technically France 🇫🇷)

Highlights: Alpine granite climbing at Jeef; stored gear to return.

🇪🇸 Spain: Sport Climbing Paradise

Siurana

Highlights: Sent my first 7c (Hot Knife), Jeff sent 7c+ (Escamarla); climbed with Alisa Owens, Rory, Josh Cornah.
Reflections: Extremely classic strong-climber paradise

Fiesta de los Biceps

Side trip highlights: Iconic steep cobblestone multi-pitch climbs.

El Chorro & Chulilla

Experience: Holidays climbing with Rory, Jay; vibrant community and New Year’s memories.

🇹🇭 Thailand: Towers and Temples

Bangkok: Short city adventure joined by Sasha, Kate, Todd
Tonsai: Month-long climbing immersion with friends (and joined by Sasha, Kate, Todd).
Phuket: Quick sidetrip to EDC Phuket with Kate and Sasha
Ao Nang: Climbed Ao Nang Tower, North Wall.
Chiang Mai: Crazy Horse, sent Anxiety State Crisis roof climb; Priti’s family visits

🇹🇭 Thailand Island: Hopping & Community Building

Koh Tao: Rock Climbing Club & Flying Trapeze School, scuba diving adventures.
Koh Phangan: Dance, music, and climbing with Benny, Stephie, Bianka, Gabriel, Tanja.
Reflections: So many different adventures and distractions! It was a fun relaxed vibe

🇱🇦 Laos: Green Climbers Home

Experience: Off-grid climbing retreat, sent second 7c (Bloody Mary).
Logistics: Stay at Camp 2, even/especially because it doesn’t have cell service out there. Make sure to go after September when rainy season ends (otherwise it is flooded).
Reflections: The community and tranquility of climbing at Green Climbers Home shines brightly. The horizontal roof climbing at moderate grades is striking. The bungalows and communal dinners and games provided heartwarming rejuvenation. Vibes were off the charts-friendly and uplifting.

The climbing routes are 12m to 40m long in a range from 4 to 8c (French scale). Further, there are some unsent projects. The limestone has a very good quality and offers awesome sport climbing in varied styles: slab, vertical or overhanging; plain walls or with stalactites and tufas. So far we have 4 multi pitches, and there will be more in the future.

🇻🇳 Vietnam: Milestones Achieved

Huu Lung: Great hard climbing and a scenic peaceful retreat surrounded by rice paddies with steep pillars rising out of the peaceful landscape
Ha Long Bay (Butterfly Valley): Sent my first 7c+ (Horseless Samurai, FFA by Audrey Sniezek), fulfilling sabbatical goal on my birthday; Deep Water Soloing adventures
Reflections: I’m so glad to have achieved my goal of the sabbatical!

🇲🇾 Malaysia: Reflection & Recovery

Kuala Lumpur

Batu Gym: Living in Tropics Condo in Petaling Jaya, above the climbing gym where we are training daily.
Health touristing: Wellness checkups, shoulder procedure, met up with Kai
Reflections: Healing, training, community building and looking ahead.

Bali

Bali Climbing World Cup: Connecting with friends and community (Andrew, Kally, Kai, Kelsey, Andy).

✈️ What’s Next: Seattle, Florida & New York

Florida: Old stomping grounds, family visits, relocating
New York: starting new adventure with Jane Energy in New York.
Reflections: I’m so glad to have been connected with Jane Energy as their founding engineer, through Scout Intro! The perfect position at the perfect time! 🪄

💡 Final Reflections:

This sabbatical has allowed us the precious opportunity to push our physical and mental limits, explore stunning locations, and deepen our connection with the global climbing community. Each climb, each location, and each interaction has added so much meaning and joy to our lives. I have learned more than I ever expected, and made true connections with special people around the globe. I’m truly humbled and grateful.