Hi !

My partner and I (28) are planning a long road trip through the Balkans starting this September. We'll be leaving from France and expect to spend around 8 months travelling through the region before heading towards Turkey, Georgia, and maybe Armenia.

We don't have a strict itinerary and that's intentional. We'd rather let the trip evolve based on the people we meet, opportunities we come across, and places that feel worth spending more time in. If we find a project or area that really captures our interest, we're more than happy to stay put for a while instead of constantly moving.

Professionally, my partner is a landscape architect with a strong interest in topics such as natural hazard management, ecological construction, community-led projects, permaculture, self-sufficiency, and small-scale farming.

I'm a hydrogeologist, working mainly on groundwater, geology, geothermal energy, wetlands, and related geoscience topics. Over the years we've both become increasingly interested in each other's fields, and this trip is partly an opportunity to explore where they overlap.

One of the main goals of this journey is to gather material for a book combining our respective backgrounds and interests. More specifically, we're hoping to better understand how different communities deal with natural hazards and adapt to climate change.

Some of the topics we'd like to explore include:

• Floods, earthquakes, wildfires, landslides, and natural risk management in general - no active volcanoe there as much as i know !
• Climate adaptation, resilient construction, urban planning, and land-use strategies
• Community initiatives related to sustainability, self-sufficiency, ecological restoration, or risk reduction

At this stage our research questions are still quite broad, and we're expecting them to evolve as we travel.

We're not targeting any specific country. In fact, we'd ideally like to spend longer periods in only a handful of places rather than rushing across the entire region. The goal is to gain a deeper understanding of a few local contexts instead of just passing through.

We're looking for places, projects, and people that could help us better understand how Balkan communities are adapting to natural hazards and climate change, while also sharing our own expertise where it may be useful.

If you know of any NGOs, research institutes, universities, environmental organizations, eco-villages, community projects, local initiatives, or simply interesting people working on these subjects, we'd love to hear about them.

We both speak English and will do our best to learn at least some of the local language wherever we stay (I promise).

Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but if not, feel free to let me know and I'll remove the post !

Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for any suggestions, ideas, contacts, or feedback :))

Hvala!