Slovenia is an outdoor-lover’s Mecca. Rafting, canyoning, paragliding, hiking, rock climbing, kayaking, caving, horseback riding…you name it, Slovenia probably has it. With this in mind, I had a long, long list of all of the activities we had to do while we were there.

Unfortunately, the usual suspects time and money gave me a big slap in the face and reminded me that I had to be careful about how we would fill our limited schedule. For time, we only had less than four days in Slovenia, and as for money, let’s just say we weren’t above stooping over for any Euro cents we found lying around.

Although there were some really great multi-sport tours offered by the various tour companies in Lake Bled, we didn’t feel we could dedicate a whole day to an organized trip when we wanted to do so much independent exploring. After seeing some amazing pictures of kayaking on the Soča River, I was sold on a kayaking excursion, but was turned off by the €50 price tag and eventually found it wasn’t running anymore for lack of interest, which was absolutely wild in my opinion. (Apparently it’s also not really something you can organize yourself in a day without a car.)

Since our kayaking expedition seemed to be a no-go, Chris, our new friend Rodney and I chose to go visit the nearby Lake Bohinj. I had read before that Bohinj was even more stunning than Bled, but was skeptical after seeing Slovenia’s most famous lake with my own eyes. However, after taking the 40-minute public bus ride out to the much less-developed Bohinj, I can honestly say this was even more my kind of place.

The mountains are bigger. The lake is even bluer. The town – if you can even call it that – is smaller. It’s really a cluster of restaurants, hotels and outdoor stores at the tip of the lake. The area is just so natural, rugged and undisturbed. Best of all, it is surrounded by hiking trails (which you’ll hear about in the next post) and, fortunately for us, also has lakeside boat and kayak rental facilities.

So, instead of emptying our wallets for three hours of guided kayaking, Chris, Rodney and I rented kayaks for €10 a piece. The woman at the lakeside rental shop was friendly, helpful and delightfully relaxed while setting us up with our boats. One name and hostel address on a piece of paper and we were off with three great kayaks and a couple of waterproof bags, not-so-gracefully making our way across the lake. (Apparently none of us were as skilled as we had remembered and informed the kayak rental attendant that we were. Oops.)

After three hours we had kayaked around about half of the lake, swam in icy water on two secluded rock beaches, been put to shame by one professional kayaking team, accidently disturbed two different naked sunbathers, spotted at least three paragliders and, surprisingly, had zero electronics submerged in the water. Of course, we also had six, or at least I can fully admit to two, arms exhausted beyound belief by the time we were finished.

Although we came with no plans, I found kayaking to be the perfect way to experience the lake. Close enough to feel it, quick enough to see a lot of it, and physical enough to feel like you really deserved to be immersed in the unbelievable atmosphere.

The beauty of Bohinj and the vastness of the surrounding mountains was almost overwhelming and of course can’t entirely be captured in pictures, but we certainly had fun trying.