Sometimes you have to go back to find out who you are.
In 1998, my friend Nina and I traveled across Australia.
That was where I first encountered Youth Hostels and the Australian mindset that has stayed with me to this day: “Today you are young, you don’t have much money, and you want to see the world. One day you will return. Not to a hostel then, but perhaps to a five-star hotel.”
Long-term thinking. 😇
I was completely captivated by this.
When I returned home, I served as a municipal councillor in Sežana, representing the student list. And an idea was born:
Why not create the first Youth Hostel here as well? 🤩
Together with Marija, a local from Pliskovica, and Igor Maher, an expert in European tenders, we formed a small, rather unstoppable team.
Igor was a Ljubljana native who had moved to the Karst region. And although we didn’t exactly welcome people from Ljubljana with open arms back then 😉, he very quickly became a local of the Karst.
Our project was selected as the best in Slovenia, and we received 100,000 euros.
There was only one small problem.
We had to spend the money within eight months.
We had an idea. A huge amount of youthful enthusiasm. And probably a fair amount of madness too.
Many people laughed at us. What we wanted to achieve was, for many, practically impossible. But a few people believed in us.
Davorin. Vida. Božo.
They didn’t explain to us why it couldn’t be done. They helped us find a way it could be done.
The municipality found an old Karst homestead in Pliskovica and allocated it to us.
The municipality alone was not enough. A good idea was not enough.
We needed people.
And Pliskovica showed what community means.
They helped. They convinced the skeptics. They looked for solutions.
The project became a collective effort.
And when everyone looks toward the same goal, things that you were told were impossible only yesterday begin to move.
Nine months after receiving the funds, we opened the first Youth Hostel in Slovenia.
The opening was on Friday, June 13, 2003, at 1:13 PM. 🙂
More than 23 years later, the hostel is still alive. 👍
More importantly – Pliskovica is alive.
New activities and stories from the locals emerged around tourism. Today, there are said to be more than a hundred tourist beds in the village.
When I was preparing my new website this summer, I returned to that very place.
I thought I was returning to the site of one of my first projects.
I returned to the place where my compass began.
Life takes you down different paths. Jobs, companies, responsibilities, successes, mistakes, family, and other priorities come along. And sometimes you drift a little away from what was so very much yours at the beginning.
That is why I had to go back.
To realize:
I didn’t become this way.
I was always this way.
I still believe in people.
I am still looking for a common goal.
I still believe that differing interests are not an obstacle.
I am still interested in projects that will mean something even twenty years from now.
And I still love that small measure of madness that makes you believe something is possible, even when everyone tells you it isn’t.
Today, I just know how to name it better.
My compass. 🧭
