YouTubers, influencers and other visitors to Slovenia have been light on the ground the last 18 months for obvious and regrettable reasons, so it caught our eye a few weeks ago when a new video on Lake Bled turned up in our feed. Curious as to how the trip was carried out, we got in touch with the makers – Dream Team Travels – and asked them a few questions
Where do you both come from?
Ernestas [Tyminas] is from originally from Lithuania and Darina [Karpitskaya] from Ukraine.
How long have you been traveling as the Dream Team?
Two and a half years ago we met in China, fell in love and on the second day we planned our first trip to the Philippines as Dream Team Travels. Since then we have visited 29 countries together.
Where have you been so far in 2021, and how did that work with COVID?
This year we’ve visited 17 countries so far and three continents, the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, Mexico, Turkey, Malta, England, Germany, Austria, Italy, San Marino, Slovenia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia.
The year started in the United Arab Emirates, where we were for Christmas and New Years. At the time England was going into a strict lockdown and everything was closed, but Dubai was like a different universe and everything was already open.
We were quite limited to where we could go next, so we ended up flying to whatever was open. From Dubai to Ukraine, Ukraine to Mexico. We monitored the news daily to see what would open next, and Turkey announced it was open to tourists so we took the flight from Mexico to there.
We never dreamed we’d visit Turkey, but COVID lead us there and we’re honestly so glad we got to see it and we ended up spending a whole month in Istanbul with no tourists. Turkey had a curfew for locals in the evenings and over the weekends they all had to stay home so the streets were completely empty. It was an unreal experience and we tried to capture it in our Istanbul Travel Vlog.
From there we learned that a corridor opened up with Malta so we packed our bags and flew there next. here we fell in love with the country and explored it from the bottom to the top. We saw dolphins swimming in Canals, a person who acted with Brad Pitt in Troy, a man that can sing in every language in the world and also so many beautiful places.
While recording a video in Malta we took off our masks while we were away from people and a few locals in the comments said that we were disrespecting those who’d died from COVID, then two hours later when we landed in Germany people were staring and pointing at us because we were wearing masks while outside. Germans had a policy that you could have your mask off while in the open air.
So the most confusing part while driving across Europe was the different mask policies. Like in Italy you had to wear them outside unless on a beach, and in Estonia you didn’t have to wear them at all, inside or outside.
What was entering Slovenia like?
The COVID restrictions in Slovenia were pretty easy. There was no border control entering from Austria.
After seeing a lot of YouTube videos about how many people visit Lake Bled it was very surprising that we had the whole place to ourselves. We even had to wait 30 minutes to get a pletna boat because there were no people wanting to go to Bled Island. The on the island there was no one in the church, so we could ring the bell without waiting in line.
Of course, Lake Bled was absolutely beautiful, like a fairytale. We also loved the castle which also had no tourists.
We also went to Lake Bohinj. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough time in Slovenia but we are excited to come back here and also to explore other areas, as well as Ljubljana which we hear is very beautiful.
Where’s next?
We’re currently in Estonia and were hoping that Norway was going to open but it seems like COVID has other plans for us and will be sending us to Georgia next to explore the beautiful mountains and amazing cuisine.
