The rain had been lashing down for days. The trails on Bergslagsleden had turned into streams, and Kim waded forward in soaked-through boots, alone in the grey October forest. It was late in her 113-day thru-hike through all of Sweden: all the way down to Smygehuk in the south. Lukas had left her at Grövelsjön after their shared 66 days on Gröna bandet. Now it was just her, a tent that suddenly felt enormous for one person, and a stubbornness that refused to let go.
It had started so differently. Kim and Lukas met as teenagers; she was seventeen, he was sixteen. Neither of them was what you'd call a typical outdoor enthusiast. Kim had never seen herself as athletic; quite the opposite, her mother's passion for sports had made her flip the other way. Lukas had been hiking in the mountains through his Waldorf school since an early age, but after high school it took a few years before he realized he could actually head out on his own.
Their first mountain trip together in 2016 was a classic beginner disaster. Flat, uncomfortable sleeping pads. Frozen sleeping bags. Dish soap packed into the wilderness. "When I think back, I feel a bit guilty," Kim admitted. "But you have to start somewhere."
The turning point came in 2018 when Kim traveled alone to Germany on a work-for-stay trip. She started running, trained up to a half marathon, and hiked for a week on Kungsleden, completely alone. Something clicked. "I always believed I was lazy, that I was slow and weak. But here I realized it actually works. You just push a little, little, little."
Then the pandemic hit. A planned backpacking trip to South America was canceled. Suddenly a window opened. Kim had already been reading about Gröna bandet and had been carefully planting the seed with Lukas. "She mentions it casually when I'm maybe focused on something else and only half listening," Lukas said with a laugh. In December 2020 they signed up before they'd even talked to their employers. That was deliberate. Now there was no backing out.
Getting time off turned out to be the biggest practical challenge. Kim's employer refused to grant a leave of absence despite her managers' support; the policy simply didn't allow it. She quit. Lukas got time off from his boss, who happened to enjoy mountain hiking himself, but then switched jobs and made it a condition with his new employer: three months off in the summer. They sold their apartment to eliminate fixed costs; they had already reached out in advance to their current landlord for the cabin in the woods, and rented a small place from a landlord who just thought the whole thing was cool.
During the hike they learned what would become their most important insight: it works out. All the food packages they had sent ahead to Gröna bandet turned out to be unnecessary stress; every place they sent to had a shop anyway. During Norge på langs they only sent two packages, and those were new shoes. The freedom to buy food along the way transformed the entire experience.
"Without these hikes, I probably wouldn't be where I am today," Lukas said. "At least not running my own business." The hikes had given him the courage to start his own company as a maintenance mechanic; a dream he'd carried for years without daring to take the leap.
Their advice to anyone who's been thinking about it is uncomplicated but hard to follow: zoom out. Make a rough plan for safety, food, and timeline, but stop planning every single day in detail. Break the big thing into smaller parts so it feels less overwhelming. Be upfront with your employer in good time. And above all: stop waiting.
"There's never going to be a perfect moment," Kim said. "It doesn't exist, a completely one hundred percent perfect situation where everything falls into place."
They signed up for Gröna bandet before they knew if they could get time off. They quit their jobs without having the next one lined up. Every time, it worked out. Not because it was easy, but because they chose to do it anyway.
And every time they came back, the world had barely moved. Their colleagues were working as usual. Life rolled on. But Kim and Lukas had changed. They knew now that the distance between a dream and reality usually isn't as far as it looks; it's just that first step that feels impossible.
Top tips from Kim & Lukas
