My Week in a Rural Romanian Village: Traditions, Nature & Slow Living

July/August 2025

If you had told me ten, five, even one year ago I would spend a week in rural Romania shitting in a hole, cooking in a cauldron over fire, and chopping firewood to heat the water, I probably would have laughed at you.

But, I did.

Okay, to be completely honest, I avoided poo\ing in the village toilet (thankfully!) by holding out for either the coffee shop in town or the village grocery/pub/coffee shop/internet cafe (yes, all one place) but I did use it to pee… including in the middle of the night.

Now that we have gotten past the bodily functions portion of this journey… let’s talk about how I ended up here and how it went.

I met Erika four years ago in Porto, Portugal when a mutual friend introduced us. We were fast friends and traveled to and from Portugal and Paris to see each other several times.

When Erika asked me if I wanted to go to her family’s village house in Rural Romania (formerly Hungary) then road trip through Transylvania, I immediately said “Yes!”.

Then I immediately questioned what the f*ck I had just agreed to.

Aware there are limited facilities at the village house, I prepared myself for roughing it a bit. I knew there was no flushing toilet or Wifi, and that the village was small, but that was about it.

After driving about an hour from the closest big city, we arrived in the village… which was actually bigger than I expected. I anticipated no neighbors, nothing close by, pretty much total seclusion. What I arrived to was a tight-knit community or people living side by side.

I quickly became a regular at the (yes, ‘the’ singular) village store, where I got my morning espresso (and poo), afternoon snacks, and evening beer and WiFi access.

I was invited for homemade Pálinka by a local gentleman, who is a recovering alcoholic but loves making and sharing this local 'moonshine”. We sat and drank and talked and laughed and realized we had some very shocking connections (more on that later).

Erika and I spent hours preparing traditional Hungarian meals, in the traditional styles… because what else was there to do? Then enjoying them with copious amounts of beer and wine, stories, and laughter.

We joked about being “village women” in our aprons and dirty feet, but really, it was nice to take a step back. To live in a simpler way and in a simpler time. It was nice to watch something literally taken from the ground turn into our dinner. To savor the time and place and each other’s company without the distraction of the internet, TV, or outside distractions.

On our last days the sun came out in all her glory and I bathed in the sun on the dam by the river (aka: the local "beach”) while shepherds passed with herds of cows and goats. We swam in the river to cool from the hot days and Erika recanted stories of being bathed in the river as a child (heated fresh water was reserved for the adults).

I spent a total of 5 days at the village house on either end of our road trip. It at once felt like a day and a month. Time seemed to not exist there.

While full time village life is not for me, I was in awe of it. I soaked in the simplicity and beauty of it, but also saw so much of the strength and struggle in. Elderly people working manual labor, folx walking distances for necessities and socialization, isolation, lack of accessible opportunity.… but also so much joy and a tightknit community that loved and cared for each other.

I could easily be a village woman… one or two weeks a year.