Karsten walks his way around Europe to a better state of mind

THE ROAD less travelled is very definitely the choice of a German national who recently passed through Clare, after leaving his day job and his hometown to walk around Europe. 

Forty-one year old Karsten Rinck, a trained lorry mechanic, was set to take over the family business in Steinkirchen outside Hamburg, but decided that that wasn’t for him. On May 1, 2021, he decided, for the good of his mental health, that he needed to do something that would take him off the beaten track.

“I had been struggling with my mental health and I decided to get out and walk,” he said. “My aim is to visit 40 countries. It’s a personal walk and I want to let others know that there is a good way out of issues, but it’s really up to themselves to act.”

Since last Summer, Karsten and his faithful dog, Lotte, have put more than 6,000 kilometres behind them and visited 11 countries, including Ireland. Karsten and Lotte travel under the name Mütze on Tour, with only the bare essentials in terms of food and shelter. “I just have my trolley,” Karsten explained. “That’s got my tent and clothes, food and dog food. I modified the trolley myself, with a bit of help, to get it ready for the journey.”

Eight-year-old Lotte – a Labrador-Spaniel cross – has also adapted well to life on the road. “This is the biggest adventure of her life,” Karsten joked. “There aren’t many dogs who can say they’ve seen an entire continent.”

Overall, the walking tour has been going well and is helping Karsten achieve his aim of boosting his mental health.

“There have been some bumps in the road,” he admitted. “Most of the time, it’s just fine. Then, you can have an absolutely shitty day. It’s all part of the game. In Donegal when the weather was really bad, cold and rainy, I sneaked into a church. The priest called the police on me. The Garda was very nice and explained that he had to do his job. Then, the priest paid for a B&B for me, so things worked out.”

Since setting out around 15 months ago, Karsten and Lotte have attracted plenty of attention from the general public and the media. The ‘Mütze on Tour’ Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts were spotted by the team on The Ray D’Arcy Show and Karsten was a guest on the show in June. He has also been interviewed on BBC Radio Devon and a number of newspapers and websites. 

The journey can involve being alone for long stretches of time, but Karsten said he hasn’t felt lonely. “In France, I was a long time without speaking to anyone,” he said. “People did wave from cars and while I was on my own, with just Lotte, I didn’t feel lonely. In other places, I’ve bumped into so many people and had long conversations. It’s all part of the game.”

While Karsten has undertaken the walks as part of a personal journey, he is pleased to be able to share a message about positive mental health.

“When things come together, on this journey, I feel like I’m unbeatable,” he said. “In the modern world, I think people have come to expect that other people will fix their problems. That’s fine if that’s a broken car or a broken arm. You can expect someone else to fix a broken mind. A therapist can help, but you really have to walk this walk on your own.”

The physical demands of the journey are something that Karsten tends to play down. “Before I set off, people were asking me if I was going to do any training,” he recalled. “I didn’t. I just started. Every day that you walk, you improve. I only came across the first mountains after 400km. Northern Germany is quite flat, so I was lucky and I was following mainly the paths that have been built beside most big rivers in Europe.”

When he spoke to The Champion, Karsten was enjoying the scenic shores of Lough Derg, before departing Clare en route to Cork and onwards to France on the ferry. His plan is to spend the Winter months in Spain and Portugal and he will take in the Camino de Santiago while he is on the Iberian Peninsula.

“People were all telling me at the start of this that I should go off and do the Camino, but I wanted to do something different,” he said. “Now, I’m going to travel along the Camino, but I’m doing it my way.”

Karsten predicts that he will return to Steinkirchen around 2026 and is certain that he will not go back to his old way of life. “I tried to fit in, but that didn’t work out,” he said. “The family business is something of a tradition, but now I have reinvented myself.”

You can follow Karsten and Lotte’s epic journey on Facebook @Mütze on Tour.