The second edition of the RoadTrip project started few weeks ago. This experience, financed by the European Commission, involves four young travellers coming from all over Europe.  During their trip, the backpackers visit different locations and pojects in two European routes to discover European Transnational and Interregional Cooperation activities and other EU-funded activities.

This year, within the selected destinations they visited the DTP project Citywalk (Towards energy responsible places: establishing walkable cities in the Danube Region- operating in 9 countries of the region) in the city of Nyíregyháza (Hungary), where they learned how to make a city more walkable and through which tools the relation between the city and its inhabitants can improve.

The first step was a short introduction on the project, its developments and achievements held in the Nyíregyháza Cultural Centre. To provide the presentation, the founding fathers of the CityWalk project, Bela Kézi and Miklos Lukovics leaded and guided the group during all the activities trying to impart the values and the spirit behind the project. 

The attendants also had the chance to test the walkability of Nyíregyháza, taking notes and rating the streets, enlightment, green spaces quality, pedestrians and disable people assistance tools. At the same time, they could see the impact of the project on the city, discovering the Smart benches (provided with plugs, usb cables, solar panels and interactive billboards which disseminate information on the city), the pedestrain sensors which prevent cars accident during the night, but above all they had a first hand experience on how people affected by blindness live in a walkable city: which are the main obstacles, fears and problems they face in every day life walking throughout the center and residential areas. 

Once back in the Cultural Centre, the travellers, the founding fathers and the rest of the audience discussed how the walkable system could be improved, balanced and disseminated to have a super-safe walkable city; different ideas were shared and discussed through team activities and individual work.

The travellers had also the chance to get to know Hungarian traditional dances and gipsy music, as far as to taste typical food from the region.

On 23rd September 2019, the travellers have visited another DTP project, ConnectGreen. 

Cover Pic and Pic number 5 taken from the ©Road Trip Project 2019.