The first days of the trip

We have finally started the trip. We managed to find each other in Gothenburg, do the final shopping, put J’s money into my bank account (do you know that all bank offices in Sweden don’t carry money -  we had to drive around for 45 min to find one bank?! ) and go to Oslo on our first day. It was raining the bigger part of the drive, but when we got closer to Oslo the weather changed and the sun started to shine. See below. It was a good start of the vacation.

We arrived safely around 6.30 in the evening to our camping place and I got to see the “car tent” for the first time. It was a pleasant surprise. It was very easy to mount, takes only 5 min to get it up, and you are far away from all the humidity and bugs on the ground sleeping on the car’s roof. See below the pictures of the tent. J’ had of course brought a bottle of sparkling wine to cheer the start of the trip.

We started the day in Oslo by re-arranging the car. J’s had rain in Germany when he packed the car and also when he had to spend one extra night at a camping site (when he missed the ferry). So he had no chance of putting everything in order. Then I arrived with an additional 3 bags, so it became even more chaotic. But it was just nice to spend the morning in the sun re-arranging the car. We found an order we are hoping we can keep.

The afternoon we spent in Museums. We checked out the Wiking ships, Kon-Tiki and RA II and finally the Norwegian Maritime museum. It wasn’t my first choice of museums (I would have rather visited the Munch museum), but we didn’t have the time for everything and these museums were all close by each other. And J was happy that he could see all the things he wanted.

When we started our drive to Flåm and Näröyfjord we were expecting a long boring drive on the E16, but my GPS kept nagging about that we should take the 7 and 50. We decided to listen to her, since she has been right about a lot of other things and we are both glad we did. What an amazing drive. We had a view the whole time: lakes, rivers, high mountains – some even with snow. It was absolutely amazing. We took it easy stopped and several times to look at the view. Unfortunately we arrived too late to the camping site (we arrived 23.15) and ended up spending the night next to a small road. But it was just nice. We had fresh water from a stream nearby and everything else we needed we had in the car. The advantage with camping in Scandinavia – you will find a place to camp everywhere you are.

The next morning we took it easy and left the place around lunch time. We went back to the camping we had planned to stay at the previous night and decided the place was so nice that we would like to stay there 2 additional nights (see below), which now means that we are 3 days after our original plan. J Funny, first we started one day later due to the traffic jam in Germany, and then we took it a little bit too easy out of Oslo, so we arrived one day later to the camping site than planned and finally we enjoyed the place so much so ended up staying 2 extra nights. But isn’t this what vacations is all about? That you can change your plans as you go along? We of course have to cut something else out of the original plan and that is up for discussion later.

When I met J in Oslo he told me that the original foldable kayak that he had bought was destroyed (it was a used one), so he had bought a brand new one. It was the display kayak from the store and unluckily they had NOT included the manual how to mount it. So yesterday we spent the evening mounting the kayak. I’m happy that we are both able to look at things and figure out how they work, so we managed to put it together without the manual in 1,5 hour. We made some minor mistakes on the first trial, but then we redid it, it all worked out just nicely. So today we tried it out. It was a fantastic tour on the fiord, the sun was shining with no clouds at all and the water was calm. I would have loved to show you pictures of this, but my underwater camera (which I use in the kayak, since it can take water) seems to have a quarrel with my computer. She refuses to talk to her. So you just have to take my word for that it was a fantastic trip. Now I’m waiting for the dinner J’s is preparing, drinking a beer and blogging.

The first night in the tent.

The weather changed when we came closer to Oslo

Näröyfiord where we paddled

A plan B is always good to have

We haven’t even started the trip and we are already using a plan B. We were supposed to meet in Gothenburg today, the 24^th of June. But J got stuck in a traffic jam in Germany. Traffic jams in Germany can be extremely annoying - you can be standing still for hours. Yeah – I know that is not unusual in a lot of other countries, but in Sweden it is very rare.

Anyhow – since it was clear already yesterday afternoon that J would miss the ferry to Sweden, we decided to rebook our tickets. Luckily we both had bought rebookable tickets. So now, instead of starting our trip to Norway, J is on a camping place close to Bremen organizing the car and I’m at home cleaning my apartment (and writing my blog). But nothing bad happens without anything good tagging along. J and I can now finalize the last things before the trip without any stress and I can take care of the things he missed when he had to rush for the ferry. We were given an extra 24 hours for preparations. We will lose 24 hours of our trip, but that can be handled with some re-planning.

If I would give anyone one advice in how to make the most out of a trip it is to do a plan and research the place you are going to. If you don’t have the time – use a local organizer to take care of those things. I usually do the later. But in this case we did all the planning and research ourselves.

One of the things we learned in our research is that a lot of roads in Norway are toll roads. An easy way of handling this is to get a Visitors pass and connect a credit card to the license plate of the car. Then you can drive the “Autopass” lane which makes things easier and faster.

Another tip to make things smoother is to get a Camping card so that the check-in on all the camping places will be quicker and also a little bit cheaper. I have also downloaded the latest map to my GPS for some support in our search for camping places nearby.

As a result of the delay I have finished my packing one day before the start of my trip. One odd thing hit me – I don’t have a lot of nice clothes with me, but plenty of hiking and sporting clothes AND technical equipment. I actually ended up taking one extra bags for running shoes, 2 cameras, computer, GPS, power cables and other cables that are needed for these things. I seem to become less and less girly but more and more practical the older I get. Is this a good development I wonder?! ;-)

A trip to Norway also requires a lot of planning

You might think that a camping trip to Norway doesn’t require so much planning. I mean; we are not flying there, so we don’t need to book any flights, we are camping so we don’t need to book any hotels…..But I guess if you know me you know that I’m not doing anything without a plan. ;-)

I have learned through all my trips: if I don’t plan I end up wasting a lot of time discussing or finding out what to do. If there is something I really hate on trips – it is to waste my time.

On this trip we have had a couple of strategies:

·                                    To see all major fiords

·                                    Not to spend too many hours in the car each day.

Plan A looks like this:

Day 1: Gothenburg – Oslo, Drive 3,23

Day 2: Visit of Museum Island (Bygdóy: Wiking Ship Museum, Kon-Tiki_Museum);

Day 3: Oslo – Nærøyfjord, Drive 4, 52, Kayaking

Day 4: Kayaking, Nærøyfjord – Bergen, Drive 2,07

Day 5: Bergen - Hardanger fjorden, Drive 2,48, Folgeganna Nationalpark Kayaking

Day 6: Hardanger fjorden Hike to Trolltunga, 10 hour

Day 7: Hardanger fjorden to Sognefjord, Drive 4,28, Hike Molden, Lustrafjorden 4h

Day 8: Sognefjord, Hike Vettisfossen 5h , to Geiranger Fjord, Drive 4,0

Day 9: Geiranger Fjord with Hike Storseterfossen

Day 10: Geiranger Fjord Kayaking to Lighthouse, Drive 3,02

Day 11: Lighthouse to Ålesund, Drive 3,31 Hike

Day 12: Ålesund-Trollstigen-Trondheim, Drive 4,55-5,52

Day 13: Drive Stockholm, Drive 10,49

All the driving is according to Google maps, so I hope it is accurate.

We are aware of the weather conditions in Norway. So in case there is a lot of raining, plan B is that we will drive east and try to move away from the bad weather. One of the advantages with driving your own car and having your own tent – we can change plans whenever we feel like it.

So now the big question is – do we keep to plan A or do use plan B or do we have to come up with a plan C? Time will tell. J

Introducing my new trip and my travel companion

It’s time again. It is time for another trip. This time I’m not going so far away and not to very exotic places, but it is still a very exciting trip.

I’m going to Norway to see the fiords. It is a bit funny – I grew up 40 km from the Norwegian border and I have never seen the fiords. On top of that – I love hiking and Norway has amazing hiking trails, but I have never done any hiking in Norway. I have hiked on all continents, in around 25 countries, but never in Norway. Why is that? Why are most people so bad in discovering and enjoying things that are just around the corner from where one live? I’m glad that I’m finally planning to explore Norway.

The Norway trip has 2 themes; fiords and outdoor activities. We will sleep in a tent almost the whole trip (except for one night), hike and kayak. So I know this is not the kind of trip that most of you would like to do. But maybe you will enjoy reading about it. ;-)

I will do this trip with my friend J from Germany. We have known each other for more than 17 years, ever since I worked in Germany. It is funny that we have managed to stay friends for so many years even though we live in different countries, but I guess it is easier to do so when you share a lot of interests (like hiking - we have done many hiking trips together). Since he will be a big part of this trip I will start by introducing him for you.

J is a 52 year old man from the south of Germany who likes outdoor activities and equipment as much or maybe more than I do. The two of us can spend hours in an outdoor shop just checking out all equipment available. He is the proud owner of the following:

·         The special tent that are mounted on our car which we will be using on the trip: http://www.autocamp.de/sites/index.php?session=dde0ddee1d6b4a1ddb69ae25ab893213&lang=1&auswahl=2&detail=produktdetails&reihe=4&produkt=10&action=pic

·         The foldable kayak that we will use to explore some of the fiords:
 http://www.poucher-boote.de/modelle/zweier/rz-85.php

So as already stated, it will be a quite exciting trip - especially since we will try out a lot of new equipment. Let’s hope that the camping sites in Norway have Wi-Fi so I can report about all these things.

My Final Blog for This Time and a Summary of My Trip

My big trip is over. The trip I planned and booked almost a year ago is over. It was my longest trip ever, in both time and miles, and it included all the things that I love to do.

As you might remember, all my stops had a theme:

·         Costa Rica – nature and animals

·         California – family life

·         Fiji – beach and snorkeling

·         New Zealand – hiking

·         Hong Kong – shopping

Every stop “delivered” according to plan. But I learned a couple of things:

·         If you want beautiful beaches, good snorkeling/diving, eat good local food and experience the culture – DON’T GO TO FIJI!!!! It is a bad tourist trap. The hotels are expensive and they don’t deliver even to low expectations. The rooms are bad, the food is at best OK (and definitely not local) plus the local “culture” that is offered is just student back-packer activities (games and dancing that appeals to the younger generation). Invest your money in a trip to South East Asia instead. 1000 times better!!!

·         To visit a big city after the tranquility of New Zealand was not a good idea. I got headaches from the big city noises and crowds.

Therefore I didn’t like my Fiji and Hong Kong stop as much as I liked the others. But you can’t win them all. They were still OK and they just lost in comparison with the other places I went to.

My highlights have been:

·         The night walk in Costa Rica. We saw so many animals and it was so exciting to do the walk in the dark

·         The helicopter ride to Grand Canyon. I just love to fly helicopter and to do it over and in Grand Canyon – it was just amazing!!

·         Disneyland with my brother and nephew. I have been there so many times, but it was extra fun to do all the rides with them. All of us giggled like little kids after Space Mountain.

·         The snorkeling on the Blue Lagoon beach in Fiji. Great snorkeling in good company.

·         Copland hike in New Zealand. What an amazing hike with a GREAT gang.

·         The multi-activity day in New Zealand. We started with sea-kayaking, continued with hiking on the beach and ended with a tunnel walk looking at glow worms. Talk about adventure.

·         3 hour SPA packet (Chinese massage, foot massage and a facial) in Hong Kong. It was nice to be pampered for such a long time.

My BIG BONUS on this trip is that I have met SOOOO many great people. I have done quite a lot of adventure trips before, but I haven’t always been so lucky with the groups and the tour leaders of the trip. This time I did 2 organized trips: Costa Rica and New Zealand and both trips had the best tour leaders ever and the groups were amazing. I have had so much fun! Thank you ALL!!! You made my trip fantastic!

I’m extremely grateful I got to do this trip. But I also know that I could never have done this if I would have had kids or a partner. I would not even be able to do a trip like this with a friend. I mean, this trip had a couple of special requirements:

·         Not too many people (in my age) can take 2,5 months of vacation and the chances that 2 people could do that at the same time is not very big

·         I flew on my airline points and the chances to find anyone with the same amount of points (or can afford to pay for the ticket) and that want to travel to the same places as me is close to zero.

I will always be sad that I never got kids and/or a husband, but I am proud that I’m making the most of/enjoying the life that I have. And this trip was the BEST THING I have ever done. I’m so happy that I got to do it!

And NO – I will not stop travelling! I have another 145 countries to explore. I will keep this blog to my next trip, but I will not write anything until then. And since I’m out of vacation and money – it will be a while before I write again.

Thank you all that have followed me on my trip around the world. It has been a pleasure to share my experiences.

I travelled without a ticket :-)

I’m back home after 11 weeks of vacation. It is a strange feeling. It is like my soul is not home yet, just my body.

I met a new friend in Hong Kong. (Come to think about it – I met new friends on every stop on my trip. J ) I met her on the shuttle bus on Saturday evening and we ended up spending the evening together. Then we met up again on Monday night (my last night in Hong Kong) and had another dinner and drinks. There were both really nice evenings and I got a very nice end to my trip.

This is what I love about travelling on my own – I meet so many nice people all the time. People tend to talk to you more when you are travelling on your own and I’m also more open to meet new people.

During my whole trip I have been prepared to have problems with my flights. The reason for this is that when you are flying on your points/miles you have the lowest priority if something happens, meaning that if your flight is cancelled you are the last one they will take care of - if they do that at all. I was flying with my Lufthansa miles, but I was only travelling with Lufthansa on a couple of flights. All other flights were handled by other airlines in Star Alliance and that increased my risk of being stranded. I didn’t however expect any problem on my first and final flights since they were with Lufthansa.

But that is exactly what happened. I have had no problems during my whole trip, but when I got to Hong Kong Airport with my ticket, Lufthansa told me that it didn’t exist in the system and if the ticket doesn’t exist in the system I couldn’t get a boarding pass. My face must have looked like a BIG question mark. How can a ticket that I have been using for 2,5 months suddenly not exist in the system?? I asked Lufthansa this and they told me “yes, we can see all your other flights here, but the flight to Frankfurt doesn’t exist in the system”. I didn’t know what to do or think. I asked if they thought I would be stranded in Hong Kong and they just said that they can’t let me on board the flight without the ticket and asked me to sit down and wait for the information.

Let me tell you – it was a very confused Lena that sat down. I try to always have a back-up plan, but I just didn’t think I would suddenly be without a ticket. I figured that the worst case scenario would be that I had to buy a new ticket, which would make a really, really deep hole in my pocket (one-way tickets tend to be more expensive than round-trips).

After the Lufthansa staff had been running back and forth a few times asking me questions like “have you made any changes to your ticket” and I answered NO to all the questions, they suddenly asked me to come along and checked me in. Now I was even more confused and asked them what had happened. They just stated that since they could see in the system that my ticket had been there and I hadn’t made any changes they decided to let me on board without the ticket and figure out what caused the problem later. Thank God for that!

So I came home as I should and now I’m sitting here making a summary of my trip, which you can read about on my next blog.

NOT my favorite place on earth...

I’m really not a big city girl. Yeah  - I can fool myself (and others) at times, but when you really push for it I don’t enjoy the city life that much. This has become extremely clear to me now, after a few days in Hong Kong. This city, as wonderful as it is, drives me nuts. I just can’t stand the amount of people everywhere. I get headaches from all the noise. AND I lose my temper all the time, since I find that people in Hong Kong really don’t understand how to walk the street + they don’t know basic politeness. Some examples:

·         They walk 2-4 people next to each other, preferably holding hands, which makes it very difficult to pass them. (I’m physically unable to walk as slow as they are.)

·         They don’t walk a straight line, so if you try to pass one or several people you end up running zigzag down the street.

·         They stop in doorways, at the end of escalators or any other place where lots of people are supposed to pass without any clue that they are stopping everyone else from passing.

·         If you hold the door for someone – no one says thanks and no one else takes the door, so you end up staying in the doorway forever – just holding it for everyone else…..

·         They don’t understand the concept of standing in line. I thought I stood in line for the tram, but when it finally came - around 20 people turned up in front of me, putting themselves on the tram long before I could even take a step.

These things should NOT bother me. I should not lose my temper for it. But they do!!!! I blame it on the fact that I can’t stand too many people around me at the same time. I should be on my most happy place after nearly 2,5 months of vacation, but I lost my happy self when I came to Hong Kong. It seems that Happy Lena was left in New Zeeland. I so prefer the tranquility there. Yes – I missed having access to internet and descent coffee in NZ, but I can skip that any day, just to have some piece and quite around me.

I guess the above comments are just a proof that I have become old and b*****. So be it! At least I know that I’m more happy hiking in the mountains than spending money in a shopping mall. Even if I do like the shopping part of it. Don’t get me wrong – Hong Kong is a great city for people that love high end shopping and nightlife. It is just not MY favorite place on earth. I miss New Zealand! That suits my personality A LOT better.

But I managed to do some sightseeing. I have checked out the following:

·         The Art Museum

·         The Space Museum

·         The Avenue of Stars

·         The Tsim Sha Tsui Clock tower

·         Star Ferry

·         Hong Kong Double Decker Tram System

·         The Hong Kong Peak, including the tram.

·         The Symphony of lights show

·         Harbour City Shopping

Nice things, all of them, but not my favorite places. I’m sure that many of you disagree with me. But just let us agree to disagree….. J

Sympony of lights

The double decker trams of Hong Kong.

Just an ordinary Sunday in Hong Kong

I just can't take pictures of myself.

Monica, Raimo and Linus - there is a Bubba Gump in Hong Kong also! :-) (for all your others - we visisted one in Monterey, California)

The tram is arriving to the peak.