How To Plan A Summer In Europe – Part 2: The Itinerary

Summer is fast approaching and it is time to start finalising your itinerary and looking in to connecting flights and accommodation in cities where prices sky rocket in July and August.

Where ever is on your list of must sees, there a few important rules of itinerary planning you should try and follow…

Try not to backtrack too much. It will get costly flying from one side of Europe to the other, and back and forth. You want to keep a nice logical flow from one country to the next.

If you’ve got the time, consider other means of transport. Train networks are fantastic in Europe, and run between most cities in Western Europe especially. Plus keep in mind busses for an even cheaper option, or car hire if your game.

Travel days. When you travel from one country to another it can take basically your whole day up….by the time you factor in getting up and organised, getting to the airport, flying time, getting from the airport to the city centre and settled in where ever you are staying. Allow enough time in each destination to explore and really get a feel for the place, rather than it being a series of pitt-stops.

Below is an example of our Super Mega 3 Month Summer Itinerary we did last year that included the best of the European Summer Festivals.

The Must Dos were Pamplona, Greek Islands, Dream Destination (Blue Lagoon, Gozo), La Tomatina & Oktoberfest.

• Pamplona is a great starting point to kick off a Summer in Europe. It is the first week of July, the start of summer. You can either fly in to Barcelona or London and easily get there by coach, or take an expensive flight to Bilbao or San Sebastian which are closer.
• For the next stop, you need to get yourself to a major airport and fly out to your destination of choice. For us, the most eastern point we needed to get to was the Greek Islands. So we took a coach from Pamplona to Barcelona then flew direct to Mykonos.
• Once in the Greek Islands it is easy to get around the popular Cyclades by boat. Key stop offs for first timers should include Mykonos, Ios and Santorini. Other more undiscovered gems are Naxos, Paros and Antiparos. For a quick exit the only major airports are on Mykonos and Santorini. If you are a beach lover you an easily spend 1 month gallivanting around the Greek Islands.
• Next stop should get you back to Western Europe, anywhere in Italy is logical. We flew in to Palermo and spent 2 weeks exploring Sicily. From here a side trip was necessary to my dream destination – Blue Lagoon at Gozo, off the mainland of Malta. Otherwise from Italy you can work your way up the coast to the French Riviera.
• By mid-august it is time to make your way back to the east coast of Spain in time for La Tomatina. Barcelona is the easiest and cheapest option to fly in to, consider hiring a car and driving from Barcelona to Valencia which is only 3 1/2 hours in one go or make a trip of it over a couple of days.
• After Tomatina you can either go South and in to Portugal, or go North and through France for a month to get you up to Munich for Oktoberfest by the end of September.
• We took almost a month to drive along the eastern and south east coast of Spain, beach camping and cruising in to Portugal, all the way to Lisbon for a couple of nights before a ten hour drive across to Madrid before flying directly out to Munich for Oktoberfest.
• Oktoberfest is in the last week of September. By the end of it you are just about at your 3 month mark! You made it! If you have not pre-booked, getting our of Munich is difficult and expensive! We ended up taking a train to Amsterdam for a couple of days before flying across the ditch back into London.

Have you worked out your itinerary for your Summer in Europe yet? If you have any questions or would like any recommendations feel free to shoot us an email at thehibiscustraveller@gmail.com. We would love to help! 

How To Plan A Summer In Europe – Part 1

The first month of 2015 is almost over – have you got your Summer in Europe sorted?

Either you are living it up in the Southern Hemisphere sunshine right now and planning to cruise into the European summer and skip a 2015 winter altogether…….

OR

(like me) you are enduring the freezing life in London wondering if you will survive this never-ending 1℃ weather and ever make it to another summer again. For us it’s a day by day countdown to July 1st!

Summer in Europe is unlike summer anywhere in the world and it’s something everyone has gotta do at least once in their lifetime! From all night street parities, dancing down spanish streets (in every city you go) with marching bands and €1 wine,  week-long parties, crazy festivals and beach camping to greek island hopping, croatia sailing, exploring turkish bazaars, portuguese road trips and DJs in Ibiza – the possibilities for sunshine fun are endless. And the best thing is you can easily hop to and fro between all of them over the Summer months.

If you haven’t thought about it yet, give it a thought! Start researching, and make it happen! Take that month off work and get over here. What have you go to lose?

So here is part 1 of my How to plan a summer in Europe series.

First things first……

Your Itinerary. This is probably the hardest and most time consuming part of your research. You need to work out how long have you got? – 2 weeks, 1 month, 3 months? Where do you want to go – what are your top destinations? Look at a map of Europe and map out a draft. You don’t want to be backtracking and flying from the greek islands to Spain then back to Croatia. You need a logical route starting from one end of Europe to the other, like starting in the Greek Islands and working your way West to Croatia, Italy, France then Spain. What do you want to do? – are you planning on any Festivals? E.g. Running of the Bulls in Pamplona or La Tomatina. If so, these dates are set and can help as markers to work your itinerary around

Your Long-haul Flights. As the most popular time to come over, flight prices sky rocket over the summer. So you have to be diligent and meticulous in your search if money is a concern.  Once you have the long haul flight sorted, eg. Australia to this neck of the woods, the rest of the in-between can be sorted out later. Skyscanner is your best friend. But also shop around and compare with Expedia, lastminute.com and the airline websites direct. Print out the best price you can find and take it to a Flight Centre and STA Travel (on the same day) and see if they will match or beat your price even further. *Always ask for their quote first though, in case it is cheaper than what you’ve found. Don’t, I repeat don’t go to a travel agent to book without doing your own research online first. Also, Flight Centre has a big expo in Jan/Feb every year [Jan 31st + Feb 1st in Sydney!] – definitely worth going to snap up a good deal, but be prepared to potentially pay in full on the day, or within a week.

Flying in to cities other than London can sometimes work out cheaper. Once you have your itinerary sorted look at flying in to your start point eg. Paris then out of your end point eg. Athens.

Remember June is already hot in most of Europe so don’t be afraid to come a little earlier if its cheaper. August is most expensive for flights, transport, hotels etc – BUT it is also the funnest, party packed + hottest time!

Stay tuned for The Mega 3 Month Summer in Europe Itinerary…….Coming Soon!

The Hibiscus Traveller 2015 Bucket List

Budapest – Hungary

Cappadocia – Turkey

Copenhagen – Denmark

Cephalonia – Greek Islands

Crete – Greek Islands

Croatia

Dublin – Ireland

Edinburgh – Scotland

Helsinki – Finland

Istanbul – Turkey

Ikaria – Greek Islands

Krakow – Poland

Morocco

New York City – USA

Paris – France

Prague – Czech Republic

Stockholm, Sweden

Switzerland

The Caribbean

Venice – Italy

Zakynthos – Greek Islands

What’s on YOUR Bucket List this year??……

The Hibiscus Traveller 2014 Year In Review

On the 1st of January 2014 I had no idea that this year I would embark on my biggest, craziest and most adventurous journey yet.

Spending three months travelling around Europe and moving to London was a dream years in the making – one that I put off year after year as life rolled comfortably by. It wasn’t until around February that we decided that 2014 would be THE year. The year to risk it all, the year to challenge ourselves, the year to get out there and do something different, the year to make dreams come true.

Planning to leave in July we had only 5 months to make this happen, to save enough money to be on the road for 3 months plus the time it took to set ourselves up in London. I wasn’t entirely sure we could pull it off. It is amazing what you can achieve when you put your mind and all your determination in to it.

It was an exhausting couple of months where I took up a second job, we worked 6-7 day weeks and sacrificed nights out, eating out, buying new clothes and doing…..anything really. It was the call of adventure, european sunshine and a never-ending holiday that kept us going. Lots of people asked why, how come, what for. I asked Why not?!

So we packed up our entire life into 2 bags each, sold the rest and boarded a one way flight to the other side of the World!

And here is the Adventure that unfolded for The Hibiscus Traveller in 2014…

You can catch up on my previous posts by clicking the links in some of the destinations I have written about 😉

 SYDNEY – AUSTRALIA Where it all started. I’m a Sydney girl born and raised, that’s probably why no matter how far and wide I travel Sydney will  always be my favourite city. It’s the nostalgic familiarity I miss the most- walking around the city knowing where you’re going, where to eat, where you can get cheap drinks and how to get around quickly. Nowadays everywhere I go I’m usually lost – but that’s half the fun!

PORT VILA – VANUATU My Island Paradise – the place I have called home for the past 10 years.

LONDON – ENGLAND After a 30 hour Air China flight we arrived in London on an uncharacteristly hot day. This was a very welcome surprise since we had been taunted with weather threats by everyone we knew. “It will be so cold”, they said! It was 25 Degrees……what are they on about? (I know, just wait for it).

PAMPLONA – SPAIN A 24 hour bus ride from London to the White Cliffs of Dover, a ferry across to Calais then an overnight coach all the way through France and into north western Spain. Please remind me not to take a 24hr bus ride….. ever…..again.

Run with the Bulls again? Maybe. 

MYKONOS – GREECE What better way to begin a 3 month backpacking trip than to camp for 3 nights at a 24hr party campsite! By the 4th day we were tired, dirty, hungover & absolutely wrecked. We took a bus to Barcelona to sleep at the airport before a 2am flight to Mykonos where we had planned to begin our ‘roughing it in hostels’ galavant around the Greek Islands. We would stay a few nights here then go to Ios where I was meeting up with my Mum (as you do). Then I get this message :

“Don’t book anything in Mykonos, I’ve booked a beachfront villa on Elia Beach. Meet you there”.

Day made. Life made. Mums are the best.

NAXOS – GREECE

IOS – GREECE  Beach. Eat. Drink. Party. Sleep. Repeat. 

PAROS – GREECE

ANTIPAROS – GREECE  Trekking the lost islands for mud masks and blue lagoons

TRAPANI – SICILY  A pitt-stop that turned in to local living

SCIACCA – SICILY

AGRIGENTO – SICILY

CATANIA – SICILY

MALTA – MALTA

GOZO – MALTA Dream Destination. In my lifelong search for Blue Lagoons, here I ticked another one off my Bucket List.

BARCELONA – SPAIN Being cool in Born.

MONTSERRAT – SPAIN Holy reflections at the Monastery

VALL D’ALBA – SPAIN  Fire Bulls & Road Trips

VALENCIA – SPAIN I will never look at tomatoes the same again after La Tomatina in Bunol.

GRANADA – SPAIN Streetart & Churros

MALAGA – SPAIN Loving tapas before I realised I was over it.

GIBRALTAR – UNITED KINGOM Monkey Rock re-visted after 13 years.

TARIFA – SPAIN Where I fell in love with beach camping

SEVILLE – SPAIN

ILLHA DE TAVIRA – PORTUGAL Here I fell deeper in love with beach camping! On the actual sand this time.

LAGOS – PORTUGAL Dancing in the streets and hostel hell

LISBON – PORTUGAL Sour cherry liquor shots

MADRID – SPAIN

MUNICH – GERMANY Prost! at Oktoberfest

AMSTERDAM – THE NETHERLANDS A quick detour on the way back to London. The cheapest way out of Munich was a €150 10 hour train trip! 

CARDIFF – WALES Watching our beloved homeland Fiji play Wales in the rugby.

ICELAND A skyscanner search for a cheap destination to go in early December became the most awe-inspiring and breathtaking trip of my life so far!

BRUSSELS – BELGIUM Chocolate, waffles, frites & beer.

BRUGGE – BELGUM As above

GENT – BELGIUM As above

ANTWERP – BELIGUM Happy New Year! 2015 begins here!

I have a super exciting year ahead being based in Europe & I can’t wait to share my 2015 journey with you!!

Mini Roadtrip Itinerary – Barcelona to Valencia

Something I struggle with on a daily basis when I am planning a trip is my travel itinerary!

I spend hours upon hours researching and analysing the easiest, most interesting and economic ways of getting from one point to another and what to see and do along the way. Does anyone else do that??

SO if you happen to find yourself in Barcelona with a few days to spare before La Tomatina or are enroute to Valencia….. here is an awesome self-drive itinerary I configured! This is a great leeway into Tomatina especially as Barcelona is usually the cheapest and most easily accessible entry point into Spain as opposed to flying direct into Valencia in August.

As you know, I think self-drive travel is AWESOME. Allowing you the freedom to get off the beaten tourist trail, create your own schedule and save money.

Arrive in Barcelona and allow yourself a couple of days to explore all that this enchantingly trendy city has to offer. For my top 3 check out ‘Things To Do in Barcelona’.

Day 1 – BARCELONA TO MONTSERRAT – 65KM

This route actually takes you North West from Barcelona, but is well-worth the 2 hour detour from your trip south. Breathtaking Montserrat is a Benedictine Monastry set high above the Catalonian country side surrounded by pristine rock formations exuding peace and contemplation. Wander around the grounds of the Monastery, have quiet mediation in the Basiclia, rub the orb held by Black Madonna and listen to Gregorian chants or hike to the surrounding cliffs for a spectacular misty view of the holy place.

STAY: Hostal Guilleumes – literally at the foot of the mountains at Monistrol in the Montserrat Mountain Nature Reserve with incredible mountain view rooms.

Day 2 – MONTSERRAT TO VILANOVA I LA GELTRU – 70KM

I had heard of the beach town Sitges mentioned constantly as a must see on the Spanish coast but I wouldn’t stop here again to be honest. I had already been so spoilt by Greece and Malta that I was a little hard to impress beach-wise. Nevertheless it was a nice driving break for the night a little further down the coast on the quieter beachfront Vilanova.

STAY: The beachfront Solvi Hotel  has tastefully decorated rooms (ask for the new refurb’d ones) with ocean views and is situated at the end of a long strip of restaurants offering international cuisine.

Day 3-4 – VILANOVA I LA GELTRU TO VALL D’ALBA – 222KM

Awake with a beachfront morning coffee to start your day. The beach isn’t ah-mazinghere (the Spanish east coast really isn’t doing it for me! Has anyone else found any Gems along here??) but you can sit on a lovely
wooden decking on the beach and sip an espresso from a Styrofoam cup…..The Spanish don’t do chic beach like the Greek.

On our quest to South we opted to break up the drive after 2 hours of the scene coastal road with a relaxing stay at a charming B&B surrounded by olive trees overlooking the sleep village of Vall d’Alba. The one-way high street had a dusty almost abandoned cowboy town feel to it, and it wasn’t even siesta time! After strolling around the expansive grounds of L’Ermita we took ourselves for a walk around town to dry and find something, anything, to eat! Walking through the streets we started to hear blasting techno music, the thumping base and teenage yelps of glee got louder. We turned a corner to find a party going off in the back of someones garage with over-zealous sangria filled teens fist pumping to Enrique’s latest hit (Bailando – FYI. My spanish road trip anthem) The buzz grew the further in to the town centre we got, to where we turned a corner to see a massive container and giant bared steel fences separating the people and the road. What on earth had we stumbled upon!!…… Long story short not possible…..(Read about the Fire Bulls here!).

Stay: L’Ermita Casa Ripo

Day 5 – VALL D’ALBA TO VALENCIA –  98KM

The last stretch of our mini road-trip was just over an hours drive to Valencia. There is so much to see and do in this beach city and the daily 40 degree weather didn’t stop us! My favourite things were:

THE BEACH – in August temperatures sore above 40 degrees here. Every one flocks to the beach, 10euro in a taxi – Don’t walk!! The sand front promenade is littered with restaurants selling expensive water, all worth it to escape the heat in to some quality air con though!

A NIGHT OUT – There are great tapas bars through out the old town. My favourite was Le Parisienne where you can fill up on local tapas and a good bottle of red for under 10euro each. Follow dinner with some bar hopping antics
around the Old Town. If you’re at a loss of where to go, there are hundreds of bar promoters walking around that will happily escort yo to their bar for a free shot and good times! Best find on the street were the black market sellers standing in dark corners selling 1euro can of beer. So worth it, but keep a look out for cops if you’re buying.

CIUDAD DE LAS ARTES Y LAS CIENCIAS – The City of Arts and Sciences. A unique and expansive 2km long complex dedicated to scientific and cultural dissemination’ comprising of 5 elements: theHemisfèric(IMAX cinema and digital projections), the Umbracle (a landscaped vantage point and car park), the Príncipe Felipe Science Museum/the infamous whale skeleton structure (an innovative centre of interactive science), the Oceanográfico (the largest aquarium in Europe with over 500 marine species) and the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía.

WATCH A SOCCER MATCH – at Mestalla Stadium. No words. Just go. It’s crazy.

Ever Changing Plans…..

In most cases we have been booking accommodation the day of arriving, sometimes within an hour of arriving into a city…..there have actually been times where I have been booking the hotel as we walk into the place. Picture this….

Me: Hi, we have a booking under [thehibiscustraveller]                                                              Reception: Aaah, we don’t seem to have it here. When did you make the booking?                         Me: Mmmm, about…..5…..or 3 minutes ago

This style of booking has worked perfectly for us, as sometimes we decide to just do a quick side trip to a town or finish strolling the streets of a big city for the day and decide to move on that evening and wake up in a new city. Plans change each and every day depending on how we are feeling the vibe of a place. If we like we stay, if we don’t like we move on. I love that! You are completely free, and you can move your journey, your whole life squished in to a suitcase, around what you feel that day. There are no ties or commitments or responsibilities I need to think of before making a decision. Ultimate freedom……and I am going to make the most of it while I can.

Our itinerary so far has changed so much from what we had originally mapped out, and continues to evolve.

We now let our experiences, how we are feeling that day, the stories we hear, the people we meet and the local insights they give us mould our travels. 

So now instead of travelling down the entire south western coast to the bottom tip we have jumped on a bus in Agrigento bound for the other side of Sicily to Catania on the EAST coast.     

The 3 hour bus ride toured us through rolling sicilian countryside covered in miles of olive groves and vineyards with sweet little white washed rural homes among them here and there. Arriving in Catania  allowed us to do our classic “2 hour search  in the peak of the afternoon heat with all of our gear using google map snap shots to find our hotel” thang.

Catania is a city of history that we enjoyed strolling around and feeling the atmosphere.  

It felt like such an exciting huge city with a couple of actual department stores and busy pedestrian streets, such a vast contrast to the tiny cliff top fishing villages we had spent the previous nights.

Finding an apartment with a kitchen meant we spent the morning in the local market buying up on treats, fresh organic produce, meat and herbs (for my darling masterchef) to cook up a storm.  

Did I mention the local flea markets had 5euro shoes?

And finally the reason we came to Catania was that we learnt where we could fly to directly from here.

After visiting Santorini, sitting atop the caldera watching the incredible sun set over the glistening Aegean I had fulfilled a long-time visit to a dream destination of mine, and it was time to find my next Dream Destination…..

A place that I envision and dream of but never think I will actually get there!

Once you fulfil one desire and realise ‘Hey it is possible. I can go there. There is nothing stopping me. It is completely achievable and my kaleidoscopic imagination can be tangible’, you can dream and dream and dream.

Next stop……..!!!!!

Putting My Travel Planning OCD To The Test

I have always been a planner.

I was a travel agent in a past life (couple of years ago), which I think lends to my intense desire to plan almost every last detail when I travel. I’m talking a day of research and strolling the internet for reviews and maps just to decide on somewhere to stay for one night. But its therapeutic for me and I take great pleasure in researching a new destination. I consider it a part of the journey. I jam pack each day with seeing all of the sites a city has to offer, trying to experience as much of a place as possible as our time is always so limited. Three  years ago we covered Dubai, Athens, Santorini, Rome, Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich AND a wedding on the Danube in only 2 1/2 weeks! Super travel planning skills at their finest.

But not long ago my other half asked, “Can’t we go on an actual holiday, where we just do nothing?”   

shopping up a storm in KL

everyday is beach day at Pantei Cenang, Langkawi

  So I booked us a trip to Malaysia where we spent 1 1/2 weeks in Kuala Lumpur & Langkawi and all we did was eat, sleep, shop, drink, repeat. It was awesome! We didn’t tie ourselves down to accommodation bookings, we just moved hotels when we felt it and stayed longer where we wanted and booked flights to the islands when it suited. It was nice to arrive somewhere, get a feel for a place and then decide what we want to do.

 It was a liberating travel experience for me, and i’ve never looked back. 

I do, however, at least like to have a plan. I have never been into just turning up in a place and winging in, which my mother is notoriously fantastic at. I think if funds allowed it would not be so scary. But with 3 months of travelling and no further income until I get back to London in October and find a job……what sits in my bank account now is absolutely ALL I have to work with. Sometimes last minute can work in your favour and you can find interesting places and negotiate super cheap prices, other times you can turn up in a city where there is absolutely nothing under 100€ a night for a room at a hostel with a shared bathroom! You just have to take each day as it comes and be grateful for the good & the not so good. 

But there is nothing more thrilling while travelling then waking up and deciding what to explore that day and not knowing where you will end up. You get to see and experience things that you just could not plan.

I started this 3 month trip with the following planned……A one way ticket from Sydney to London and a coach ride from London to Pamplona for San Fermin. That’s it.  

We had a vague idea of where we wanted to go but no accommodation or flights booked at all, and any plans we did have went out the window anyway when we heard of or found amazing places to explore along the way. What would have been a rushed 1 month tourist scale from the very bottom of Italy all the way to the top, spending just a night or two in each spot along the way – turned into an unexpected delve into Sicilian culture. Living as locals, buying and cooking the freshest organic produce and getting to know them and their view of the rest of the world and their place in it as Sicilians.  

You cannot plan or pay to experience the trueness of a culture, where people opened up to us just because we were eager to learn about them.

After a boat ride from Antiparos to Paros, ferry from Paros to Mykonos for a night then an early flight the next day…….we arrived in Palermo, the capital of Sicily – hot and bothered with no plan of where to go and nowhere to sleep that night. At the airport, we stood around for a little while tossing up whether we should take a bus straight to Trapani on the north western coast, stay in Palermo or go into the city  and catch a bus or train somewhere else.

after a flight from Mykonos to Palermo, 1 1/2 bus ride from airport to city, 2 hour bus ride out to Trapani…….still lost

 Undecided, into Palermo we went. Hanging around the central station, which is just as dodgy as every big city’s central station, I felt the bad vibes (when you know you know) and wanted to move on. After a regrettable 2 hot hours lugging our bags around looking for WIFI, thinking and waiting for a sign of what we should do next, some negotiations for an apartment in Trapani worked out in our favour and it was back on the bus and off we go! 

It can go either way. It can be tiring constantly searching for where to go and where you will stay each day, but in most instances it really works in your favour. We got lucky with our accommodation in Trapani, scoring a huge, beautiful & modern 1 bedroom apartment in the city’s ‘old town’. Gas kitchen and a washing machine = we were over the moon!!!  An absolute bargain at 60€ a night (I negotiated hard for that price). What was meant to be just a 1 or 2 night stay on our way south turned in to 6 nights exploring and falling in love with charming Trapani and her incredible sunsets. 

You had me at Hello, Trapani had me at her first mesmerising sunset!

Flying Air China

Ok here is why I booked Air China for our one-way tickets to London

1. It was cheap, $900 per person.
2. Luggage Allowance was 2 x 23kg bags per person! That’s 46kg each! I was overjoyed with this, knowing that I will probably use up more than 70% of the allowance but ironically, each bag was max. 15-17kg each. We were WAY underweight. When I turned 18 and left Sydney to travel to the USA and Europe for 5 months I stayed at my Uncles the night before leaving and he taught me how to pack to travel. He told me it must never be too heavy to carry – “Get your bag down to 15kg and chuck the rest!”
3. No matter WHO you fly, it is going to be uncomfortable and the food is going to be crap and the toilets gross. Unless you are in JayZ’s private jet of course. It wasn’t more uncomfortable then flying jetstar or virgin, and sometimes you can luck out a get a whole row to yourself if its not so busy. **Try and board last and keep an eye out for empty rows on the way through the cabin.

Note: Try not to cop the 8hour stop in Beijing on the way, the airport is hot, the pizza hut has sichuan beef pizza (that cannot be good) and there is no access to Facebook……… :-O!!!