Travel Fever – we all know what it feels like. And what better way to cure it than to start booking away a few trips here and there? This year I am planning on taking as much if not more vacation as I did in the previous year (which was a good 7 weeks off altogether). I therefore started planning my February and March accordingly. Thus, at the end of winter, it’s once again time for an annual visit back home: Germany and Europe are calling me.
I will start my trip around mid-February to a nice, long-ish visit back home. For 23 days straight (a bit more than three weeks), I will be home-bound. Not only there, though – since of course a visit to Europe can’t consist of staying in one country only. At least not when it comes to my ideas of making the most use of time and money.
After landing in Frankfurt and visiting my Eifel home, and perhaps a few other locations, depending on time and desire, I am packing up my little travel bag and taking Ryanair to some other countries. I’ve been truly yearning to visit the following spots for a long time already, but I also simply haven’t gotten to them yet (due to me wanting to visit other countries beforehand). Oh Europe, don’t you just love how everything is just one flowing continent and countries are so inter-connected?
My travels will bring me to the Baltic States, and more specifically the Nordic capital of Latvia: Riga! Why Riga? Why not Riga! For some reason I saw images of this city over the summer and I was really craving a visit here. Of course winter can always be a bit difficult due to winter and weather conditions. But honestly, after Iceland, I think got used to the snow and cold and learned to embrace it instead of hating every part of it. Well, Riga could be fine on its own but I have four full days to spend here. And my friends who lived in the Baltic came up with a quite splendid idea: Visit other cities! So I did some research and compared distances.
My second Nordic city will therefore be: Tallinn in Estonia. Two of my friends lived here from August to October and really fell in love with this city so far up north (it’s in close proximity to St. Petersburg). Therefore I thought it would be great to catch a cheap bus ride of 4 hours to there and make the best out of the long-ish time I have here (some full four days for the Baltic).
Second destination: Ireland! I am expecting massive, overpowering landscapes of green, mild weather and tons of redheads… Errr. Scratch the last word but I do expect quite some stunning landscapes and I am a bit excited to see the comparison to Iceland. Not that you can really throw the two of them in the same travel bucket, but I did read somewhere that both islands resemble each other to a degree since thousands and thousands of years ago they were… one? Therefore I am terribly excited to finally check out the green island and perhaps rent a car to check out the green grasses and more. Although I was planning on staying in Dublin most of my time, a friend advised against it and told me to make better use of my short trip by driving around and checking out the hotspots close-by. So I am taking her by her word and hope it will all work out somehow.
Third destination on this almost two-week-long endeavor: Portugal! And more specifically: Lisbon and surrounding cities. So the same friends who stayed in Tallinn over the fall actually were terribly disappointed by Lisbon. Somehow it just wasn’t their thing and they therefore recommended venturing out to the smaller towns and also Porto. I will spend four days here with a friend, who will be joining me from Germany. We will see what destinations and daytrips we want to choose, but of course we are always open for suggestions. If any of you have gone to either of these four countries mentioned and want to share some insight, I’d love to hear more! The more impressions I can collect before the trip, the better.
What are your travel plans for the year (if any)? What are you most looking forward to in the next three months?
I have to say that even though I traveled quite a bit last year, it’s been a long four months since my last trip. Altogether it will be almost five months when embarking on the Eurotrip and that can be quite an extensive time to not go anywhere at all. I hope no one is feeling as caged up as I sometimes do. I guess the term “Travel Fever” describes my sentiments pretty much to the dot right about now.
German-American Abroad 
The Baltic countries are on our list and it would also include Vilnius to complete the trio!
I know! Vilnius was also on my list but I only have four days for those two cities so I think Riga and Tallinn will be a good start. Helsinki is pretty close, you guys should consider taking a ferry over once you’re done with your Baltic adventure. 🙂
Yes we need to revisit Helsinki again because we only spent 2 days there the last time!