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Friday 9 January 2015

Holidays: Past, Present & Planning

Morning guys!

Today I want to talk holidays and travelling. If you guys have been following my blog for the past year or so you will know that I'm very much into the whole 'city breaks' thing. I'm not the biggest fan of Summer, it's not really my thing. I like to spend my time exploring cities and admiring beautiful scenery, not sitting by a pool all day sweating like hell all in favour of getting a tan.

Last year Kyle & I made the decision to book 2 City Breaks throughout the year rather than going on one beach holiday and it suited us both so much more. We went to Stockholm in Sweden in July - this was actually fairly last minute choice. We originally had our hearts set on Venice but it was peak season so $$$ and also Kyle didn't think much to the 'traditional' hotels and insisted he only likes modern hotels! Anyways, we took a travel brochure and had a flick through, to which Kyle said 'let's go to Stockholm!!'. I'll be brutally honest, I'd never actually heard of Stockholm before until then  but once we starting reading into it all, I thought to my self that yes I'd quite like to go there and do you know what, I'm glad I did. I had the best time ever in Sweden. I wrote a Travel Diary about my experience In Stockholm, which you can read HERE.  Oh, and I also did a 'Stockholm Travel Essentials' Post that you can read HERE.See the pictures below for a little insight into our adventures in Sweden!








Visiting Stockholm really got me thinking 'I quite like this City Break malarkey' and almost straight away looked into booking another. Give it less than a month and I had gone ahead and booked a City Break to Milan as a surprise for Kyle's 21st Birthday. Not quite sure how I managed to keep the location a secret for a whole 3 months but I did and he didn't have a clue! Well, he knew we were going somewhere. I had to tell him I'd booked something in order to make sure University wouldn't interfere etc but he was clueless about the destination (or so he tells me!). Milan was also such an amazing experience, very different to Stockholm but absolutely wonderful none the less. We stayed in Milan an extra day to what we did in Stockholm and it actually made so much of a difference. In future I think I will always book out at least 4 nights for a trip rather than 3 because it's just so worthwhile. It's amazing what you can cram into a few days. I also did a Travel Diary on my time in Milan which you can read HERE. Oh and for any of you lovely lot planning on going on a City Break anytime soon, I created a 'Packing Tips For A City Break' Post that you can read HERE.  To summarize the trip though, here is just a hint of what we got up to...








Step forward into the beginning of 2015 and it's a whole new ball game! Having a taste of travelling to beautiful cities last year has pretty much opened a can of worms and I think I am slowly getting the travel bug. Don't get me wrong, this year I plan on doing a fair bit of saving but I also want to cram in a few City Breaks along the way. Nothing is set in stone yet but at the moment Kyle and I have discussed plans of visiting Budapest and Vienna. We always go on holiday in July, so we will probably visit one of the cities then and the other in maybe October/November time. Like I say the plans are not set in stone yet, we could change our minds last minute like we did last year but for the time being that's our plan. Also I thought it would be worth mentioning, although I LOVE travelling to new places, I don't want to do the usual thing and travel the world for a few months and then the whole experience is over and just a distant memory. Instead, I want to visit a few amazing places each year so that I've always got something to look forward to. It's no secret that travelling is expensive so I think doing it this way will be much more enjoyable for me, but each to their own!

We  also have plans in the pipeline for early 2016, I know - organized or what?! Basically Kyle & I are hoping to go to New York next January for my 21st birthday. I was supposed to be going for my 18th but things crop up and life gets in the way so that didn't happen in the end but I am so determined to make this trip happen in January. I've already started saving for New York because it is so expensive to get there and obviously I will be wanting to do quite a lot of shopping whilst I'm there. So I would rather plan early and feel prepared rather than panicking a couple of months before going. Again, our plans for New York are very loose at the minute. We haven't booked anything yet and I don't know if we're going to just go for 4 or 5 nights and stay in a hotel or go through Air BNB and stay for 2 weeks! Anyone who knows me well will tell you that visiting New York City is the absolute dream for me, like ever since I could remember NYC is the place I always wanted to visit more than anything & I am SO excited to make that dream a reality.

So that's my travel plans for the next year or so! What have you got planned?

*This is a competition entry for Love Holidays  to be in with a chance of winning £1,000 vouchers from Love Holidays*

2 comments:

  1. Girl after my own heart, I love city breaks too; it's amazing being able to get a taste of another country by roaming the streets not just sitting by a pool! I love Barcelona and hope to go back soon but I'm hopefully headed to Prague in the spring which should be exciting! :) xx

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  2. I've never really been on a city break, they've never really appealed to me but I've decided that 2015 is my year for seeing different places. I've already booked to go to Disneyland Paris and me and my husband are looking at going to New York, Toronto and Niagara falls later this year if it's not too expensive!

    Jade x

    Girl Up North | UK Lifestyle Blog

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