Tag: life

(Not so helpful) Flight Booking Guide

Published on by LostViivi23 Comments

This Wanderlust Wednesday, I wanted to try something new. So here is post I wrote yesterday (totally not during my political economy class…).

Many people are wondering how to book the flight tickets like traveler. In fact some of my most popular posts that get new comments often are about travelling cheap and adventuring like traveler not tourist. Whatever that “like traveler” means here is my 5 levels of booking tickets. This works for me but please don’t take anything seriously and maybe listen someone more experienced than me. I hope you will enjoy!


5. The art of decising your destination

Deciding where you want to go seems like good way of starting trip planning and flight booking. This is a lie! Be adventurous and leave deciding for those who just want safe boring holiday. Throw dart to world map and go where it points. Or look the flight deals and take cheap one. Where ever you there is amazing adventures coming to your way.

 

Photos from: unsplash.com

4. Three months before your trip and other tricks

There is as many secret tricks as there is people. Some say that best time to book your flight tickets is three months before your trip. Others swear for the only buy your tickets on Tuesday rule. I have never really thought these. Usually I am too late for that three months mark and who has time to wait for Tuesday when wanderlust is taking over your life!

So is there any tricks I have learned? Making my travel route complicated. Did you know that cheapest round trip flight tickets from Finland to France cost 120€ while from Stockholm to France it costs only 35€ (and it takes 30€ from Finland to Stockholm and back). So you see why I love this ‘trick’? Other one I have learned is collecting airline points.

 

 

3. Panic, be unproductive and plan like a pro

The most important part of any travel planning is the panicking stage. Walk circles in your home and think all the negative things this trip may cause. Never forget considering airplanes falling or your luggage disappearing. After panicking enough it’s time to stare guide books without doing any real planning. This may take hours, days, weeks or even months. In hopeless cases even years.

After getting over your insecurities it’s time to start the real planning. What time do you want to travel, how to get to airport and from airport to the city?

 

 

2. Time to buy the tickets

It’s finally time to buy the tickets! Go on the right web site (I prefer to buy straight from the airline websites.It’s usually cheaper.), select your flights and use your beloved money to buy the tickets. That’s it really. The most important (only important) part of buying your tickets part. Don’t consider or get scared, just buy.

 

1. Share the good news with world (after panicking some more)

Again time to panic! You have flight tickets so it is real now: you are going to travel somewhere. If you are like me you probably forgot the plan properly ahead part and are now in totally phase of panicking. Don’t worry it will pass quickly.

After panicking it is time to take the next step (also known as the “make all your social media friends jealous”). Yep, it’s time to tell everyone that you are going. I recommend leaving that make everyone jealous part out of this step but I know how it feels to be excited about your new flight tickets. So smile for the camera and put nice photo to Facebook telling everyone the cool destination you will soon head to.

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I hope you liked my not so helpful tips that will probably make your flight tickets booking experience horrible. For me this works but I am that person who has to fail to win.

Do you have any bad flight ticket booking tips? Or maybe good ones that would be helpful for everyone? Like always feel free to comment whatever you have in mind?

So did you like this kind of ‘not so official’ travel post?
I hope you are all having an amazing day!
With love,

Viivi Severina

 

Travel Rant: Traveling the Wrong Way

Published on by LostViivi22 Comments

By all means I am not professional traveler. My solo trip to Japan for three months was one big catastrophe, last year my holiday to France was far from smooth and let’s not even talk about the times I have been travelling my home country Finland. Too many embarrassing memories there.

Making plans and following them isn’t my strength. At Tokyo I forgot to visit some of the must see places (when I say must see places I mean the most popular attractions). My two days in Paris went by sleeping in the hotel and not doing anything. Usually the new streets and sights may steal my attention and make me forgot all the cool places I came to visit at the first place.

In the other hand I act like tourist. Taking pictures of any silly new thing, going to familiar McDonalds and singing up for too expensive tourist tours. Sometimes I decide not to go for some cool place because it’s too expensive and I rather buy more food or souvenirs.

Socializing, partying or getting friends has never been easy for me. In the end I always say something wrong or make the person lose interest. I get scared shitless if someone starts conversation without warning. My fear of human contact gets so bad that I can’t even ask help from locals while traveling.

When I told my family and friends for the first time that I would leave and travel alone they laughed at me. No one believed that me, shy awkward girl, would really make my words true. They didn’t believe until I packed my backs and left. And even after that everyone seemed to think I wouldn’t survive.

I have this unexpectedly way of finding trouble anywhere I go. At Japan I accidentally went to closed amusement park and got in trouble with police (fortunately they were totally cool). While using train in France I booked trip that had under 5 minutes changing time and almost missed my second train. Those two are just examples of many others.

So like you can see I am far from professional adventurer. For everyone’s sake I probably shouldn’t travel at all. Then how did I end up having this feeling inside of me? Why does my soul want to leave every time I come back home? There is wide world outside and I just don’t seem to have the self-control to stay in one place for too long.

I may not be born traveler but that is never been the point for me. Some may say I do everything wrongly and this way I will never experience all my bucket list items. But I visit foreigner countries to learn, to get in trouble and feel like living. Inside of me lives lost soul and it encourages me to leave. For me this is the only right way there is. For me this is the life style making me happy.

So for all of you who travel “the wrong way” let’s just continue our own way of travelling and prove everyone else wrong!

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So I didn’t have post for today because I decided to do last minute trip to travel writing lecture on Friday and didn’t have time to write. But here is older post I must have written last summer! I don’t know why I never published it… Maybe because it is kind of embarrassing?

You can read more random Travel Rants from here. And like always feel free to comment any thoughts you have.

With love,

Viivi Severina

10 Things To Do in Montpellier, France

Published on by LostViivi12 Comments

When you think France you automatically think love and Paris. That’s pity – not the love part but that only city we let define our image of France is its capital. I love Paris and its cultural touristy things but there is a lot more to see in this huge European country. Paris may have Eiffel Tower, Louvre and dozen of other attractions popular among tourists but other parts of the country have as much if not even more to offer for those loving adventures.

Today we are going to take peak to France’s south coast and list 10 things to do in Montpellier.  I was privileged to visit this charming city last year. Montpellier is more known among the local travellers and families who come to spend their holidays to the beautiful beaches. Everyone who prefers old town atmosphere, street art varying from graffiti to magicians or relaxed days on beach will fall in love with Montpellier.

 

10. Day trip to the beach

Take the scenic tram or bus to the beach and enjoy the soothing sea. At winter you will be solely by yourself whereas summer brings all the local tourists to take their part of the sunbathing and swimming. Both seasons are worth of visit and maybe pick up some pretty stones or seashell as souvenirs.

Maybe this is because I’m Finn and not used to visit endless white sand beaches but this really made me fall in love with southern France. Not many things are as epic as walking around empty endless beach and picking up beautiful seashells. 

 

9. Roam around the old city

Start from the place de la Comedie and be ready to get lost (and to shop cheap shoes…) Stop for Nutella pancakes or to drink bear. Maybe visit some of the small galleries or drift to remote patio. Be ready to take photos because the old city is full of charm!

 

8. Graffiti Hunting

There is two ways of approach graffiti hunting… First one is just go for it. The old town and literally every other place in Montpellier is full of street art. Just keep your eyes open and remember to look up and down. Because some of the art is on ground while some of it is up on the roofs. You will never know what you can find.

The second way of graffiti hunting is more systematic. Go to the tourist information (or use Google) and take map with marked graffiti spots. Then just look like a real tourist and use the map to locate some of the best street art there is.

One of the specialties of Montpellier are the huge murals taking over the whole wall of buildings. These may be hard to find at first because often they are made to look real and as part of the city. However after a little searching you will get amazed.

 

7. Guided Tours

Montpellier is full of tours from free ones to pricey longer ones. Just go on the city’s tourism website or use google. I didn’t go to any while in Montpellier but heard a lot of good feed back of them. You will get to go in places normal tourist can’t get in. You can also try driving segway around the old city! I think there is tours for any kind of people so you will definitely find one perfect for you.

 

6. Musée Fabre

This huge museum has something to offer for everyone. Mainly “older” art works, known artists and local masterpieces. It will take hours to wander around and see everything. When I visited Fabre the art works at the end of museum didn’t get a lot of my attention because of the tiredness. Visiting here in two different days would be the best option.

 

5. Rockstore & Gazette

Concert place and club in the downtown Montpellier. I didn’t go inside while in the city because I’m not huge fan of indie music or partying. However even just seeing the door is must thing to do. Unfortunately I have lost my photo from this place but it’s easy to recognize. Half of car comes out of the wall above their front door.

Gazette is another place to spend your evening and find interesting nightlife. I fell in love with this cozy restaurant, cafe, bar right after stepping in for the first time. Everyone from babies to elderly people can spend time together and have fun. There was literally people from every age group. And at one point of the evening there was free dance lessons for anyone wanting to take part.

 

4. Streets

With this I mean a lot of things. The street arts filling up every free wall space you could possible imagine being in city like this. Colorful decorations and small boutiques. The performers playing instruments, dancing and entertaining passersby. Endless possibilities to get lost and never find your way out.

Don’t forget to look out for the graffiti and artsy bikes coming out of the walls. And don’t be scared to visit the small galleries and shops that you can find everywhere from the city’s small streets. Montpellier’s charm is hold in these places.

 

3. Tram, Tram, Tram

If I had to say my favorite thing from Montpellier it would be the colorful trams! Also if I had to share one surviving tip for Montpellier: never cross the tram lines… This is not for your own safety but rather tip to not get lost. The trams circle around the old town so if you never cross the tram lines you will never exit the old town. This way even if you get lost you won’t be totally in trouble.

There is several tram lines that have all their own design. For example blue tram with bird design and colorful one with funny images. The stops are always styled similarly to the trains passing through it. In addition of looking cool trams are cheap way of going around and see more than just the centre of Montpellier.

 

2. La Panacee

I live for free museums and modern art. La Panacee combines those two (and amazing buffet restaurant.) It may be hard to find and at least for me it took several tries to exploring around the old streets before spotting this small museum. Definitely worth of taking your time and trying to find it. The changing exhibitions are interesting and something different from the more normal museums. And did I already mention that it is FREE! 

 

1. Wine & Cheese picnic

The last but not the least on my list is picnic. Go to local super market, buy some cheap cheese, wine or sweets and find beautiful place to have picnic. Maybe you should go to the beach or some of the lively parks. Where ever you decide to make your home, Montpellier won’t disappoint you. This city is full of life, funny people and charm. (Disclaimer: Don’t picnic on tram tracks like my photo seems to suggest…)

 

So have you ever been to Montpellier? Or have you even heard about this charming city? Any comments you have are appreciated like always…

So this was the first post of my returning Wanderlust Wednesdays series! I hope you liked it because there is more posts coming soon.

With love,

Viivi Severina

 

Photo Diary: First Year Blogging

Published on by LostViivi14 Comments

Hello everyone!
I want to start this post with announcement: my posting day has officially changed to Saturday. Yes, I know this was long waited thing because I literally publish my posts always day late… I have other cool things coming soon but I will talk about them more next Saturday so wait for that.

When I plan new posts from scratch I usually first look trough my photo albums to remember what I haven’t yet shared with you. This morning wasn’t exception. I have quite many photo diaries I have yet to show you but then I realized there is many photos I can’t add to any new photo diary but I think are worth of sharing. And this is how this “My Travel Year 2016” photo compilation was born. I hope you will enjoy these random photos that sum up my travel year 2016!

I got often asked to publish more photos of me, the blogger behind everything written on this site. So, here you go… Me (that lost white hoodie person) getting amazed by Diagon Alley in London on Warner Bros. Studio Tour. Have I ever mentioned how much I love Harry Potter?

Here is my dog doing what she always does: sleeping in place where I’m definitely going to crush her… I have camouflage dog!

I still haven’t published a few London post I meant to. I’m still working on Madame Tussauds photo diary and Harry Potter Warner Bros. Studio Tour review. Hopefully you get to read them some time soon but no promises.

Here is the necessary Finnish summer photo. This year my summer holiday was full of odd travels around my beloved home country. This photo is from Lapland when I travelled there to university entrance exams (plot twist: I didn’t get in that school so I am not living in Lapland right now).

This is another photo from my trip to Lapland: Science Centre Pilke in Rovaniemi. I have this museum card that gives me free entrance to many Finnish museums. Pilke was one of those museums so I decided to visit it. There was literally no one else than me and two employees. I liked the museum but it was more for kids than for people of my age… Well, at least that explains why the two workers were looking me so oddly when I bought ticket from them.

Ducks! This photo is taken from my family’s summer cottage. I spend too much time trying to take perfect photos of these birds while they just chilled on our yard.

This photo was taken by my mum when our dog had to go to surgery earlier this year. No worries, she is okay now. But look how poor little puppy she looks like! Even if she is already older lady.

More memories from my odd summer holiday… Camping in forest with “a few” other people is something I will never say no to!

2016 was year of cool museums for me. I went to see many different modern art exhibitions around Europe: London, Finland and Sweden. I still don’t get how some people hate museums… Look at he photo above, who wouldn’t think that art is kind of cool?!

I know that first photo of me wasn’t “real” photo so here is me standing like tourist I am next to Big Ben. I don’t understand why there is never good photos of me travelling… Maybe I’m too busy of experiencing everything to really pose for photos!

I’m happy I had time to go and enjoy sunrise and sunset couple of times this year. Even if that time I took this photo I realized the sun was rising from the wrong way so I could see it properly. But at least I was able to enjoy the beach and sea.

You may know that I started in new school this year. One thing that I have found kind of funny (but cool) are these inspiring quotes around the school’s toilet. But you know even if I find them funny it doesn’t mean they are not giving out good message. So today I want to give you one life advice (I learned in my school’s toilet…)

“Be so happy that when others look at you they become happy too!”

I hope you are having amazing start for this new year!
With love,

Viivi Severina

Travel Diary: London pt. 2

Published on by LostViivi8 Comments

Hello there and welcome back to read about my London adventure! If you haven’t read the first part you can find it from here: Travel Diary: London Also if you are wondering where the day 3 disappeared it will have its own post later on.

Why? Because otherwise this post would have been too long and I really want to dedicate whole post for Harry Potter studio tour and Madame Tussauds museum. But now let’s continue the story! (And btw thank to my sister who took that crazy bird photo… She is fearless!)

Day 4: Natural History and Shopping

I recommend living in hotels with breakfast because finding something to eat sound easier than it is in reality. Once again buying breakfast was causing us unbelievably huge problems. You would think it’s easy to find breakfast cafe from London but that’s total fantasy. We walked the whole few kilometers to the Natural History Museum without finding any cafe for us to eat.

No breakfast here…

First we went through the security check where they didn’t check us properly like too often in these situations. Apparently Finns or our lost selves don’t seem dangerous enough to need proper security checks. After that we continued our mission to find breakfast and managed to find the most unhealthy but tasty looking chocolate cake I have ever seen. Of course we bought pieces of it for us to have as breakfast.

I have few words about the free Natural History museum. Dinosaurs, mind games and huge whale. Yep, that sums up our morning. Besides us there was a lot of school classes. When we left the museum we even accidentally walked in one of the school groups and got some wondering looks from the teacher.

After surviving out of the museum (we didn’t go to every exhibition because it would have taken the whole day!) it was time to go shopping. We went to a few shops but in the end did most of our shopping in the Primark. Don’t judge me, I’m student and live on my own so shop full of cheap clothes is like a heaven.

I bought two more pairs of the jeans I had bought the last time. Even if those jeans made me looks like a smurf after I took them off. That feature is still part of them. I don’t know if I should be worried of them leaving ugly blue color to my skin? Well, at least the jeans only cost like 7€.

But yeah that was our fourth day. The evening went planning our last day, buying some bubble tea and starting the impossible packing. I had totally forgotten how much I loved bubble tea. I even bought matcha one because it’s one of the foods I can’t get from Finland and I think I can’t live without!

Day 5: Hard Rock Cafe and Touristy Things

We didn’t have a lot of plans for our fifth day but ended up doing a lot. Our first stop was breakfast at Hard Rock Cafe. We had been arguing (well not arguing but just being indecisive together) should we use the metro or walk through Hyde Park. We ended up doing the last one and it was good decision!

Thanks for my sister who took this photo. I would have never been brave enough to be so close to the birds! And I should be the animal carer of this family…

We saw more birds on our way and even crazier tourists trying to hug and befriend the birds. (You shouldn’t do this. Bad for the animals and unhealthy for you..) 

When we finally found the Hard Rock Cafe it was closer us than we had tought. The staffs were kind and place amazing so definitely recommend for everyone to go when in London! It was meant to be our breakfast but we both ordered cauliflower burger. It was vegetarian dish where the hamburger steak was replaced by cauliflower. I would eat all my burgers like that if it was possible.

At this point it didn’t even matter that our breakfast was so fulfilling because we had eaten odd breakfasts everyday. Bento box, Fish & Chips and chocolate cake to name some of our crazy breakfast choices. But hey, we were on vacation so no reason to eat reasonably.

After the fulfilling meal we continued towards Buckingham palace and the royal shop we had promised to visit for our mom. Luck was on our side because once again the walk was shorter than we had expected. And on when we arrived to the palaces gates there was someone (probably important person) exiting the palace in horse carriage. So cool!

After the palace gates experience and realizing there was nothing to buy in the royal shop (just normal more expensive souvenirs) we decided to continue our walk. Next destination Big Ben!  I know we already went there once but my sister had forgotten her polaroid camera so we had to return to take photo for her.

Once again good decision because this time we decided to be more touristy than on the first time and lined to take photos of us with Big Ben and red phone booth. It was so funny how people would pose with the booth and even more people line up to wait for their turn to take the photo. No way for anyone to really use those phones to call. Tourist takeover!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BLrOVBVgoZG/?taken-by=viiviseverina

Surprisingly even after taking some photos and buying souvenirs from stall next to the Big Ben we had almost half of the day left. It was time to head to get some culture experiences and what would be better place for that than Tate Modern museum?

The museum was huge. I mean I had known there was many floors and exhibitions but it was bigger than I would have never imagined. In my opinion too much art to see in one day. I have always loved museum and modern art and this museum immediately rose to one of my favorite museum. And one important point to mention is that the museum was free to attend.

We even found one exhibition from Finnish artist. We were wondering out loud why would there be Finn’s works in this popular museum when behind us woman said in Finnish “Why not?” and disappeared as quickly as she had appeared. I never get used to other Finns leaving our beloved home country and making contact on odd places.

After the museum visit it was time to return back to our hotel. We packed our too full suitcases and tried to sleep early because the next morning it was time to leave.

 

Day 6: Time To Go Home

We woke up too early to make it to our plane. First we had to take metro to the train station and then find the right train. I thought we would have more problems but fortunately the trains station has prepared for tourist and there is huge signs to find the right track.

We arrived early to the airport but then suddenly we almost had to run to make it to our flight. The airport really is huge. And the plains to Finland leave from the farthes corner possible. No, I’m not even kidding. We had to walk trough the whole airport to get to our gate.

This time I sat next to my sister but it was causing some problems. We wanted to see the same movie so if one of us was ahead the other one got spoilers before hand. Can someone make the plane TV’s sync and show the movies at the same time? Let’s just go back to the time where everyone had to watch Brain Games from the shared tiny TV.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BMXS3WrAQoY/?taken-by=viiviseverina

So there was my London travel diary. I hope you enjoyed my long boring commentary. Have you ever been to London? And maybe done some of the things we did?

I will write again next Friday with the story and review from Harry Potter tour and Madame Tussauds. Have an amazing weekend!

With love,

Viivi Severina