Budget: 1100€ (330€ Flights Norwegian; 300€ Air BnB; 140€ Broadway Musial; ca 300€ Activities, Food and Transport)

Duration: 5 Days (6Nights)

Travel Time: Middle of May (no risk for snow or bad weather, but not too hot yet, although we had 32°c already)

So i was going to NY! Hitting the big apple, and this time with a dear friend!

This journey was originally planned alone, so i booked a very long time ahead (6month), since Norwegian had very good offers, i could not resist. My friend booked 2 month later and got even a better price. Obviously both-way direct flights from Stockholm to JFK for 330€ is unbeatable. Also the flight times were pretty well, since we flew Sunday afternoon and arrived Sunday evening, so one can directly go to bed after a tough, 7h long flight and start fresh into the week on Monday. We left Friday evening, so in total we had 5 amazing days to spend in this Metropolitan City. Coming back on a Saturday also gives you time to recover from Jetlag before going back to work on mondays.

I have to admit i had really high expectations towards NYC, since it is shown in all movies and a lot of my favourite tv shows (including Gossip Girl) are filmed here. Honestly, TV is creating an image of this city, which is quite unreal. New York was not disappointing, but different.

One always thinks this city is incredibly huge and i was really scared not to find our way here, but due to numbered streets and a very good public transport network it is super easy to get around.

Our air bnb was located in East Harlem on Manhattan, so first challenge was to get there.

American people are in general really helpful and open, so if they see that you are lost, they will all directly offer help, which is almost never happening in Sweden.

If you want to go from JFK to the city, you will take the airport Air Train first to Jamaica station, which will cost you 6$ and from that station you are connected to the Metro Network.

I would definitly recommend you to buy a weekly pass for 33$. For us it was the best decision ever, since the days got warmer and warmer and we got more tired. In the end we used bus and metro all the time, even for one stop sometimes.

We were really lucky on Sunday evening to find boarder Control almost empty (remember to sign up for ESTA or apply for Visa in advance if you travel to the US). It took us only 30min from our Gate to airport shuttle, which is absolutely amazing. We arrived therefore much earlier at our air bnb place and could go to bed early, which we urgently needed. I will add some info about our Air BnB later, since it was a really, really great host and place to stay.

As mentioned above it was really hot during our stay in New York, almost unbearable during Thursday and Friday, since temperature rose to 32°c and the air is standing between the high rise blocks, but anyway that is far better than rain. I would definitely go around end of April/during May again, since one can mostly avoid snow in April and too hot summer days in June. Otherwise autumn and winter have to be amazing times as well to hit the streets of NY.

We had a rough plan about what we wanted to see and where to go to. My friend bought the lonely planet advisor, which helped us a lot to find different spots in the city. Since there is no free Wifi all around the city, as in many other places, it's best to have an oldschool map or download a Google offline map. Due to low phone battery i would recommend first one.

We both have never been to NY so we needed to see of course all the typical touristy stuff, which was at that point more important than shopping, although we shopped a lot more in the end, than we thought. Check out Citypass for good deals if you want to combine a lot of Tourist attractions.

Easiest to plan your trip is to divide the days in different districts, you would like to see. Although metro connection is quite good, it takes quite a while to go from one end of Manhattan to the other, or to Brooklyn for example.

So this is how we split our days in the end.

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Monday - Central Park/Central Manhattan

Tuesday - Financial District/Lower Manhattan

Wednesday - Metropolitan Museum/Top of the Rock/Broadway Musical

Thursday - Chinatown/Nolita/Little Italy/SOHO

Friday - Brooklyn/Central Park

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Originally it was planned a bit differently, but my poor friend suffered from a bad jetlag on Monday, so we decided to stay in town and not go to far away from our Air BnB, in case she needed to rest. Otherwise we would have gone to Brooklyn already on Monday. Anyway if you have planned the days you can easily also switch them, due to weather conditions. We did not visit a lot of museums, since that is not our thing. But in case of bad weather, there are uncountable possibilites for every interest.

Well, let's start with the very basic info about my trip to Gran Canaria

Budget: 656€ (190€ Flights; 280€ Air BnB; 16€ Airport shuttle; 170€ Activities, Food and Transport)

Duration: 6 Days (6Nights)

Travel Time: Middle of February, spring starts earlier here and Grand Canaria is famous for its blooming almond-trees

So i booked this vacation quite spontaniously (for me 2 month ahead), because i realised that i had to use up my vacation days, since i am not allowed in my first year of employment, to roll them over to next year (which was originally my plan). Well i had only 8 days left and swedish winters are so tough, i never thought it would be this dark and cold and also never ending, kind of.

So i decided that i would need a lot of sun soon and i would have preferred to travel to the caribbean end of january, since that's a good time, but with only 8 days it does not really make sense to go. It takes a whole day to go there and back and the flights are really expensive comparing to the duration of your stay. So anyway i planned my super sunny vacay in carribean end of this year instead.

If you need a short term vacation, with an ok flight time and sunny weather, the canary islands are definitly a good decision. I have been to almost all of them before, but not to Gran Canaria. Also Gran Canaria is one of the islands, that has most to offer. Fuerteventura for instance is just consisting of Hotelcities, to be honest.

Since i was quite late, it was also super difficult to find an accomodation. Most of them had been booked one week before, also the best flight times were already gone. If i had been earlier, i could have saved surely a bit on the AirBnB. Anyway the AirBnB is located in Maspalomas, a really popular area on Gran Canaria. This time i booked flights and accomodation directly after each other, since i am so "lastminute".

I could have taken longer off, but my budget is already split for other vacations this year, so my focus is to get a cheap vacation with as much activities and fun as possible. I booked two dives with Zeus Dive Center in Playa del Inglés as well (always contact the Dive school before you go there, that makes it super easy, since they also have planned dives and times)

Booking this one was quite stressful, because in the end i had to take what i could get. If you are more in time the offers are bigger and cheaper, especially everyone wants to leave the cold for an escape around february.

As many others i get to see those amazing pictures of travel bloggers on instagram and wherever, where they stay in the fanciest places, nicest 5* hotels, infinity pools.. whatever!

It can be so inspiring, i have to admit, but also very frustrating if you are a semi normal person, with a regular job and a limited income... traveling is actually not your job! 

So as i love planning to plan, i just came up with a strategy, that helps me to achieve my goals and travel a lot, lot this year.

1) Start saving early - it is very good to save some money every month, so in case you see a cheap offer, you can just book it.

2) Set a travel Budget - it is really good to set yourself a maximum amount you are willing to spent around the year for vacation, my budget is 5000€ this year, which is also a lot of money for me, but the point is to get as much out of this bunch as possible

3) Set your destinations and times- it is good to have a travel bucket list, so you can decide more flexible what places you will go to.

While doing your travel list, consider always the weather and high season periods, so you can spread your vacations evenly, i'll share mine with you below.

Gran Canaria -  6 Days February (it's actually high season during that period, but i wanted as much sun as possible, while taking short flight times)

New York - 5 Days May (it is always better to do City Trips in Spring/Autumn and May is just precisly before High Season)

Italy-Amalfi Coast - 2 weeks August/September (semi-high season, still manageable super cheap if you book in time and do quite a lot of research)

Carribean over Christmas and New Year? (This one is planned, but not booked yet)

4) Split your budget - also consider what price is really reasonable, compare what you can get for your money!

6 Nights New York City - 600 Euros (flights and AirBnB)

14 Nights Italy Amalfi Coast - 580 Euros (flights, AirBnB, Hostels and Hotel)

5) Know your needs - Of course you want to spend as less money as possible, but there are some standards that you might consider neccessary for your comfortness. I really prefer having a seperate sleeping room, but i can share kitchen and bath, because i take privacy as the privilige i treat myself with. So comparing air bnb and hostels with same price, i would always chose the private accomodation.

6)Try to spread your booking periods, you don't need to book all at the same time (only if you are quite late), as you also might not have all the money saved already (sometimes i book just flights on offer and take care for a hotel a month or two later)

It is always up to you, what you are willing to pay and what you expect to get for a certain price. My goal is to inspire you with different trips, that are worth their money and with different budgets for everyone. So i will be super honest and straight, when it comes to prices, since this seems so often not mentioned.

You might have already read many, many articles about this, but here is another one.

Budget: 2500€ (1100€ flights, 400€ air bnbs, 600€ food and transport, activities; 400€ diving license)

Duration: 16 Days

Travel Time: September (best travel time, since it is shortly before seasonal change to rain period, semi high season, it is always warm on Bali, but in September it is quite windy and not as humid)

I have always dreamt about going to Bali for a very, very long time. But since i had been working a lot the past years, doing an apprenticeship and relaying on school vacation, earning super less money, i was never able to actually go there.

So finally when i got a job i started saving for this journey and then i did not book it. I was super scared, since it is also a different culture and i looked at flights over and over again, but never got the guts to actually buy them. I knew i wanted to go in September, since i researched for the best travel time, so it would have been just so very easy.

One evening i finally told myself that i can do this and i tried to book on a flight, which went wrong several times. I had gotten a new Visa Card, which was not activated, so i tried several times to book my seats (with more leg space, since it's quite a long flight) and desperately failed. When i finally managed to make my Visa Card work after 2hours, all those seats that i tried to pick in previous sessions, where gone, since they are blocked for a while. I got so super mad and thought this might be an omen, that i should not go and went to bed, angry and frustrated. Of course i could not fall asleep, since this was all driving me super crazy, so i got up again and looked at flights at 1am in the morning.

I said to myself: this is the last time you try and if now you don't get the nice seats, then you might not go. So fingers crossed, i got my seats with nice leg space and could finally go to sleep happily.

This got me so super stressed that night, that i did not consider booking any hotel or place to stay for a while.

(Prices for flights can variate, depending on the airline you travel with and where you stop. I went with Thaiairways from Stockholm-Bangkok-Bali with a total travel time of around 18h, staying at Bangkok airport for 3h approx and paid 1100€. Flights to Bali are fairly expensive, while living there is super cheap. So i would always recommend, also due to long flight times, to stay at least 14 Days, if i would go again it would be definitly more)
So after 6 weeks i looked deeper into places to stay. I decided to travel around a bit, but not too much, since it was my first real journey on my own. Of course my first destination was Ubud - The cultural heart of Bali. Since i was also interested so much in Balinese Culture and Mentality, i thought it would be best to live with a Balinese Person. It was quite frightening for me to go on my own and live with a stranger, but i got so far with booking the flights, that i felt i could also do this.
I researched for quite a long time and finally found Putu Merni's Air BnB which is Jawi Painter House in Ubud. Of course i did not want to book my first Air BnB with a man, beeing really critical and sceptical, as i always am.
Staying at Putus Place was 22€ a night including a really nice breakfast with amazing pancakes and fresh fruit salad and free drinkable water.
After Ubud, i wanted to go to Gili Air, so i researched again for a super long time and finally found Dean's Bale Kampung Bamboo Hut. The price was reasonable and since he had good recommendations i felt it would be fine, even though he was a man -haha.
This Hut was a bit more expensive, so around 27€ a night, including free water and breakfast as well.
To be honest i invested more than the 16 Days i spent on Bali, just for researching and beeing super sure, about what to do. As i mentioned it gave me a lot of security, knowing where i am going and what i will do and where i will stay.