Travel Inspiration

Last week I travelled abroad for the first time since February, and the first time since Covid-19 became a part of our lives. I'm not one for writing negative posts or having a moan, and like my blog to be a positive space, but I also like to be informative and, above all, honest. So I'm going to share my experience of what it's like to travel abroad during the Covid-19 pandemic, but I must warn you it's a bit of a moan!

Friends and family often come to me with the question: "I want to book to cheap European city break, where should I go?" They want somewhere that's easy to get to, includes a bit of culture & history, has plenty of tasty food and nice wine, and is perfect for a weekend of exploring on foot. The reason they ask me for advice is that this is exactly my travel style - I'm not a backpacker, a luxury traveller or a super-budget travel. I'm just your standard budget to mid-range weekend traveller who likes to have a drink along the way!

Despite being a travel blogger, two and a half weeks is the longest I’ve travelled for. Most of my travel involves long weekends to a new city, and I'm happy with that! I love working hard and then taking a couple of days off to explore somewhere new whilst eating all of the food and drinking all of the wine. This means that my seventeen day trip from Istanbul to Venice through the Balkans was a rather long and exotic trip for me, and therefore full of both memories and learnings. Not just learnings about the individual destinations that I visited, but also about my travel style and how I want to shape my travel going forward.

If, like me, you have an endless list of places that you want to visit but don’t fancy travelling long term and can’t take every other week off work, this itinerary is for you! I visited 6 countries in 17 days and managed to not feel rushed, tired or burnt out - although I did have to have a couple of early nights towards the end of the trip. It took a fair amount of planning but it all paid off and it didn’t cost the earth either. Starting in Istanbul, my boyfriend Billy and I headed across the Balkans and into Italy before flying back home.

I'd never been on a sleeper train before so it certainly had the novelty factor, but wouldn't it be much like sleeping in hostel dorm, but worse? I expected cramped rooms, dirty beds, snoring train companions, horrible toilet facilities and absolutely zero sleep. In fact, I loved my experience on the night train from Istanbul to Sofia and I'd happily take the journey again. Read on and I'll explain the basics such as when it runs, how long it takes and how much it costs before telling you what to expect and why you should definitely consider taking it in the future.

Wow that's a big title! But that's exactly what this post is about. When I talk to my friends about my upcoming travel plans, they tend to comment on the fact that a) I seem to go on a fair few weekend breaks despite my lack of money and annual leave; b) my destinations seem random because I've never expressed an interest in that place before and; c) it must be more expensive booking a trip so last minute! The first two points are sort of true, but the third definitely isn't. So I thought I'd share with you how I go about booking a last minute, super cheap city break using minimal annual leave.

When friends ask me for recommendations for a weekend away in Europe, it's always hard to pick one place, especially as everyone has different tastes and therefore what might suit one friend wouldn't suit another. But there does tend to be one common theme in my recommendations and that is they are all in Eastern Europe.