Planning Scandinavia: Accommodation & Visas

Accommodation is pretty damn expensive in all scandinavian countries, just to give an example a budget B&B or hostel for 2 will cost between 7000-12000 INR a night pretty steep. We were lucky to have friends at a few cities who were gracious enough to invite us to stay with them. So John will be hosting us in Frederikshavn, Louise and Reine in Stockholm and Oda/Mari in Oslo. Definitely makes our heart and pocket happy.
So i will say, "Friends are all around to host you, for everywhere else there is airbnb" (www.airbnb.com). Won't ask airbnb to pay for the punchline though as i stole it from master card.
Airbnb definitely came to rescue as i managed to get decent apartments at Copenhagen (119 USD/night), goteborg(101 USD/night), Reykjavik (110 USD/night) & bergen(166 USD/night). Never used airbnb before, so definitely review it during the travel. We booked ourself a double room at eurohostel(www.eurohostel.fi) in helsinki (95 USD/night)

So Accommodation got sorted in 82,777 INR.

At last its time to apply for the schengen VISA. Had a fight with my regular travel agent on his inefficient behaviour and decided to do the VISA process on my own. Lot of paperwork as i was applying at the Royal Danish Embassy. The application process has been outsourced to VFS Global in mumbai (www.vfsglobal.com), super efficient and submission process was pretty smooth apart from a confusion which got created, as the lady at the counter couldn't take a decision whether i am eligible for applying at Denmark or Norway Embassy. At last confusion cleared and applied in Denmark embassy. Price 60 Euros.

Received the VISA pretty fast, in around 8 days, but a 22 day single entry visa. What's wrong with you guys? i have 3 Schengen (multiple entry), 2 australian and 1 Kiwi visa on my passport apart from 18 other 3rd world country VISAS. What's the problem in a multiple entry visa? You guys are the happiest nation in the world for God's sake, spread some too.

Anyway i am a happy man. So now what is left is counting days...........
At the moment it is 16 Days :-)

Planning Scandinavia: Intra & Inter-country Transit

The next challenge was the inter and intra city/country travel. This was sorted pretty fast with Norwegian (Norway's low cost carrier), SAS and Iceland Air. Booking early helps in getting super cheap fares with Norwegian. But one needs to be ready for bad service, as i don't have very good experience in the past, especially with SAS. Keeping my fingers crossed on the choice of airlines made this time.

So this is how it looks for air connections:

Date	From	To	Airlines	Cost
04/08/14	Copenhagen	Aalborg	Norwegian	170USD
10/08/14	Stockholm	Bergen	Norwegian	184USD
13/08/14	Bergen	Oslo	Norwegian	118USD
16/08/14	Oslo	Reykjavic	SAS	240USD
19/08/14	Reykjavic	Helsinki	Icelandair	316USD

The plan is to cross from Frederikshavn into Goteborg via Stenaline Ferry budgeted at 32 USD. This also includes the lounge access. Without lounge access it is a mere 15 Euros.

For Goteborg to Stockholm i decided to use the 3rd mode of transport, the SJ High speed train between Goteborg Central and Stockholm Central. It Seems, in europe train travel is more expensive than flights. With some research i found out that special fares open 3 months in advance and they are pretty cheap if booked in advance. So booked a 2nd Class ticket at 259 SEK (38 USD). The bookings were done on www.sj.se . The website has an english version and is pretty straight forward to book.

What is left now? Hey how can i miss the last mode of transport? So road is what i need to hit now. Driving in Iceland is something everyone is raving about, so why not? Started looking at various car rental companies and finally zeroed down to Faircar Rentals. Got a very good rate for an Automatic Transmission Opel Astra along with unlimited mileage, extra driver, insurance, tent,sleeping bag and mats at 355 Euros (483 USD) for 4 days. Pretty good deal i believe. The bookings were made on www.faircar.is .Last but not the least, we have a trek planned in Oslo and needed to book a car to go from Oslo to Gjendheim and back. So SixT car rentals (www.sixt.com) came to rescue with a super deal for a Mercedes A Class with insurance, unlimited mileage and theft protection for 2434 NOK (393 USD) for 2 days.

Whewwwwww! So now i am all sorted on my inter and intra city travel and  i will be flying, driving and sailing!!!!!!!!!

The entire travel cost including the international flights boiled down to 273,392 INR for 2 Pax

Planning Scandinavia: The skeleton plan

Scandinavia was not on my immediate Travel list, more because of the hole it burns in your pocket. But then i thought, if we can do New Zealand on a budget, why not Scandinavia? 2nd roadblock was getting enough days off work to cover all the 5 countries. Somehow we both managed to convince our respective companies into getting us a 3 week off, even though that means working on all saturdays for a few months. So now we are ready to plan.

The first rule of thumb is attack the most expensive part of the travel first, in this case the airfare. Did a permutation combination of all routes starting from mumbai and all were either red eye flights or too expensive. Also if i need to fly in and out of the same airport, it has to be strategically located city so that we can do a full circle and reach back from where we started.

After a few months of research somewhere around 30th Aug 2013, exactly 1 year ahead of my planned trip, i could zeroed in on the port of entry as Helsinki, Finland. Finn Air runs straight flights in and out of New Delhi straight to Helsinki. This means no red eye, less flying time and off course Cheap. Never flew with them before, so reviews will come once we reach our destination. So Airfares in and out of Helsinki sorted at 43,000 INR per Pax which is pretty cheap.

Next challenge is itinerary planning. This is most critical so that least time is wasted in transiting in between cities and also as here a few countries are involved, can't go back and forth.

A few months and we have a nice itinerary in place looking at a city or two in every country. Also part of the plan was to go and visit my old friend and now our group owner, John and his family who have their summer house in Frederikshavn, near Aalborg, Denmark. So this is how the itinerary looked after Final micro planning.

01/08/14	Day 0	Denmark	Copenhagen
02/08/14	Day 1	Denmark	Copenhagen
03/08/14	Day 2	Denmark	Copenhagen
04/08/14	Day 3	Denmark	Aalborg
05/08/14	Day 4	Denmark	Aalborg
06/08/14	Day 5	Sweden	Goteborg
07/08/14	Day 6	Sweden	Goteborg
08/08/14	Day 7	Sweden	Stockholm
09/08/14	Day 8	Sweden	Stockholm
10/08/14	Day 9	Norway	Bergen
11/08/14	Day10	Norway	Bergen
12/08/14	Day11	Norway	Bergen
13/08/14	Day12	Norway	Oslo
14/08/14	Day13	Norway	Oslo
15/08/14	Day14	Norway	Oslo
16/08/14	Day15	Iceland	Reykjavik
17/08/14	Day16	Iceland	Reykjavik
18/08/14	Day17	Iceland	Reykjavik
19/08/14	Day18	Finland	Helsinki
20/08/14	Day19	Finland	Helsinki
21/08/14	Day20	Finland	Helsinki
22/08/14	Day21	India	Delhi