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
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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
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16/08/14
|
Day15
|
Iceland
|
Reykjavik
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17/08/14
|
Day16
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Iceland
|
Reykjavik
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18/08/14
|
Day17
|
Iceland
|
Reykjavik
|
19/08/14
|
Day18
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Finland
|
Helsinki
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20/08/14
|
Day19
|
Finland
|
Helsinki
|
21/08/14
|
Day20
|
Finland
|
Helsinki
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22/08/14
|
Day21
|
India
|
Delhi
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