Northern Italy and South/Central Switzerland in Four Days (Early August)

I recently took another short trip, this one with my little sister, and I wanted to share what we were able to accomplish in four full days plus a day of travel on either side! We were there August 2-6, 2018.

Day One: 

We flew into Milan Malpensa International Airport (or something like that, airport code MSP), arriving around 8am. We immediately went to pickup our rental car, which we got through Sicily By Car. The rental counter is in a different place from the car pickup, but we finally found the counter after a good 45 minutes of running around everywhere. The car itself was pretty cheap, we paid roughly $120 for four full days, but they always get you with the INSURANCE which was an additional $90. ANYWAYS, we picked up our car (a tiny lil Fiat) and headed straight for Grindelwald, Switzerland. On our way we went over the most BEAUTIFUL mountain pass! There were plenty of pullouts so we pulled over a few times for some photo ops. I am so sorry that I didn't note the name of this mountain pass! I've tried figuring out online but haven't figured out which one it is...but here's some pictures from out stops over the pass!!

We used the app maps.me to navigate, and this is a helpful (and also sometimes infuriating) app. You download the regions you'll be traveling to ahead of time, then when you're there you can use the app like you would Google Maps. So it's a GPS you can use without wifi! You just have to download the individual maps ahead of time (super easy). The drawbacks are that it can't take traffic into account, so it only maps the quickest route by mileage, and it has really odd directions sometimes. BUT we would have been so lost without it. Anyway, getting off topic, we arrived in Grindelwald and spend the afternoon walking around the town and getting some food.

There were some places that only take cash (Swiss Francs) so we also withdrew some money from an ATM to use. From there we went to Interlaken, a relatively short drive, and checked into our hostel.

We stayed at the Tent Village in Interlaken which was actually our favorite hostel we stayed at the entire trip! Setup looks a little funny, picture big striped yellow tents and a coed bathroom and you got it, but it was really fun! There were lots of hammocks, a trampoline, a pool, and a hot tub. We also slept REALLY well. Partially because we have just spent a long day traveling, but also because with the tent setup we got more of the cool night air so we weren't boiling like we were in the other hostels!! Anyway, that night we walked into town and got some delicious gelato.

Day Two:

Day two we drove to Lauterbrunnen where we did the waterfalls hike/walk. This I had read a ton about online and it mentions there being 72 waterfalls, and while we were fairly underwhelmed by the amount of waterfalls (or lack thereof), it was still a beautiful walk and easy for people of all abilities. Most of it is paved, the hardest part for us was figuring out where to go. If you start at the train station, you just walk all the way through town on the main road, and don't stop! The first waterfall was the coolest, right outside town there's a waterfall you can hike up to and there's a little path behind the waterfall which is pretty cool.

There's also a great view of Lauterbrunnen from the waterfall!

After that little detour we just followed the main road down until we reached the hotel in Stechelberg, then took the bus back to Lauterbrunnen for a few dollars. The hike was really nice, classic Swiss scenery with cows and mountains and greenery and waterfalls! It was 9km or roughly 5.5 miles one way, and took us about 2.5 hours to complete.

Also note that if there is a sign that says "frei" next to parking, that means there's available parking spaces, not that parking is free....oops. In Lauterbrunnen we got lunch at a place that I believe was called "Flavours" and had REALLY good juice. I also got a street bratwurst, then we left for Zermatt!

So Zermatt is the mountain town right next to the Matterhorn, and you can only get there by train. The only cars in Zermatt are local busses and taxis/shuttle, so that's AWESOME. We just walked from the train station to our hostel, which was called the Matterhorn Hostel, and was an easy walk from the train station. Maybe a mile? My inner GPS is off so who knows, but it felt like a 15 minute walk or so. The hostel itself was fine, the room was pretty small and hot, but it was our cheapest option haha.

So after checking in to our hostel we walked into town and got sandwiches at a bakery, followed by chocolate fondue at a place above the bakery! We lucked out and found some relatively cheap fondue, pretty much everywhere in Switzerland it's really expensive. And that's pretty much it! I bought an adapter to charge my camera. Thrilling. I'll include some town views below!

Day Three:

We headed straight for the funicular (a weird cable car train thing that goes straight up the mountain haha), then transferred at the top to take a gondola up to do the five lakes walk, or 5-seenweg! This is an iconic Swiss hike that is suitable for people of all hiking abilities (there is some uphill and downhill, but you definitely don't need to be in stellar shape to get through it) that take you past five different lakes and with views of the Matterhorn throughout. There is an option to hike it from town, but we chose to take the funicular and gondola up, and the funicular on the way down. Hiking from town adds a pretty good chunk of elevation gain, so we decided against that. The hike was one of our trip highlights, super heavily trafficked, but beautiful nonetheless. There are two lakes you can swim in, but we just waded in the less populated one. Pretty chilly.

The first lake (and our personal favorite) feat. the Matterhorn in the back behind a cloud

The first of two lakes you can swim in (that's me in the black)

After the hike we went back into town and pretty much beelined for the train to get back to our car and back on the road. We went over another mountain pass, so more mountain pass photos below! I also had to get our trusty little Fiat in a photo ;)

This was a pretty long drive, roughly 3.5 hours I believe, to get from Tasch to our next hostel on Lake Como. We were getting pretty hungry, so we made a detour to Lugano to get some pizza! By this point we were back with people who spoke mostly Italian, and the guys who worked there spoke no English, so we just picked a random pizza and went with it. It came with four quadrants, a different topping in each quadrant. One quarter was olives, one artichokes, one prosciutto, and one mushrooms. So that was interesting haha, we just mixed and matched and it was pretty good!!! We stayed at the Lake Como Beach Hostel that night, and loved the setup of this hostel!! It was right on the lake, with a rooftop deck with with a hammock, a restaurant and bar downstairs, and free breakfast! Two big drawbacks. One: we had to sleep on top of our blankets in as little clothing as possible because it was SO hot (even with a fan and the window open, there's not much you can do about mid-90 degree weather!) and two: there are only like five free parking spaces. The other parking spaces in the lot you have to pay for, so we had an adventure of trying to find an atm then trying to break a bill down to get change. We got it figured out though!

Day Four:

We got up for breakfast, which included mostly things like toast and cereal, then hopped in our car and drove around the lake to Lenno. Note that parking around Lake Como is pretty awful. We ended up finding parking up a hill kind of in a neighborhood that was only one hour parking EXCEPT on Sundays, which is was. Thankfully. And it was free!! From there we walked down and over to Villa del Balbianello, another iconic Lake Como landmark. This picturesque villa has been used in multiple movies, notably in Star Wars as Naboo. We paid the student fee to enter the gardens (we chose not to do the tour), which was something like 8 Euros each, and WELL worth it. So stunning. I'm just going to put photos down below.

From there we walked to the Lenno ferry and paid 18.40 Euros for a roundtrip ticket to Bellagio. In Bellagio we got lunch at La Fontana Bellagio, a relatively affordable sit down restaurant. I got housemade gnocchi and my sister got the spaghetti, and both were great. We did have to pay a cover charge and had to pay for water, but the pasta was pretty cheap so I guess it evens out? After lunch we walked around Bellagio and got gelato, then took the ferry back to Lenno.

We hopped back in the car and drove to our final hostel, which was Malpensa Fiera Milano Hostel. We ended having a whole room to ourselves, which was nice, but it was another HOT night in toasty Italy. We were pretty close to the airport, which was super convenient.

Day Five:

We got up early, drove to the airport, and STRUGGLED to try figure out how to return our car. Fast forward an hour and we finally had it figured out. Then we went and barely made it through security in time for boarding, and got split up on our flights (reminder that we fly standby). So my sister got on a flight to New York, I got on a flight to Miami, and we met up at home after both making our layover flights haha.

That's a wrap! We had such a blast, and would HIGHLY recommend visiting northern Italy/Switzerland. Beautiful country, good food, safe, all good things.

Highlights:

• Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland
• Grindelwald, Switzerland
• The gelato. Everywhere. So good.
• Villa del Balbianello, Italy
• 5-Seenweg/Five Lakes Walk, Switzerland
• Zermatt, Switzerland
• Stopping over the Swiss mountain passes

Would Change:

• Put more effort into finding a hostel with air conditioning
• Do Jungfrau
• Go to Varenna instead of Bellagio on Lake Como
• Bring a swimsuit!!!

Surprises:

• THE HEAT. We were not expecting it to be so hot and HUMID. Italy was mid-90's Fahrenheit (but feels like 100+ with humidity) and Switzerland was only a little cooler.
• The flowers!! I don't know if this is a summer thing for Switzerland, or because we were arriving just after a Swiss holiday, but there were flowers absolutely everywhere and it was beautiful. I mean every flower box was filled, every grave had flowers on it, flowers in the gardens, flowers everywhere and we LOVED that!
• We only saw a very small handful of other Americans! We were expecting to see more since it was peak travel season, but we saw very few American tourists.

Overall cost (not including airfare, since ours would be far below average as standby passengers) per person for us was roughly $500, or just under. This includes food, gas, car rental, hostels, transportation, and insurance. We didn't buy any souvenirs aside from my adapter, and we split most meals!

And I think that mostly sums it up! We had SO much fun and it was mostly stress-free aside from the navigating. Feels good to cross another beautiful place off the bucket list, next stop Banff, Canada!

Traveling Iceland in Two Days (June)

I recently took my first non-rev trip (see last post for what non-revving is) and got to see Iceland! We only had two full days there, so I'm going to detail what we were able to accomplish and how we did it.

So the joys of standby travel mean that you have to be flexible. This was my first big international standby trip, and a few days before we were supposed to head out, the flights filled up. We're talking 40 people trying to get one of the five available seats. So we knew we weren't going to make the flight and actually bought one-way tickets instead for $350 each. We had a layover in Toronto and ended up arriving around the same time in Iceland than we originally were going to. When we arrived at 9:30am on a Tuesday we pulled out some cash from an ATM at the airport, then got in a shuttle to our rental car place! We used Green Motion.

We took a number at the rental car place and it took us roughly 45 minutes to get our car. The place has free wifi which was nice, and luckily we weren't on a strict schedule. I paid $91 to rent our car for two days (mini car category, manual) and we also paid an additional $86 for the rental car insurance...so big heads up for that little hidden fee. You do have the option of putting down a large deposit instead and getting your money back if the car comes back undamaged, but they freaked us out with their stories of sandstorms and stuff and how we could lose all the money if we chose that option haha. Side note, it was like $75 cheaper to get a manual than an automatic, so if you can drive a stick shift, do it! Saved us a bunch.

Okay now on to the travel part!

Day One

We started our day around 11:30am on Tuesday and headed straight for the Golden Circle loop! The Golden Circle is a loop you can take and hit a few different stops. It takes like seven hours or so to complete, depending on how long you take at each stop, and whether or not you take side trips! Our first stop was Þingvellir National Park, and we parked in a small unofficial gravel parking lot. This stop has a really nice looping path you can take, so we walked down maybe a third of the way, and took a few short side walks. We were scared of getting a parking ticket, so we didn't want to stay too long, but it was a great first stop! There was a fee to park (which we didn't pay...oops) and also a fee to use the bathroom. The photos below are all from the same stop.

Then it was back on the road! This time we had a shorter drive to the Gullfoss waterfall. This stop was pretty incredible, Gullfoss is this huge (as in wide, not tall) network of waterfalls, and you can walk right down to them!! Incredibly wet and cold but so cool. And free parking!

From there we had a very short drive to Geysir, more free parking! This stop has a bunch of geothermal attractions such as hot springs and geysers. The biggest draw is a geyser that goes off every ten minutes or so, the largest pool in the center, can't miss it. Of all our stops this was probably the most underwhelming, but still a great little stop. They also have a restaurant/gift shop/restrooms on site. We got lunch here, two chicken sandwiches, a coffee, a hot chocolate, and we split a berry cake thing for roughly $50.

An on we go! We decided to add on a stop to our Golden Circle adventure and stopped at Kerið, a volcanic crater lake. The road to get there from Geysir was this pot-holed backcountry road, at times covered in gravel, and our poor little car was not a fan. But bumpy road aside, we pulled over and got to see some BEAUTIFUL Icelandic ponies!!!!

Parking at the crater was free, but it cost us each a few dollars to enter the park. There's a nice walking path that leads around the edge overlooking the lake, as well as around the water itself. This was one of our favorite stops! And there were FAR fewer tourists here which is an added bonus.

After this we drove to the Blue Lagoon, a perfect last stop!! Parking again is free, but the cost of the Blue Lagoon was something like $80/person. We went at 8pm which is a little cheaper. At Blue Lagoon you go into locker rooms by gender, have to shower without a swimsuit on, then change into your swimsuit and head into the lagoon! You get a plastic wristband to wear at all times, and a free towel. The lagoon itself is HUGE, much larger than I thought! There are tons of connecting pools, so even with all the tourists it's not so bad. They have multiple pool bars (one free drink is included with the basic ticket) and also some mask bars (free mud masks as well!). We got one juice and one strawberry rose wine, both were great. The mud masks were nice as well! You also have an option to buy different types of masks. When you get out of the lagoon you will feel very salty stiff, and personally it took me two showers and three hair washes to get everything out of my hair! I know some people do Blue Lagoon before a flight but I would DEFINITELY not want to do that. You do you though. If you're wondering whether or not bring a GoPro or waterproof camera in...TONS of people did. Mostly they had phones in waterproof cases, but there were a few GoPros out there aside from mine.

Then it was back to Reykjavik where we stayed at KEX, a hostel made from a converted biscuit factory! Awesome hostel, would highly recommend. We got done around 11pm, but sun doesn't set until midnight in June, so it was still light out. Also note that the showers were communal, so no shower curtains or stalls separating them.

Day Two

In the morning we paid to do breakfast in our hostel which was a buffet-style meal. This included fresh bread, a bunch of different spreads, meats, fruit, yogurt, juice, oatmeal, that kind of stuff. We left around 9:30am and went straight to Jökulsárlón, a glacier lake in Southwest Iceland. It was a four hour drive, and we did make one pit stop at a grocery store to get lunch stuff and snacks. Long drive, but beautiful. The glacier lake was AMAZING, definitely a highlight. We even saw some seals!

Seal swimming!

After the lake we headed back up the coast. We stopped at the Reynisfjara black sand beach overlook and walked around there for a bit. We were going to drive up to another overlook, but the fogged rolled in extremely thick, so we skipped that. The weather here changes in a heartbeat!

After this stop we decided to stop and take photos in the lupine fields! They are EVERYWHERE and were begging for a photoshoot ;)

Final stop on our way back was Skógafoss waterfall! This waterfall you can walk up to the top, but we decided to just check out the bottom. There is also an onsite restaurant here, so we got food before heading back to our hostel! I got Icelandic meat soup with a side of french fries. It was really cold here, ok?

We got back in time to checkout the sunset (at midnight) and it was beautiful. Then I showered, we got to bed, and that was that! The next morning we checked out, returned our rental car, and got to the airport.

Here's our standby adventures portion of the blog: we non-revved from Iceland to Dallas and made it there just fine, we got to sit together in exit rows. From Dallas there was NO flights home that we were going to make, so we ended up diverting through another city (but both got first class!!) and got in at like 6am. I believe my flight was like $45 as the airline employee? My friend paid $300 for her flights home. Fast forward one seven hour nap, and our vacation was done! SUPER packed, but we had a fantastic time. If I were to do Iceland again, I don't think I would change a thing! I loved our little itinerary we made. Of course I would add more if I had more time, but I thought we covered a lot in two days.

Non-Revenue Travel (Traveling Standby), AKA How I Afford To Travel

I thought it would be helpful to dedicate an entire post to traveling non-rev, so future posts of mine make more sense on the travel end! I'm going to try break up the odds and ends of traveling standby in a way that makes sense to someone who has never heard the term "non-rev" as well as dive into my own flight benefits as an airline employee. 

Flying out of Orlando, Florida at sunset

Summed up in a single sentence...I afford to travel by traveling standby using my flight benefits which basically means I can list myself for a flight on the standby list but am not guaranteed a seat, I'll only get on the flight if they have empty seats. The standby list is broken up into two main categories: revenue and non-revenue. 

Revenue standby would be passengers that missed a flight, or passengers who got bumped from an oversold flight, something like that. Basically people who had paid for a guaranteed seat but for whatever reason didn't make the flight they paid for. These people will always have priority on the standby list.

Non-revenue standby AKA non-rev is mostly airline employees and their friends and family traveling for free or extremely discounted. The non-rev standby list is broken up further by class. 

DISCLAIMER: this is all specific to the airline that I work for, other airlines have standby lists set up differently. 

For my airline, the standby list is separated into four main categories: D1, D2, D3, and lower standby. The priority is in that order, so D1's will always be called before D2's, etc. Employees are given a small number of D1 passes to use per year for priority on the standby list, and I also believe D1's are used for employees traveling on business? I've never used mine, so not entirely sure. D2's are the employees, retired employees who retired with their benefits, employee parents, employee spouses or registered companions, and I believe employee children. D3's are employee guest passes given out to friends and extended family, and lower standby is employees from other airlines who paid a fee to fly on your airline. 

To break down the list just one step more...the priority within each of these groups is decided based on time of check-in. So if my flight is at 10:23pm on Tuesday, I will make sure I'm on a computer ready to check-in for my flight at 10:23pm on Monday. The earlier you check in...the higher you'll be in priority within your little sub group! Again, this is just for my airline, I know others do it differently. 

Okay so hopefully everything is making sense so far. I'm just going to through an example for what happens when they load the flight! Say one flight has 10 available seats, and 12 people on the standby list. The gate agents will call for passengers in the order they have on the list. Starting with any revenue passengers, then D1's, then D2's (this is usually the largest group), D3's, etc. until the plane is full. If there are seats open in first class they will usually go to the employees who listed themselves for any class rather than the revenue passengers since the revenue passengers didn't pay for first class. But they will always give you a choice of seats when possible, so if they have an aisle and a window open, they'll ask what you prefer. They're normally really good about accommodating requests when possible!

When you get to the gate you'll almost always see a screen with the standby list, and once you clear the flight you'll have a check mark by your name. Sometimes you'll see someone BELOW you clear the flight before you, and the reason for this 90% of the time is that they are qualified to jump seat. Jumpseat? I don't know on that spelling but regardless, there are some seats on the plane that can only be utilized by qualified and trained airline personnel. This basically just includes pilots and flight attendants. Since I'm not qualified to jumpseat, a flight attendant who checked in after me could make it on the flight before me and take that seat.

Example for what the standby list might look like:

Revenue

1. Smith, J
2. Smith, L

Non-Revenue

      3. Smith, S

      4. Smith, K

      5. Smith, R

So in this case they would first call whoever J. Smith is, J. Smith goes up to get their new boarding pass and seat assignment, and they continue down the list until the flight is full or the standby list is cleared. 

Flying into Queenstown, New Zealand

Okay now on the costs! Again, can't say this enough, this varies by airline. For my airline, I fly free everywhere domestic, and I'm pretty sure Canada and Mexico might be free as well...I haven't tried to list for those before so not entirely sure on that one though. My registered companion is also technically free for domestic flights but I have to pay taxes on her flight out of my paycheck. My parents pay a small amount for domestic flights, and my D3's AKA friends and other family pay a little more. Some numbers for you on a nonstop flight August 17-20 to New York from Los Angelos would be as follow: 

• My registered companion or spouse and myself are free for both first class and main cabin.
• Parents: $137.70 roundtrip first class per person, $63.10 roundtrip main cabin per person.
• Friends and other family (D3): $312.50 roundtrip first class per person, $237.90 roundtrip main cabin per person.

These costs will differ by location and time of year, but that's a domestic example. International flights are a little different; employees DO have to pay for these flights, but it's a very small amount. Apparently it's basically paying the airport taxes of the international airport or something like that. Here's an example for flying nonstop to London, England from Chicago, roundtrip, August 15-21. I don't have my parents passport info on my account yet, so I can't tell you what they would cost but it would fall somewhere in between these two values!

• Employee/registered companion/spouse: $279.61 per person first class, $177.51 per person main cabin.
• D3: $671.81 per person first class, $469.71 per person main cabin.

Now let's look at the same dates, roundtrip, but nonstop from Chicago to Tokyo, Japan.

• Employee/registered companion/spouse: $40.21 per person both first class and main cabin.
• D3: $502.41 per person first class, $382.41 per person main cabin.

Finally, let's look at the same parameters but nonstop roundtrip Miami to Lima, Peru.

• Employee/registered companion/spouse: $62.36 per person both first class and main cabin. 
• D3: $432.38 per person first class, $338.36 per person main cabin.

Hopefully that gives you a helpful idea of what it costs to non-rev! For my airline I have to book the flights for me, my parents, my D3's, etc. through our employee website, and any costs would go onto my credit card. Nothing is charged until you clear a flight though, so you don't prepay anything. I know of at least one other airline that instead gives you a link or code from the employee and you would use that to book your own flight. Also, our employee website tells us how many open seats are on each flight so you have a good idea of whether or not you'll make a flight. All this makes it easy to list for multiple flights on different days and you have the flexibility to change them whenever you want or need! 

And that sums up non-revving pretty well! Well, hopefully. Hopefully this all made sense, I know it took me awhile to understand the whole non-rev process! I've non-revved a few times, and it's a STEEP learning curve. The first time I attempted to fly to Denver through Phoenix I didn't make a flight because it was spring training and the Phoenix flights were all full...(duh). A few weeks later I flew to Orlando through Phoenix and had no trouble getting on! So it all depends on timing and location.

That's all I have I think. So if you read travel blogs or follow travelers on social media and are curious as to how they afford to travel, or what this non-rev business they refer to is...there you go! The main benefit to working in the travel industry in my opinion!

Traveling Around the UK and Ireland in 8 Days (November)!

Alright now that I got my study abroad beast out of the way, I can start documenting some more normal travels I've been on! This blog post is dedicated to my trip to the UK and Ireland, and I'm going to lay out how we were able to hit Ireland, Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and England in 8 days. The end will be dedicated to advice and tips, and any regrets I had about our travel plans. And as always...expect to see more photos than you really want (I have a really hard time narrowing pictures down...)!

So this trip was a spontaneous trip planned by me and two college friends for Thanksgiving break. So picture mid/late November and having to book everything last minute. A REALLY helpful tool for me was Rome2Rio which is a website that shows you multiple ways to get from Point A to Point B, and how much it would cost. So for me, I was starting at Manchester Airport and needed to get to a town in Wales. I put in the two destinations into the website (like you would Google Maps) and it showed me all my options, how much they would cost, where I would need to transfer, etc. And for someone not used to traveling with trains or transferring so frequently, I found that very helpful for booking train tickets and bus rides. Okay now that that's out of the way...here we go!

Day One:

I flew from Denver to Reykjavik, Iceland, and from Iceland to Manchester, England. My flight cost somewhere around $1,000 roundtrip. When I arrived in Manchester I took a train from Manchester Airport to (get ready for lots of unpronounceable names) Llandudno Junction, and then transferred onto a bus from there to Betws-y-coed, Wales. I met up with my cousin who was studying abroad in Wales, and we got dinner at a pub in town before walking to our bed and breakfast (Oakfield House B&B). I was exhausted by this point so I slept from 8pm to 8am Wales time. The B&B we stayed at was AWESOME, super homey with a lovely breakfast!! We chose a B&B because all the hostels were booked and a B&B is more expensive, but I would highly recommend this one.

Day Two:

We took a 45-minute bus for something like $7 to Conwy to see Conwy Castle, and that was a GREAT castle to explore! It's mostly intact and one of the more affordable castles you can walk around and inside! I'll insert a photo here below, but this was one of my favorite UK stops.

After self-touring the castle we walked around the city itself and spent most of the day here. We got some good pastries and walked down to the water to enjoy people watching and a good walk! We also found a nice little trail across from our B&B once we got back that led into town, and that was a really nice trail to follow if you also happen to be in Betws-y-coed! It's pretty close to Snowdonia, so a good location.

Day Three:

My college friends flew in this day so I met up with them in the morning as my cousin headed back to school. We had been planning on doing Snowdonia, but it was pouring down rain and some locals recommended doing this waterfall hike instead! Well the waterfall was awesome, but we ended up doing a good 5-6 miles in this downpour. It was so wet that every layer I was wearing (two pairs of leggings, raincoat, sweatshirt, long sleeve, etc.) got soaked through!! I'll post Swallow Falls down below which was a great and easy hike/walk mostly along the road.

We went straight to our hostel where we had already dropped off our bags, but no one was there. Like, not a single soul. Also the heat was off, so we took LOONNG hot showers, curled up in as many dry clothes and blankets as possible, then went downstairs for hot tea and a board game! Once the owner came back and showed us how to reset the heat we were all good, but it took forever to warm up! Also, naturally, as soon as we got warm we had to walk back to town for dinner haha. We stayed at the Vagabond Bunkhouse and the bunks were GREAT, that super sturdy oak and very cozy (we just would have enjoyed ourselves more with some heat;)).

Day Four: 

We took a train to Llandudno Junction, then transferred (or maybe just made a quick stop there and continued on) to Holyhead. From Holyhead we took a ferry to Dublin. It was a solid half day trip but cost less than $100. The ferry ride was super choppy and a bunch of people were getting sick, but we made it to Dublin and checked into our super cheap hotel. I can't recall the name, but it was like a ten minute walk to Temple Bar. We spent the afternoon and evening walking around Dublin and got dinner at an Irish pub (duh, where else would we go?). On advice from our waiter we went and got drinks afterward at a more local bar rather than the Temple Bar bars and pubs that are flooded with tourists! There I got some Irish whiskey and got hit on by the bartender before walking back to our hotel haha.

Temple Bar

Day Five:

We used Paddywagon Tours to do a full-day tour of Northern Ireland, specifically because we wanted to see Giant's Causeway. The bus picked us up around 8am and we had a FULL day on the charter bus making a few awesome stops. We stopped at Giants's Causeway (below),

Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, Dunlace Castle, White Park Bay, the Dark Hedges and Ballintoy (below, filming site for Game of Thrones),

the Antrim Coast, and Belfast. We got a full hour in Belfast, and we took full advantage of that to check out their Christmas Market which was AMAZING!! Then straight back to our hotel so we can sleep. The tour costs about $70.

Day Six:

We woke up horrendously early and flew to London, me stopping there for the day and the girls continuing on to Scotland. We took a shuttle bus ordered by the hotel, then got on a 6am flight or something like that for roughly $30? Something pretty cheap. In London I took the train from the airport to Tottenham Hale, then another train from there to Euston, then a third train from Euston to Watford where I got on a bus to the Warners Bros Studio Tour. Took me a good 2.5 hours or something. I did the Studio Tour which was $45 or so and included a guided intro with the rest being self-guided. The whole tour took me roughly two hours but you could easily spend a half day here!! SO cool. They also have a little restaurant where you can get Butterbeer (it's better at Universal Studios).

After the Studio Tour I took a similar route back, but taking the train Euston to Embankment instead of the airport. I met up with a childhood friend living in London and we walked around, seeing Big Ben and a couple other classic London sights (from the outside, we didn't go inside anything), and we got dinner at an overpriced Chinese restaurant. This was how I spent my Thanksgiving by the way, certainly a memorable one!

After an evening with my friend I took a train back to the airport and flew on to Edinburgh, Scotland! I landed around 11:30pm and took the bus for $6 or so to Frederick Street. From there I met back up with my friends and we walked to our hostel, Kick Ass Hostel. I had booked separately from my friends so I was in a different dorm, and I had a 10 or 12 person coed dorm (can't remember the exact number)! It smelled awful but hey it was affordable and the rest of the hostel was great. One thing I'll say is that it seemed like the place for partiers/pub goers. I got in well past midnight and there was only ONE other person in my room (which was marked as full). The rest came in at like 2am and later.

Day Seven:

We spent the day walking around Edinburgh, which was by far my favorite big city we visited. We walked up to the castle (but didn't pay to go in), visited the Elephant House which is the coffee shop where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter, shopped, and went to a local park! A great day, and much-needed chill after some crazy packed travel days!

We also explored the Edinburgh Christmas Market which was one of my highlights!! It was a giant festive Christmas party and I loved it. I got mulled wine, local food from the booths, and we checked out a bunch of different crafty booths! So fun.

Day Eight:

We did another full day tour, this time with Rabbies. We almost missed our bus due to me taking a wrong turn, but we made it and it was INCREDIBLE!! It cost roughly $50 and was 12 hours long. We hit Rannoch Moor, Glencoe, Great Glen, Fort Augustus, Loch Ness, Grampian Mountains, and Highland Perthshire.

That sums it up! The photos speak for me, we stopped at a bunch of beautiful places and took 3437293 photos. Would highly recommend investing in tours if you're not renting a car. The guides are knowledgeable and they have the stops perfectly planned out! Anyways, we got back around 8:30pm, then my friends and I hopped on an overnighter bus to Manchester that was roughly seven hours long for $35 and got us to the airport at 4am. From there I flew back to Denver through Reykjavik!

Advice/Thoughts/Conclusion:

• If you're trying to maximize your time, you can stick to public transportation and tours to get to more places. It's pretty spread out if you rent a car!
• Book everything ahead of time!! We had to settle for more expensive accommodation in a few places because they were sold out.
• This is definitely a place you want to plan out ahead of time, especially if you're under a time crunch. We felt like we did very well hitting many different places, but I put hours of time into planning and booking everything.
• Some may disagree, but I would recommend paying to tour just one or two really cool castles, then skipping the rest. To be honest they look cooler from the outside anyway, and after awhile they all kind of look alike. Conwy Castle was a great one!!
• Scotland was SO underrated! Everyone talks about England, especially London, but I enjoyed Scotland the most. Both Edinburgh and our Highlands tour, it was beautiful and less crushing!
• If you can fit everything into a pack, like we did, it's much easier to walk around places and utilize public transportation. I'll include a photo at the very bottom of our packs!
• Be prepared to walk EVERYWHERE. 
• Flying into other cities (like how we flew into Manchester) can be a much more affordable option than flying into London!
• If you go in the winter, be prepared for grey skies and cold weather, but definitely go to the Christmas Markets!!! Those were major highlights of mine.
• I think the only things I would do next time would be to spend more time in both Ireland and London (I only got a day in each), and I would love to give summer a try. 

That's it!! I had a wonderful time, and really felt like we maximized our time here. We also managed to spend minimal amount of money! WOOOOO!