Its mid-April and the planning has started so I thought I’d update everyone with my summer travel plans. After the trip my wife and I took to Iceland we realized we love Scandinavians. So naturally when it came time to plan another trip (and since we’ve done the “classic” Western European countries) we thought, “Hey, let’s check out some other Nordic places! It’ll be Scandimonium!”

We had a lot of limitations in terms of days we could get away so the itinerary below is the best we could come up with. Financially its certainly not the best time (weak dollar, Scandi is $$$, etc.) but we realized, “hey, its just money.” You can’t take it with you and there will always be other expenses going on in our life. While it will be tight we can do it. Plus, using some of my frequent flyer miles I’ve earned at work in the past year will help us out.

June 18 - Overnight Flight to Amsterdam from Philly
June 19 & 20 - Amsterdam, The Netherlands
June 21 & 22 - Copenhagen, Denmark
June 23 & 24 - Stockholm, Sweden
June 24 - Overnight Ferry to Helsinki
June 25 - Helsinki, Finland
June 26 & 27 - Tallinn, Estonia
June 28 - Flight to Gatwick, then home to Philly

Its definitely a whirlwind tour but should be pretty cool. I love that we’re going to Estonia at the end because that’s what I’m looking forward to the most. Also, we picked these places because none of us have ever been to any of them! First time I didn’t have to repeat a destination a European trip (minus the Gatwick airport). We already have the plane tickets and accommodations all booked up too. I’ve learned that when you’re this time-constrained, it pays dividends to have it all worked out in advance (ie when you only have 24 hours to check out Stockholm, you shouldn’t waste the first 5 hours trudging from hostel to hostel). If I had a month to wander around I’d leave it up in the air but thats not our case. We’ve also invited my brother-in-law (my wife’s brother) and his wife to join us and break-in their new passports so it should be a really fun foursome.

As we get closer I’ll post more about our preparations and I’m certainly planning on blogging from the road. I hope you’ll stay tuned…