Tokyo day 7 – Kamakura / Odaiba

Day 1&2 / day 3 / day 4 and day 5/6 can be found here.

Kamakura is listed in lots of guidebooks as one of the daytrips one can make from Tokyo. Since I always like to see a little more from a country than just the city i'm located in (even if 2 weeks in Tokyo is not enough to see everything) we decided to make a daytrip to Kamakura. We originally planned to do this on Tuesday, but the weather seemed to be better on Thursday, and with Kamakura having a beach, this is quite essential!

Tokyo day 5&6 - Asakusa / Ueno / Tsukiji / Tokyo Dome

Day 1&2 / day 3 and day 4 can be found here.

Day 5 – Asakusa / Ueno / Tokyo station

Our fourth day in Tokyo started in the morning at the Asakusa area where we visited Kaminarimon gate, walked through the Nakamise shopping area to end up at Senso-ji, which is Tokyo's biggest buddhist temple. At the temple we drew an omikuji, a buddist way of fortunetelling, and luckily for us: we do get fortune. (If not, people are suggested to draw another one, for 100 yen ;)). We walked around for a fair bit in the area of the Senso-ji before we took a detour to get some breakfast. Since there were quite some benches close to the temple, we went to a department store, got some sushi (we wanted to buy some grapes, but since they were 52€ a bunch, we skipped it) and ate it while overlooking the crowds and the buildings.

Tokyo day 4 – Ghibli Museum / Kichijoji / Shimo-Kitazawa / Akihabara

Day 1&2 and day 3 can be found here.

We started this day with a breakfast at Yoshinoya, before walking a little bit to Kanda station in order to get a direct train to Kichijoji, where we visited the Ghibli Museum. Anime is not my thing, but for anime-lovers Ghibli is one of the best studio's around and the museum itself was quite nice, and pretty exclusive as there are only a limited amount of tickets sold each day.

Tokyo day 3 – Meiji-jingu / Harajuku / Yoyogi-koen / Shibuya

Day 1/2 can be found here.

On the second day of our trip to Tokyo we got to know the city a little better, and what a city it is! It's still a pretty weird feeling to walk around in a city among millions of people, being one of the few foreigners and also one of the few out there that doesn't understand a single fuck of 95% of the 'linguistic landscape' (the rest are numbers and the occasional English/Engrish words). Despite that disadvantage it's really great to go with the flow, seeing people living their everyday life and do as the Tokyoites do. In the public transport, in the streets, or in a restaurant facing some bowl of weird food: do as the locals do.

Tokyo day 1&2 – Utrecht – Brussels – Rome – Tokyo

Utrecht – Brussels – Rome – Tokyo seems quite a trip, and I must say, it's quite exhausting. We started out by getting a cab at 5:30 in order to get the train at 6:02. We cannot really rely on the Dutch railways, but although every train was delayed, we arrived in Antwerp at 8:00, so we got out and had some breakfast there before taking the train to Brussel Airport where we had to catch a 12:00 flight to Rome. The first flight wasn't the best I ever had, but there was free beer on board and it arrived on time, so not a big deal. We rushed through Rome's Fiumicino airport to make the transfer to find out the flight to Tokyo had a little delay (it turned out to be an hour when we landed). So, hungry as we were, we bought a sandwich, which unfortunately turned out to be as old as the Colliseum itself.

TOKYO!

Just over two weeks to go! Started to make a planning, which will probably change as little over the next two weeks. Starting to get extremely siked for this great city! I'm sure this will be so overwhelming!

Dubai - May '12 (part 3)

The last part of the blog about the trip to Dubai can be found here. The first part can be found here, while the second part can be found here.

Dubai - May '12 (part 2)

Here you can find the second part (out of 3) of my blog about my trip to Dubai. This time it's day 5-6-7, Dubai-Abu Dhabi - Dubai. The first part can be found here.

Dubai - May '12 (part 1)

Since the blog about our trip to Dubai happened to be quite long, I've decided to split it into 3 pieces. Pictures can be found underneath each blog.

Lisbon – New Years Eve '12/'13

Ever since celebrating New Years Eve in Barcelona's sun last year I want to make sure I never have to get my new years wishes in cold, windy and snowy Holland. Searching for a remotely warm destination in Europe I came across Lisbon. Weatherwise it's quite comparable to Barcelona and Lisbon seems to be a nice city in a country I've never been before, so Lisbon it is!

Tokyo – September '12

As described earlier, we were looking for a trip to Tokyo in the spring of '13 and thought going there for a week would be doable for about 750/800€. Some months later however I stumbled upon a dreamdeal, which allowed us to fly to Tokyo and have 7 nights in a hotel for about 550€. The other plans we had for september '12 were easily set aside and we decided this price was to good to pass on and to go to Tokyo in september and celebrate my girl's birthday in her dreamcity.

Brno to Utrecht roadtrip – August '12

Travelling is quite addictive so I was looking for another trip between the trips to Düsseldorf and Tokyo. I found a flight to Brno for 9€ and made up a plan to go back home in 3 days using cheap trains and sleeping in cheap hotels and hostels. I don't want to plan everything in this trip, but in order to travel cheap, unfortunately you have to plan something, or buy some tickets beforehand.

Düsseldorf - July '12

In april I was looking for a summer weekendtrip that wouldn't cost too much money and days off. Given the fact Germany is quite close from Utrecht and trains go way more often than a flight with a typical low-cost-carrier. Germany it would be! Since i've been to Cologne a couple of times now, we decided to go for Düsseldorf, a city famous for the old city (the longest bar in the world), shopping, it's Japanese influences and the fun fair, which turned out to take place the weekend we were looking for!

Prague - July '12

For the sixth summer in a row me and a group of friends (ranging from 8 to 15 guys) will visit Prague for a weekend of partying, cheap beer, pedalbiking and hangovers. Since we have some friends living there we discover new things everytime and are able to do things not many tourists do, like Prague's beach outside the city centre or the partyboats on the Vltava.

Leaving Antwerp again

Off to Schiphol! And another snapshot: whisky in the Albert Heijn, only in Belgium!

Local specialties

While we are still in a country where they have those kind of local specialties, let's enjoy it!

Eurolines to Antwerp

Stopping at one of those cloned gasstations in Brabant. Well, everything is better than a trainchange at rotterdam ;)

United Arab Emirates - may '12

With less than 2 months to go for my first trip outside Europe it was time to do some more research and make a sort of a schedule for the 10 days in may! And since i've already done such a thing, I might as well share it here ;)

Brno / Prague - march '12

My second trip in '12, a combined weekend trip to Brno, my first time over there, and Prague, visiting that city for the eleventh time in less than five years. Here's a little review!

Friday 9^th of March

An 8:00 flight from Eindhoven Airport caused us to get up way too early, since we had to take the local bus at 6:15 in order not to miss the flight. Although the flight had quite a lot of turbulence, getting three seats for two persons is always good and 1,5 hour later we landed at Brno Turany Airport, one of the cutest airports I've ever seen. But given the fact I was in one of the three planes that would land there this day, it made sense Brno doesn't really need a big airport. 

Brno Airport

United Arab Emirates - rebooking!

Just after booking my bus to Antwerp for the Dubaitrip I found out my booked flight has been cancelled and I have been rescheduled to another one. So instead of leaving Antwerp somewhere at the end of the afternoon and landing in Dubai in the morning, it's leaving Antwerp in the morning and landing in Dubai in the evening.


Some calling and emailing with KLM about the inconvience (both moneywise (as I have to book another night) and timewise) the rescheduling causes gave me a good solution, so my holiday will start a day earlier! A ten day trip it is. I'll go to Antwerp on friday, do some sightseeing (if the sun shines: probably sitting with a beer on the 'Groenplaats'), stay in a hotel for the night, leave for Schiphol in the morning and go to Dubai where I'll be in my hotel at 1/2 local time!

Budget needed for a (city)trip

In general, making a budget you need for a trip can be done quite easy: Flight to get there + (avg cost/day * number of days) = budget needed. In this section, I will give an overview of the average cost a day, based on personal experiences.

In the average cost a day, I included the following things:

• Accomodation in a decent (budget) hotel, located in the city center.
• Cost for transport to/from the airport.
• Cost for local transport.
• All food, including going out for food at least once a day.
• Drinks both from supermarkets as in bars.
• Entrance fees for musea, leisure and so on.

London - How to get there?

I recently got a question about how to get to from the Netherlands to London, since six airports (City, Heathrow, Stansted, Gatwick, Luton, Southend) being advertised as 'London' doesn't make the choice really easy and everyone has his or her own preference. So I decided to do some research, as I couldn't give a clear answer right away. Living in the center of the Netherlands, there are three options to go to London, from the biggest airport Schiphol, or the regional ones of Eindhoven and Rotterdam.

Here you can find information about how to go from the Dutch airports to the airports in London and from the London airports to the city center. At the end I'll give an overview combining both routes and the time and money they will cost you.

Financial breakdown

To make a budget for trips, it's kinda essential to know what things actually cost. So I dug into my old emails and checked my bankaccount.

First of all, I'll give an overview about how much money I needed some of the roadtrips I did. This includes the costs I had to make in order to get from city to city.

Second, I try to give an average amount needed for a day, for the type of traveller I am (see the 'Me' section). This average is what I calculate for accomodation, food, drinks, local public transport (also to and from the airport), entrance fees and so on. This gives me a pretty good insight in questions like "if I book a flight to a Spanish city for 60€, what would a total 3 nights trip cost me in total?"

Japan

My Dubai-trip really opened my eyes for trips outside Europe and more and more I am gathering information about flights to Asia, and the cost of living (hotels, daily expenses etc.) over there, and honestly I think for the next few years, i'll make a trip to Asia every year, it's reasonably doable! I really enjoy checking travelsites, some of my travelling/booking related Iphone-apps and everything that comes with it.

The first country on my list for a big holiday however is probably one of the most expensive ones to visit: Japan. It's been the absolute top one country on my girls wishlist for a while, but saving some money and being budget-conscious, will make it possible to visit Japan next year!

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! Here you can find all that is there to be found about me and my travelling. Some flashbacks to my travelhistory, my upcoming trips and my wishlist. With my wishlist still being empty, my upcoming trips ever changing and my travelhistory only described quite briefly, there is still a lot of content I can and will put online in the next few weeks/months.

Furtherhome i've created some sort of a 'can you help me?' section, something like me being undercover as a travel agency employee, please check it out! Ways to contact me are also on that particular page, as I disabled all comments on other pages for now. And i know, my English isn't 100% accurate, tbut i'm sure there are some other blogs where grammarnazi's can eat their hearts out ;)

United Arab Emirates - May '12

For an early 'summer' holiday I was looking for a 7/8 day-trip, to places i've never been before. At first I checked to combine 2/3 European cities, but the fares to cities I had on my list (like Athens, Rome, Lisbon) weren't that lowcost and the flights would cost well over 200€, especially with the check-in luggage needed for a trip like this. Soon after that I stumbled upon an option for relatively cheap intercontinental flights, with either a change-over somewhere in Europe or leaving from Belgium or Germany.

I was checking out flights to Dubai, and the cost of living over there. With the cost of hotels being lower than Rome for example, food like shoarma or Indian cuisine (one of my favorite cuisine) for a couple of euro's and public transport capped at 14 AED (2.8€) a day, which is insanely cheap given the fact Dubai's metro covers the distance of places located about 50 km away, the city I thought to be a get-away place for the rich and famous, could well be an option!

Brno / Prague - early march '12

I try to get away once every two or three months, and looking for a trip in march I stumbled upon a cheap flight to Brno in the Czech Republic. One of the disadvantages of cheap airlines however are the facts you have to deal with a timetable where sometimes there are only two or three flights in a week and flights leaving at times like 6:10 in the morning. In this case it would mean landing in Brno on Friday, and leaving on Monday morning, forcing us to take two days off of work ánd spending three full days in a relatively small city.

The type of tourist that rushes through a city like me can see a city like Brno in less than a day, so the search for another city to combine Brno with started, and pretty soon it was clear Prague is the city where my flight home leaves. One of my favorite cities in Europe, always good to come back there and with a flight leaving Sunday afternoon, a perfect match.

Flight stats

Since I'm a little bit of a stats freak, here are some funstats about my flight history,

Total number of flights: 95

Total kilometers (according to Great Circle Mapper, where I also made the map): 109852

Musical Trips

With my band i've played shows throughout Western Europe and I think I can call myself an expert of sitting in the back of a van on the German Autobahn. And that's mainly it, being on the road, being in venues, hanging out with friends, on stage, backstage or sleeping on someones floor. But luckily, from a traveller's perspective, i've had some time off too. Having a barbeque behind the Berlin Wall, visiting the Eiffel tower or crossing the Charles Bridge. As a visitor , i've had more time to visit the cities or villages the festivals or concerts were in. London speaks for itself, Hull is the top one city I never go back to and my first encounter with Budapest during the Sziget festival in '03 was a nice one.

Ajax in Europe

I've visited about 30 matches of Ajax in another country, ranging from a small cartrip just over the border to the most crazy roadtrip I think i've ever done. In chronological order, the trips led me to: Glasgow, Glasgow, London, Milan, Bruges, Munich, Turin, Auxerre, Bielefeld, Copenhagen, Bern, London, Milan, Ghent, Bremen, Prague, Birmingham, Hamburg, Florence, Marseille, Bristol, Bratislava, Brussels, Zagreb, Timisoara, Turin, Auxerre, Milan, Brussels and Madrid.

Citytrips and weekend breaks

Unfortunately, the days of 0,01€ flights are over, but still, getting out there for a couple of days doesn't have to be expensive, here's what i did in the last years:

The roadtrip style holidays i did

Visiting multiple cities in one trip. Roadtripping with airplanes, trains, busses, boats. This is what this section is about. You can find more details about most of the roadtrip style trips I did here.