Where I traveled in 2014 and where I’m going in 2015
Despite constantly having flight tickets in my inbox, I don’t travel nearly as much as many other travel bloggers. I do I spend quite a lot of time outside the boarders of my home country, but then again I live abroad, which makes it feel like I’m traveling more, when I actually spend most of my time at home in front of my computer watching cat videos. However, I did manage to move about a few times in 2014 despite my load of uni work:
My travels of 2014 was mainly focused on seeing new places in England. I spent my first New Year’s Eve in England in Portsmouth with all of my favourite Portsmouth people, and it was so much fun. I was Vice President of my university’s Cinema Society at the time, so on our annual trip to the Harry Potter Studio in Watford I was the group leader. It was great to be able to boss a group of people around on tour. Born leader!
From there I went on a day trip to Bournemouth Beach with N. and my housemate. We went in March, and I remember the weather being so indecisive on that day. Driving there we passed through a rain storm. When we arrived it was so sunny we could take our coats off, and then five minutes later it was hailing. So yeah, no swimming for us, but it was still nice to see a sandy beach as opposed to the pebbly one in Portsmouth.
For Easter I went on a weekend trip to Bath with two of my housemates. Bath is stunning. We were all a bit short on cash since it was end of the school term, so our form of ‘tourism’ in Bath was to see the attractions from the outside, but not actually go inside. I would love to go back sometime and go to the Roman Baths.
In May I had the opportunity to travel with a group again. I volunteered at a conference, and they offered me to go on a free coach trip around the Isle of Wight with them. I had been to the Isle twice before, but never to the back side, so it was nice to finally see the beaches and cliffs everybody’s always on about.
I was only home for the summer this year, but I still managed to see a lot of the country. All of them places I’ve been before, but it had been years so was nice to refresh my memory.
In June we drove up north to Nordland county to visit my family in Halsa (two hours South of Bodø). The nature up there is stunning. If you’ve been to Oslo before you might have realised there are not a lot of mountains in that area. That’s because all the mountains are up North. Svartisen Glacier is also close by, so we spent a day hiking around it.
In August N. came to visit, and I wanted to show him around in my county. From Kristiansund there is only a 4 hour drive to Geirangerfjorden, so we went on a day trip there. You pass through so many tourist attractions on those four hours, including Gudbrandsjuvet & Valldal, Trollstigen, and a whole lot of mountains. We also went to the Atlantic Road.
When I was a child we would spend nearly every summer going somewhere in Sweden. Östersund, Vimmerby, Gotherburg… but the last few years I’ve barely been back in Sweden, even though it’s my neighbour country (söta bror). This summer, however, we embarked on a day trip to Åre, Sweden just to see something different for the day and shop some cheap(er) Swedish foods.
The last country on my list this year is China. I moved to Wuhan in August, and have been busy exploring this million city when I’m not studying. I’ve already seen two temples (Guiyuan and Baotong), The Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge (part 1, part 2) and East Lake, which I’ve got to back and take pictures of. My university has also been kind enough to organise some trips, so with my class I was able to go to Hubei Provincial Museum.
My calendar for 2015 is also starting to become full of travel scribbles and I’ve got multiple flight and train tickets in my inbox already. I will start off the year in Hong Kong (with a day trip to Macau) and I can’t wait! I hear Hong Kong is amazing and I was lucky enough to find cheap direct flights from Wuhan. Only a month later I will start my month long holiday and head back to the UK for two weeks. I’ll be staying in Portsmouth to catch up with all my friends, and N. and I are also going on an over night trip to Brighton. I’ve never been to Brighton before, but people keep telling me it’s great, so Brighton, I’ve got high expectations of you!
Mid-February I will head back to 中国 and be accompanied by my dear Norwegian friend Ronja. She has been brave enough to first visit me in Portsmouth last Christmas, and now she’s flying all the way to Beijing to explore China with me! We will start off in Beijing, see the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and all that jazz, then head off to Xi’an for the City Wall and Terracotta Army, and end our journey in modern Shanghai. Wuhan will always be in my heart as on this year, but seeing other parts of China is high up on my wish list and I can’t wait. Later I’ll possibly go on some short trips around Hubei province as well, the Three Gorges and Yichang is high on my to to-list, and the city of Chongqing.
In July my Chinese journey will end for this time and I’ll head back to Norway for the summer. A trip to Stjørdal and Trondheim is definitely going to happen, apart from that I’ll probably just be working. In September I move back to Portsmouth to finish off my bachelor degree and I’m assuming I will be very busy around this time. But my friend, and future housemate, Ruth and I are very seriously discussing a trip to Dublin before Christmas. I’ve never been to Ireland, and I really hope I can go. In fact, I’m saying right now: I will go. There, now I have to do it, since I’ve written it here on my blog and everything.
Where did you go this year? And what destination is on top of your list for 2015?
