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The Egypt Itinerary
Tag Archives: vacation
The Roughest Start We’ve Ever Faced | Central Asia
A trip to Central Asia was part of our plan for 2020. The itinerary included Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It was a 15-16 day plan (like our usual summer breaks) with a lot of travel to remote and local places. Little did we know that our lives would change completely before we actually ended up making the trip.
For starters, the world shut down for almost 2 years due to the pandemic. While we could never have guessed that it would take so long for the world to return to normalcy, we did figure out that travel would be impacted for atleast 6-7 months. So, we squeezed in a tiny vacation to Seychelles and got back just 8 days before India announced its lockdown. The more important change was that we had a new travel companion – our baby P! He would turn two in July 2023. This would be his second international trip (we had visited Turkey when he was 1 year and 4 months old).
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Getting around Austria – Travel and Where to Stay
In our experience of travelling, Austria was one of the easiest to plan transits between cities. Everything was online and even while we were there, it was easy to find our way thanks to the readily available maps. We entered Austria from Prague by train and started our trip at Salzburg.
Travel in Austria – Buses
Austria has a really good network of buses. For our travel from Salzburg to St. Gilgen and beyond, we took the local Postbus service. For long distance travel, you can check Flixbus (https://global.flixbus.com/) and GetbyBus (https://getbybus.com/en/) who are aggregators. Do check out the ratings and reviews of the operator to make sure you pick the right bus for your travel. They can charge you for heavy luggage, so keep change handy. But we would recommend the trains which are very efficient and fast.
Travel in Austria – Train
You can get details of the Austrian train service OBB on their website here (https://www.oebb.at/en/). The trains are clean, fast and efficient. Booking tickets is easy and we had a very smooth experience. We booked on OBB for our trip from Bad Ishcl to Hallstatt, Salzburg to Vienna and Vienna to Budapest.
Other Tips
Make sure you keep enough buffer between transfers in your journey so that you don’t miss out on a bus/train. It is always better to reach a place early than deal with the frustration of missing a connection.
We always recommend making your bookings atleast a week or two in advance to ensure that you get a seat (preferably, a reserved seat). Also, advance bookings can get you some good deals! Keep your eye out for these.
Where to Stay
If you have checked out our Croatian blog, you would have come across our Golden Rule – to have our stay close to the main attractions while having access to the transit systems. The access part is kept at higher priority as it is convenient when you’re moving in/out with your luggage. We found it very convenient everywhere in Austria as the cities have been designed with great connectivity.
Salzburg: We stayed at Hotel Turnerwirt which was less than 3km from the city centre. There was a bus stop very close to the hotel and was at walking distance from the Salzburg Gnigl station.
Salzkammergut: We made our base at St. Gilgen as it gave us a nice central location to plan our day trips. There are many lovely homestays in St. Gilgen and we stayed at one called Eislbauerhof which had a really nice view of the lake and the entire valley.
Vienna: There are a lot of places to pick from in Vienna. We stayed at an Airbnb with the only criteria that it was very close to a metro station (mainly because we were staying just for one night). Had we planned for a longer stay, we would have picked something close enough to the palaces and museums.
This should get you going on your tickets and accommodation in Austria.
Read all the Austria blogs here:
- The Austria Itinerary – an adventure awaits
- Salzburg – Mozart, the Sound of Music and a lot more
- Salzkammergut – Nature at its finest
- Hallstatt and Dachstein – salt, ice and everything nice (and the most precise plan ever!)
- A Day in Vienna – exploring the capital city
- Getting around Austria – Travel and Where to Stay
- Austria food guide – coffee, schnitzel and a lot more
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Salzburg – Mozart, the Sound of Music and a lot more
A beautiful town in the west of Austria, Salzburg is the perfect example of where nature meets culture. Sitting on the banks of the Salzach river, Salzburg is home to the legendary Mozart and has everything from beautiful gardens to palaces to an amazing medieval fortress and of course some amazing food. Salzburg literally means “Salt Fortress” referring to the huge salt mines around the area.
Arriving at Salzburg
We spent an entire day exploring the town during our Austria trip (check out our complete itinerary here). We arrived at Salzburg by train from Prague – we had to change into another train at Linz before reaching Salzburg. From the train station, we took a bus to our hotel. It is easy to navigate your way around in Austria – there are maps everywhere and with some amount of prior research, you can easily use public transport without having to sacrifice anything in your itinerary.
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The Austria Itinerary
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The Beaches and Mountains of Seychelles – Praslin
Waking up to a sunrise on the beach, strolling along misty hills in the morning, spending the afternoon sighting birds in a tropical forest and finishing the day with the sun setting into the ocean. What if you can have a holiday where all of this happens on the same day? That holiday is Praslin island in Seychelles!
Seychelles is the only group of granitic islands in the world – in fact, it is considered to be among the oldest islands in the world – breaking off when the ancient continent of Gondwana split and shifted 80 million years ago. This also explains how this variety of flora and fauna and the tropical forests got here.
Our 5-day vacation in Seychelles started off in Praslin, the second largest island in the archipelago.
Praslin
We landed at the Praslin Airport and walked to our homestay which was on the Grand Anse beach.
Continue reading The Beaches and Mountains of Seychelles – Praslin
Five Days in Paradise – Seychelles On A Budget (The Itinerary)
Roughly a thousand kilometres off the eastern coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean lies the island nation of Seychelles. With human occupation coming relatively late in the 16th century, Seychelles is a “young” country with a cultural mix of French, British, African and Indian influences. There are around 115 islands which consist Seychelles – these are home to some of the most beautiful beaches in the world as well as really diverse landscapes and ecosystems.
As we scoured the map for possible “5-day trip” destinations, we didn’t think beyond a domestic location initially. We happened to stumble upon Seychelles while looking for flights. It ticked all our criteria for a short trip – can be covered properly in a 5-day trip, cannot be clubbed with any other country nearby, Visa on arrival, a 4-hour flight – it was perfect!
Some quick research and bookings later, we were on our way. We were planning to visit three of the main islands – Mahe (which has the airport and capital – Victoria), Praslin (home to the Coco de Mer) and La Digue. So, let’s get started on how you can plan your perfect holiday in Seychelles!
Continue reading Five Days in Paradise – Seychelles On A Budget (The Itinerary)
Croatian Chronicles | Itinerary for Croatia
When you are planning your itinerary through Eastern Europe, Croatia is a country you just cannot skip. With its beautiful beaches, quaint little towns and pristine national parks, Croatia has something for everyone and is perfect for a relaxed holiday and not to mention light on your pockets!
Croatia (or Hrvatska in Croatian) shares borders with Slovenia and Hungary in the north, Serbia and Bosnia & Herzegovina in the east and Montenegro in the south. In the west the Adriatic Sea with over a thousand Croatian islands – is the ultimate island-hopping dream! The idyllic Dalmatian coast in the south offers everything from crazy nightlife and parties to spots where you can sit back, sip on a cocktail and enjoy the slow and quiet life.
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Best time to visit
June to August is the peak tourist season as the weather is warm at this time of the year as in most other parts of Europe. If you want to avoid the crowds, plan your trip in late May, early June or September – the prices will be lower and you will also get good weather.
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How to Create an Itinerary
The Plan
The summer of 2017 – Nam and I were planning the itinerary for our first long vacation together. We were looking at 13 days in the first half of June. After working out multiple itineraries, we settled on Eastern Europe. We wanted to experience the best of what each place had to offer. This meant staying with the locals, having the best of the local cuisine, exploring the small lanes by foot and travelling light by public transport across cities – in other words, backpacking!
The way I see it, there are two types of backpackers – ones who go where the roads take them and others who research and plan well ahead. It is difficult to be the first type when you are a working Indian and have less than 15 days of vacation (sigh!).
Also, I prefer to be second type – it ensures that you do not miss out on the top experiences. In fact, I enjoy planning trips almost as much as the travelling.
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Mood Indigo 2011
What is IIT Bombay’s Mood Indigo? Is it really as big as all the hype surrounding it? I decided to find out along with some buddies from college. This is an account of my first visit to a college fest outside my college. I feel that experiences should be big – so I decided to make it no less than the biggest college cultural fest of Asia (at that time). I had a rather interesting train journey from Bangalore to Mumbai.
Day 1 – The Panga Day
There were three of us on this trip – NPK, Ku and I. We reached Thane at 6:00 AM from where we took a local to Kanjurmarg station. Even so early in the morning, the locals were jam-packed. After a lot of roaming around in an auto (we were lost :-/), we reached our hotel. The hotel was a good 4 kms from IIT at the far side of the Powai lake. We freshened up and decided to leave the hotel as soon as possible (and find an alternate accommodation).
We reached the campus, got in (Mood Indigo Panga No. 1 – Ku’s ID panga – Ku had forgotten his college ID and they wouldn’t let him enter without it. We had to sneak in finally!), got registered (Mood Indigo Panga 2 – Ku’s MI no. panga – all participants had to register in advance and Ku didn’t have his registration number on him), had breakfast and we were good to go. What is a trip without some adventure, right?
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