Flying Regulations in Russia

In order to fly a private plane while on vacation in Russia, visitors need to first file a request for flight authorization with the Russian aviation authorities. This flight authorization needs to include the purpose of the trip, the pilot and aircraft information, passport numbers and names of all passengers, flight computer information and the flight plan for the trip, including dates and times for all arrivals and departures. A flight plan must be filed with Russian aviation authorities at least 24 hours prior to takeoff.

If flying to small airports in Russia, keep in mind that most of the smaller airport control towers are only open from 8 AM to 5 PM. It is illegal to land at an airport when the tower is unstaffed. Most of the smaller airports do not have English-speaking staff, so it will be necessary to hire a navigator that speaks English and Russian. These navigators cost a couple hundred dollars a day, but they make it much easier to deal with the Russian bureaucracy.

Fun Places to Go

There are so many great places to explore in Russia that it is tough to fit everything into one trip. Moscow is the obvious place to start. The Russian capital has centuries of history and is the cultural, economic and political center of the country. Visitors will find that Russia has an amazing culinary scene with some of the best restaurants in the world. There is also a vibrant nightlife with lots of shows, clubs and attractions to choose from. Of course, no visit to Moscow is complete without visiting the mighty Kremlin.

Though Moscow is a great city, St. Petersburg is the better tourist town. Formed around a number of canals, the city has a rich history as the former home of the Russian tsars. There are lots of great historical attractions to visit, including the fabulous former home of the tsars, Winter Palace. There are a number of beautiful cathedrals to visit. The nightlife and cuisine in St. Petersburg is some of the best in Asia.

Vladimir was the first capital of Russia. It has a number of historical attractions to visit, most notably the Golden Gates that once protected the city from invaders. There are also a couple of stunningly beautiful cathedrals, St. Dmitry Cathedral and Assumption Cathedral.

Those looking for a break from Russian city life should visit the town of Suzdal in the Vladimir region. This town of 12,000 people is protected by law from development. The buildings in the town are some of the oldest in Russia as some of them date back to the early part of the 11th century. The town is surrounded by lovely meadows and farms and is a very popular Russian pastoral getaway.

Lifecruiser Love Private Planes
 

The amount of foreign travelers at Sweden’s airports has increased tremendously during just the last couple of years and now even more is expected during 2012.

Sweden may be a small country way up in the north, but we do have lots of things that may interest lots of different types of tourists, as well as a diverse and unique climate throughout the country. Sweden are also known for innovations, design, fashion, music and lots of high quality restaurants!

I don’t find it particularly odd that the Swedish tourism is increasing, since we have been very bad at marketing our noble country before and just recent years stepped up the efforts to be seen around the world.

There have also been formed new partnerships and cooperation between different companies and organizations working within the tourist and transport sector – even concentrating on special destination connections, making the marketing more effective.

There is a lot of big investments going on at several of Sweden’s airports the upcoming years and the capital city of Stockholm’s closest international airport Arlanda, will be extended to become Arlanda City – a big built up business center.

Sweden is increasing it’s efforts to welcome many more tourists than it has ever. As a traveler I’m happy for that, but at the same time I am a wee bit concerned too: will our little country be able to take the hit of the tourist masses without changing too much?

That is a question that have to be answered in the future…

©Lifecruiser Love Sweden
 

The Spanish flight company Vueling even decided to start their flight route between Stockholm – Barcelona today – much earlier than planned (March) – because of the Spanair bankruptcy. Tickets can be bought through their mobile site too: m.vueling.com.

So if you are a Spanair.com lockout victim, you can hopefully get this special flight rate by Vueling at: http://www.vueling.com/spanair/ or read more in their blog post about the Spanair passengers options.

I can imagine what a chaos, since Spain is such a huge European tourist destination, when all those stranded passengers are going to try to get tickets with other flight companies like Iberia, Air Europa and Ryanair (49 Euro rescue fare) etc.

Having an owner of ownership in Spanair of 10,9 percent, the Scandinavian Airlines SAS reports that their loss will be possible to handle for them and that they will be involved as a creditor in the upcoming bankruptcy process. The event will have a limited effect on SAS liquidity.

Let’s face it: It could have been you or me. It’s never fun – to not get that well deserved getaway that you may have saved up for in months. What a nightmare.

To be stranded somewhere without a flight you’ve counted on if you really have to return at a specific date could cost you more than you can afford, both money wise and perhaps work wise. Your boss might not be pleased if you can’t get home in time.

Me? I would LOVE to be stranded in Spain right now… he he…

©Lifecruiser Love Spain
 

70% of all delays to flights are already caused by problems on the ground not in the air. On present trends, nineteen of European airports will be unable to accommodate any more flights by 2030. Source: EU Commission

The legislative proposals are to be approved by the EU Parliament and then become Community law. Hopefully this won’t take too long. We all know how it is when so many people are involved in a discussion…

…and when it comes to the airports I really think there is a lot to be improved – not only when it comes to the traffic, or what do you say…? Any suggestions?

©Lifecruiser Love Airports Improvements
 

My body lives an own life, I have nothing to say, which means that it very often is urgent when I need to eat. Some mess with the blood sugar levels – I just go out of petrol and is dragging myself forward. It can be tough to do any sightseeing in that condition.

Because of that urgent need, which not always comes at dinner time, we have many times walked around different cities abroad, in our hunt for a restaurant. The funny thing is that at several occasions, we have not found one single restaurant for block after block we’ve walked. It’s like they have vanished from the earth’s surface, but we’ve simply been on the wrong streets for restaurants.

A couple of times we’ve even ended up at McDonald’s or Telepizza for pure survival, which we detest when we’re out traveling, at least if we’re only staying a short time. We really want to taste the local food. That’s the purpose to be abroad. Of course, if we’re staying a longer time, it’s always interesting to test the burgers and pizza too.

We always find loads of very inviting restaurants when we’re NOT looking for them though…. and later when we’re hungry, we never find our way back to them…

It’s common to ask the reception staff, they use to be local and know where to eat or at least have some recommendations from the hotel in general.

One thing we didn’t think of when asking them for help, was that they might have different preferences than we have. If staying at a Hostel they often recommend rather cheap restaurants. Our intention often was not to look at the price, we just wanted somewhere with a special atmosphere appealing to us.

We should have gone with our intuition as usual, because we saw many very charming restaurants around there that probably would have been a better choice.

Lesson learned: Do not pass a restaurant you like, GO IN THERE AT ONCE!

It’s the same with photographing the travel food: we are always so hungry when we finally get food, that we never manage to take photos of the delicious-looking food, but instead end up taking photos of emptied plates like in the top photo… So typical us…

Now we have learned to pack some survival snacks while searching for a great dinner place. Almonds or other nuts are the most easy ones to carry around without becoming too damaged, but pack whatever works for you.

Another thing that can be very difficult, challenging, exciting or surprising when you’re abroad is when you shall order dinner at a restaurant. If you’re lucky, they have a menu in English, but if not you’re on an real adventure. Yeah, we like that!

Even though they have an English menu, it can be difficult to imagine the dish anyway. Even if you know the ingredients, they still can make it very, very different from what you’re used to. That’s one of the big charms with traveling, right?

What is NOT especially charming is getting sick from food or food poisoning, so make sure to follow all safety precautions and always have a covering travel insurance.

Travel Dining Help Tools

There are many sites like toptable.com, opentable.com, lastminute.com, bookatable.com, yelp.com, zagat.com, tripadvisor or michelinguide.com (the red guide) to help and I’m going to check out certain restaurants in advance from now on to be sure to find the right ones!

There are even iPhone and Android Apps to make the dinner reservation easy for us travelers.

You can also read about airline meals at airlinemeals.net and at GateGuruapp.com you can find out which stores and restaurants are in each terminal – with reviews as well. Be aware of though that not all reviews might be true.

A rather new option is to use NewGusto.com, it’s like couchsurfing, but for dinner plans instead. This site connects travelers with locals that are interested in having dinner guests, for free or paid.

I think it’s a splendid way to meet locals and to really get to taste authentic local food!

Or you could go the easy way and simply choose all inclusive holidays, that way you can be sure of never having to search for dinner places.

What is your experience of finding food during travel? Tell us in the comments!

©Lifecruiser Love Local Travel Food
 

FlightAware Tracking Tool

One very handy tool to do that with is the FlightAware, where you can search by flight number and city and get the activity log of that particular flight and that way also be able to figure out if that flight use to be on schedule. FlightAware checks many other official sources for information.

It can be wise to check out if the flight use to be in time most of the time at least before you buy your flight ticket, to prevent that you’ll miss a connecting flight – or just loosing your important holiday time.

As a guest user you get hold of 14 days historical flight data, but if you register you get 4 months historical flight data and 5 free flight alerts by email or mobile.

A cool feature of FlightAware is that if you want to see a 3D map you can export the flight track to view it in Google Earth. On the Status row in the tracking information, click on the Google Earth button and FlightAware will send you a Google Earth KML file to view the flight.

You can even let the The FlightAware application (facebook.com/FlightAware) configure flight alerts that will be posted to your Facebook wall, notifying your friends and allowing them to track your flight’s status.

Out on the road you will find very useful mobile versions of FlightAware at flightaware.com/mobile/.

Oh, and if you’re really interested in airplanes, don’t miss to check out their aviation photo page at flightaware.com/photos/.

There are also other flight tracker site alternatives to check out if you want: flightview, flightarrivals, flightstats or flightexplorer.com.

Do you use any flight tracking tool? Tell us about your experience!

©Lifecruiser Love Useful Travel Tools

 
Other Flight Tools related post by Lifecruiser:

Google Flight search engine – new useful travel tool
 

Where to find the cheapest flights

A common way to narrow down the flight costs are to choose low budget airlines and fly to secondary airports and then taking the (often very cheap) local bus or train into town. Also try alternative routes, using the budget flights as connecting airports – maybe even use a foreign airline site to book a flight in another currency.

For Europeans it is already well known to use low budget airlines like Ryanair, Norwegian, Air Berlin, Cimber Sterling, Blue Air, Wizzair as some examples, but I hope that you also have been aware of the fact that you from other places can fly into an European country and continue with low budget airlines within Europe.

AirAsia is a great choice if flying within Asia or between Europe or Australia and Asia. When flying to India, be sure to check united airlines.

As long as you are aware of all hidden fees and keep an eye on them, low budget airlines are one of the first options for finding the cheapest flights. Don’t forget though that sometimes, even the normal airlines can have special offers that make them as cheap as the low budget airlines, so always make it a habit to check them too.

The best thing is: you don’t even have to know the airlines companies names – it exists flight search engines out there that find them for you. Flight planning tools that simultaneously searches hundreds of airline sites worldwide to come up with the cheapest fares.

We recommend that you do your searches at several different travel sites: Travelocity, Priceline, Orbitz, Expedia, Kayak, Fly, Travelzoo, Skyscanner.net, Momondo, Bing Travel (previously Farecast), FareCompare, Airfare Watchdog or Dealchecker.co.uk.

Such sites are perfect for doing research and book your flights – or go ahead on the airline site direct to actually book the tickets later on when finding which airlines having the cheapest offers. Some of them even have mobile apps – really making it easy for you to book on the fly.

Which search engine you should use is not really possible to say. It’s a matter of choices, timing and personal taste of course. Some are more user-friendly than others, they can have other differences like special deals negotiated directly with airlines or special calculations to determine whether or not an airline fare will become cheaper or not in an future time period.

Register a special email address that you can use dedicated to sign up for different email newsletters and notifications from different travel sites about cheap flights offers.

Check with local travel agencies/clubs in the area which often has special discounts campaigns on flight tickets.

How to search and book the cheapest flights

When using a flight search engine, choose two or more different departing and arrival airports, plus consider flights with multiple stops as they usually are cheaper than direct flights. Check them at several different times, the prices can differ even when checking them later the same day.

Do a search for a date to a destination and then change the date back or forward to get different prices on the flights, choosing the one with the lowest price. Several of our flights has cost us zero (!) for the tickets, only the tax cost.

Especially check different weekdays, midweek tend to be cheaper. Choose low season and not public holidays if possible.

Always check both one-way trips and roundtrip itineraries to the same destinations, since one-way trips often are much more expensive!

Don’t search only for flights, sometimes complete travel packages with hotels can be cheaper than just the airfare. There are always different discount packages to keep your eyes open for.

Try to fly with only hand luggage if possible, check in online and print your boarding pass at home. Also be sure to thoroughly read the airlines policy before you book your flight, to not miss any crucial details.

Ask for any kind of discounts: business related, student, small child or senior discounts, since some airlines offer special prices for these categories of people, but might not mention it if you are not asking for it!

Ask the airline directly if they have Standby possibilities. If you are flexible you might be able to find discount airfares that way. With Standby means that if a passenger doesn’t show up and they have an available empty seat, you might get that seat instead to a cheap price.

Find and use frequent flier miles programs if you can, which later will make you able to fly for free or pay down the flight tickets cost using those frequent flier miles points. Or get an airline branded credit card.

Be aware of when booking connecting flights, buses, ferries or cruises, that you need to have enough time in between flights to make sure that a delay won’t make you miss your connection. I even recommend to have an extra day or two in that connecting city.

Search for other cheaper connecting alternatives then flights, like ferry or cruise tickets between two cities – and even two countries. If you are real explorers, you will find this alternative the most satisfying as you get to experience more along the way.

Oh, and don’t forget: If the airfare goes down when you have already bought your flight ticket, do dare to ask for a refund! You may not always get one, but some airlines don’t automatically tell you that they will refund you the difference if prices go down.

There are even a site helping you to track your booked airfare if it goes down and notify you: Yapta.com, even though I personally have not used it yet. Have you used it? What was your experience with it?

So where are your next flight going…?

Lifecruiser Love Cheap Flights

Other flight related posts by Lifecruiser:

Flight Stockholm – Palma, Thomas Cook Airlines
Budget flight Ryanair-Skavsta – Bratislava
To book a cheap trip to Vienna
Paper flight tickets are history
Mark green approach to travel
Rude nude security control
Future travel by nanotube

There are so many online travel tools for finding cheap holiday deals for charter trips, flights, cruises, hotels, resorts and excursions – as well as discount coupons or even credit card rewards programs.

To visit more non-touristy destinations or attractions are also ways of getting away much cheaper than the over-promoted and more expensive activities.

Choose low budget airlines and fly to secondary airports, taking the local bus into town. Also try alternative routs, using the budget flights as connecting airports – maybe even book flights in a foreign airline site in another currency.

Do not miss the most super effective way: ask the locals or tourists that have been there if they know of any deals or have any tips, there are lots of forums like Lonely Planets Thorn Tree or Virtual Tourist to ask people within. It does not even need to be a travel related forum!

Research about the location in advance does pay off, have no doubt about that. It is well invested time.

Backpacking now has become flashpacking (travels similar to a backpacker, but with more money and stuff like cameras and/or laptops), so it is not only youngsters that travel this way anymore. With a limited backpack you escape luggage fees and get around easier. Many hostels do have double rooms with baths nowadays.

You can try to make your own tailormade holiday instead of letting a travel agency make it for you and charge for their work, usually you can get away cheaper. If you do not have the time, that is another thing…

Call several travel agencies for deals they have not put out online yet OR is really, really late and thus also really, really cheap! You could also contact the hotel yourself to haggle a better price. Works pretty well sometimes.

The key really is to have a look around online before booking and to note down all the details and then compare notes before booking anything.

You could also call around to different travel agencies a bit, getting prices to compare and then come back to the one you liked the best asking them nicely if they could give you as good price as the other travel agency.

It is not fair to waste too much of their time though. You would not like people taking up your working time either and then simply ditch you for someone else, would you…?

You have to make clear to yourself what is realistic, but still a dream holiday and right from the beginning decide what your budget are, max time you want to spend searching for the best deal, plus what conditions you can accept about the trip.

There are a lot of choices to be aware of: how long you stay, hotel class and services, any extra hidden fees or taxes, local restaurant/shopping costs, wanted excursions and much more which will affect your costs tremendously.

Make sure to take on a good travel insurance – don’t just look at the cheapest money-wise, think about comprehensive terms too. Cheap can get expensive if something happens. I will have to check up myself before our next trips, one which is for frequent travelers with an annual policy and providing cover for multiple journeys.

I also say: if you haven’t been able to find a cheap hotel, book a hostel. Instead of eating out every day, cook your own meals. Do sparingly with excursions and go out walking the city on your own, you get to see/know more locals that way anyway.

After all travel is about exploring something new at the destinations, right?

Lifecruiser ♥ cheap holiday deals
 

Disclosure: I have a material connection because I received a cash payment, gift or item of nominal value from a company affiliated with a brand, topic and/or product that is mentioned herein.

 
Earlier posts about how to travel cheaper:

Where to find late holiday deals
Why getting organised for your holiday will save you money
How to travel a lot without being a millionaire
Bargain Cruise Ships Tips

While booking flights and accommodation will be the first things on your mind, you should also put some time into researching the best possible deal for travel insurance. Not all policies are the same, so don’t make the mistake of simply going with the cheapest option. Be sure that your chosen policy covers all angles – if you’re going skiing or snowboarding, for instance, then you may well need to take out a policy that has specific winter sports cover. Do your research and you won’t go too far wrong.

Something else you should sort out well in advance of your trip away is travel money – it’s easy to pay over the odds for your travel money so look around for your best options before you go. Bowling up at the airport and changing your money on the day you fly is a sure fire way to pay the maximum as currency exchange companies based in an airport know that they have a captive audience. Search out your cheapest options online before you go to get the best deal.

For similar reasons, you should always pre-book your airport parking if you’re going to be leaving a vehicle there while you’re away. Search online for the different available options for the relevant airport and get it booked as early as you can to ensure you get a good price. If you turn up on the day and pay there and then, you’ll undoubtedly be paying more than you need to.

If you’re planning to hire a car in your destination country then once again it pays to book it online before you go. Prices will be significantly cheaper if you’re booking via the company’s website rather than turning up on the day, so seek out your best deal using the internet in the lead-up to your holiday. Similarly, booking activities such as attraction tickets before you go can often be a good idea as these are often available at a discount online if you buy in advance.

Lifecruiser ♥ Organized Travel
 

Photo: Jim_K-Town

Swedes are very often eating a late New Years dinner (in Sweden normal dinner time is around 5-6pm) spread over the whole evening, which could consist of three courses. Often with some kind of seafood involved: shrimps, crabs or lobster is very common.

However, the New Year’s Eve biggest attractions are the huge fireworks that are displayed everywhere, but concentrated in the big cities. While watching the fireworks which burst out at midnight sharp, Swedes drink champagne. A lot.

Photo: vincen-t

Swedes that has been around for many years have noticed a decrease in those fireworks. Earlier it was much more fireworks at the same time and it was going on for ages after midnight. Last year it was only about 15 minutes after midnight.

One of the reasons for this decrease could be that people under 18 year’s age are not longer allowed to buy fireworks, because of all the accidents that have happened during the years with fireworks involved.

Another reason could be that many pet owners have been complaining that their pets are absolutely terrified during New Years Eve and even have to be put down to sleep or send them out in the countryside, to manage the situation.

Of course, even the economic crises could have some influence, people may think it’s not right to let so much money literally go up in smoke….

The Lifecruiser couple really loves fireworks anyway and we will be outdoors around midnight catching the best view of them somewhere in the Stockholm City.

No, we are not traveling anywhere this year. Last time we did that was in 2008 when we took a last minute trip to the Canary island Tenerife and ended up in a very small village without any fireworks unfortunately! We got to see fireworks on the TV in a pub instead.

Another drawback with trips over the Christmas holidays are the high price, better to save the money for trips when it’s considered low season, to get more out of your money.

There is a record amount of Swedes traveling to the warmth this year for the Christmas Holidays. Never before has the trips being sold out so quickly. Top destinations are Cap Verde, Isla Margerita, Mauritius, Thailand, Gran Canaria, Egypt and Mexico.

Of course it’s the fact that the winter started early this year and has been colder than in 118 years or something, that makes us Swedes wanna escape from all the snow.

I read somewhere that Stockholm’s main airport Arlanda claim to have the unofficial world record of snow clearance for airports: they have a very big machine park and staff, so no need to worry about that at least…

Happy New Year also has been a very popular song by our famous Swedish pop group ABBA from the album Super Trouper from 1980 and it’s still going strong, not only with Swedes, but over the whole world – like all the other ABBA songs.

From Sweden & the Swedes: A Happy New Year toast filled with hope that 2011 will become the best year ever in our lives….

I doubt it though, with the thought of all bad things already happening in the whole world, but you know what they say: hope is the last thing that leaves us humans!

Lifecruiser ♥ Champagne Sweden