• Yurts – In this modern day and age, camping has begun to become more glamorous as opposed to sleeping rough for a few days. Yurts are the way forward when it comes to camping as it provides some of the comforts that are found in your own home including, separate bedrooms, hobs and even plumbing! Yurts are perfect for the whole family and the experience is bound to be one that you will never forget.
• Holiday Cottages – This type of accommodation is perfect for both couples and families, more so for families as these cottages usually have plenty of bedrooms. Luxury cottages can be usually found in the beautiful countryside away from the hustle and bustle that the city usually brings.
• Holiday Villa – Villas are great for families as you can let your kids run wild by the pool whilst also having a relaxing time out to relax and rejuvenate. If you are wise about it, you can usually find plenty of deals on villas online on several sites. As well as families, villas are also ideal for friends as they are usually away from nearby housing, so you can make as much noise as you want.
• Hotels – Hotels are usually cheap and easy to book at short notice. Make sure you are careful though as not all hotels are the same. Once again, make use of any review sites that you can look at that will indicate whether the hotel is up to your standards. Another thing to bear in mind is the location of the hotel. Make sure that it is nearby to local transport links and close to entertainment.

Guest post by James Taylor from Travel Maestro

Author bio: James Taylor is a fellow travel blogger who just like us love to travel and discover new places as well as sharing his experiences with us. At Travel Maestro you will find travel guides for travelling around the world, encouraging readers to share their travel stories with us and give us more travel tips.

Lifecruiser Love Travel Tips
 

Botswana is, however, also one of the most exclusive and expensive countries in Africa for a family safari and the older the children are, the more they will remember and appreciate.

For a nice family safari you could, for example, start in northern Botswana and visit Chobe National Park. This game rich park will allow you and your family to see as much wildlife as you’re ever going to see and has some fantastic options for your stay. From smaller camps that will make you feel at home to larger lodges that will have all the facilities needed for a family, everything is here.
From here you could then go to the famous Okavango Delta, a must for any Botswana safari itinerary.

The good thing about Botswana is that there is a very good infrastructure in terms of connecting flights. Not only are these going to be interesting for the kids providing them with a wonderful bird’s
eye view over the country, but they also reduce the time it takes to get from one place to the next. Being stuck in a vehicle for long periods of time can be very tiring for the children but also for the
parent’s nerves!

In the Okavango Delta itself a good option is to stay at a small and personal luxury safari camp that will take time to look after you and your family. There are quite a few to choose from, with camps also offering family tents and special children’s activities. During these activities the specialist guides and staff will try and teach your kids about the bush and its wildlife in an interesting way, so that they even go home with a larger understanding of the natural world. Apart from the children focused activities there are, of course, also all the other normal activities such as game drives, night drives, bush walks and trips to special build hides.

After a few days in the Okavango Delta head into the Kalahari Desert or to the big salt pans such as the Makgadikgadi Pan. Here there is another range of activities including spending a day or two with the Bushmen. At the salt pans there is also an option to go camping in the wild; which is something that children will normally really enjoy!

Botswana may not be on everyone’s list for a family safari but it is definitely a destination worth keeping in mind!

Lifecruiser Love Wild Life Safaris
 

Other parts of the country have their charms, and campsites in Ayrshire, Lothian and Dumfries and Galloway prove that. However, for unrivalled views of towering mountains and lush green valleys, you’d struggle to better the Highlands.

Photo by Pitchup of Sunnyside Croft Touring Caravan & Camping Site

One of the best campsites in this region is the Sunnyside Croft Touring Caravan & Camping Site near the village of Arisaig. Boasting fantastic views of the islands of Eigg, Rum and Muck, you’re also only a short ferry ride from the Isle of Skye. The site itself has its own shop, a laundrette, sells local produce and even has recycling facilities.

Photo by Pitchup of Grannie’s Heilan’ Hame Holiday Park

Another site well worth visiting for campers is the eccentrically named Grannie’s Heilan’ Hame Holiday Park near Dornoch. This site is perfect for bringing the family, as there’s just about everything you could possibly want here: an indoor swimming pool, Jacuzzi, tennis courts, ten-pin bowling, crazy golf and, being near the beach, an amusement arcade. This isn’t your traditional campsite, and is all the better for it.

Photo by Coda of Ben Nevis Hike, near Fort William

If you’re away from the campsites, then there’s plenty of things to do. You could go walking around the mountains and valleys (the more adventurous among you might fancy a crack at scaling Ben Nevis), visit the many towns and villages like Inverness and Fort William or even go surfing somewhere like Thurso in the Highlands’ most northerly point.

Lifecruiser Love Scotland

Other camping travel related posts by Lifecruiser:

VW Camper Van Blue Retro Twins
56ans Nostalgia Cafe, Gotland
Worned Out Vintage Vacation
How to find cheap holiday deals from Sweden
8 Unique Travel Posts Boosts
Thousands by horse to El Rocio
 

Funny thing is: I just saw a camping tent that is a VW Camper Van Blue Retro at Coolstuff, that is a twin to the one above!

Incredible! Oh, how I want this one, but can’t afford right now. Have to save as much as we can for our Europe trip later this year… *sigh*

Me want! Me love! I would be such a happy camper…

©Lifecruiser Love Camper Van’s
 

Travel sites and agencies tips

Besides the three largest travel agencies in Sweden, Ving.se, Apollo.se and Fritidsresor.se, there are many other sites to search for cheap travel trips, like the combined charter.se or ticket.se, solresor.se, dtf-travel.se, sembo.se, airtours.se, resia.se, resfeber.se, travellink.se, seat24.se, travelpartner.se, travelstart.se, mrjet.se, supersavertravel.se and bigtravel.se.

They have last minute (listed under ‘sista minuten’) or other deals to offer at their booking sites. For youths under 26 there is travel.kilroys.se and for general cheap coupon travel deals there is groupon.se/deals/travel to keep an eye on.

Flight sites and tips

There are better price levels now at the Scandinavian Airlines SAS.se sometimes, even though not always as low as the lowbudget companies like Ryanair.com/se, but Norwegian.com/se might be a better choice since they departure from Stockholm Arlanda Airport (arlanda.se) and not from Skavsta Nyköping (1,5 hours from Stockholm) as Ryanair does.

Also have a look at the flight comparison sites flygresor.se or skyscanner.se and don’t forget that there is a second airport in Stockholm with mostly domestic flights, Bromma (brommaairport.se).

If you want to go to Croatia and Bosnia, Scandjet.se have flights there. Croatia travel have increased a lot since they started this route. No wonder, Croatia has a wonderful climate, fabulous beaches and offer cheap holidays. I wanna go there too…

Train sites and tips

Travel by train is possible within Sweden or to Norway or Denmark and beyond, but is generally not considering to be especially cheap and takes longer time than flying, but is a more environmental friendly way of travel. The main Swedish train ticket sites are sj.se (only last minute to retires or youngsters under 26, but also sells at Tradera.se auctions) or veolia.se.

Swedish bus sites and tips

By bus: swebus.se, gobybus.se, bus4you.se (with free internet) or ybuss.se (northern Sweden). There are also scandorama.se and eurolines.se – mostly to destinations within Europe and perhaps not always so very cheap, but of course they also have special deals occasionally. Sign up for their newsletters to get them.

Cheap cruise sites and tips

Going on a short cruise from Stockholm can be a real cheap bargain, since there are extremely cheap deals sometimes – especially during the low winter season. Check up tallinksilja.se which cruise to Finland or Estonia and birka.se (favorite: artificial sundeck!) which has 22h cruises to Åland, or vikingline.se. Another very cheap is eckerolinjen.se with their 2h cruises to Åland with departure from Grisslehamn – right now 80 SEK/pp(!) with bus from Stockholm City.

Budget cottage rentals, hostels and camping

If you are more than 2 persons it might become cheaper to rent a cottage somewhere rather than staying in a hotel. There are lots of sites advertising, like stugknuten.com – direct from the owners without middlehand fees, smaland-strandhaus.com, stuga.nu, novasol.com/holiday-rentals/sweden.html, stugnet.com, fritiden.se, sverigesemester.com, southern Sweden mostly: stugbo.se (german translation), stugsommar.se (Swedish only).

The Swedish hostels are called Vandrarhem in Swedish, which means literally wandererhomes and most of them are managed by the Swedish Tourist Organisation. They have a great website which also have some inspiration of what to do: svenskaturistforeningen.se/en/Inspiration/.

There are Swedish Farmstay’s and Bed & Breakfast too, not as much as in certain other countries, but I have no favorite site. I would first search right out on the internet with the words Bed & Breakfast and the place where you want to go and do my own selection from there. Or contact the local tourist office.

You can also check the ad-sites blocket.se or allaannonser.se – or you could go camping, but make sure it’s the right season (July-August) because we do have a rather cold and damp climate over here. Great Swedish camping sites are: camping.se or campingkartan.se – a more personal created one with real reviews from other camping guests.

The nature in Sweden is excellent for walkers and other outdoorsy people and there is countless of small lakes everywhere with small local beaches to explore. All for free and really recreational.

Conclusion how to find cheap holiday deals

Now you’ve got lots of useful travel sites tips to go through, some of the tips here you would not have found if you can’t understand Swedish, so it’s authentic Swedish insider tips.

Too many sites? Well, if you want to have the cheapest holidays deals, it’s unfortunately necessary to make an effort and search widely. There are different deals at different sites at different times, making it rather impossible to recommend just one or two sites.

Nothing comes for free. It takes time, so if your time is money – go ahead and pay much more for your holidays. Your choice. I look at the trip planning as a part of the pleasure, so for me it can take many hours of searching before I finally book something.

I might even just save the research trip info for later without booking any trip at all. It’s still worth it, as I learn things during the process which may come in handy at another trip planning occasion.

Do you have any other cheap holidays suggestions? Throw it in – even if it’s not about travel in Sweden, everything is useful.

©Lifecruiser Love Cheap Holidays
 

Earlier posts about how to find cheap holidays:

Planning a holiday – search and compare prices
How to find the cheapest flights – the ultimate flights guide
How to get cheap holiday deals
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

Many owners of classic cars like to make a stop at the 56ans Café on their way up north on the Gotland island and so did we too this summer. The old Austin Cambridge in the picture above is not ours though!

The café menu has old classics like the Bike sandwich with sausage and egg, Swedish meatballs sandwich or the special coffee & prawn sandwich offer for only 45 SEK which is about $6,45 or €4,75.

The interior inside the café is filled with old car-related things – what do you say about drinking coffee – or "having fun" *giggles* – on this classic car seat-sofa in the picture, a very old tradition!

There is also the Nostalgia shop inside with lots of pillows with classic motifs as well as lots of old signs, bags, mugs etc. My only problem was were I possibly could put all those marvelous nostalgia signs I wanted to buy!

Well, we ended up only buying a bag and mug with Marilyn Monroe on them – which we took with us to Norway later as a gift to Diane.

In the photo below you can see some of the wall decoration at the entrance of the café – very US influenced for being on a very small Swedish island, don’t you think…?

This summer Gotland tourists also got a new Quick stop place for temporary accommodation for motorhomes and caravans next to the café, which has an extended guest service. There you can fill up with water, empty the tanks, recharge batteries plus use the toilet or shower.

The fee is 100 to 150 SEK (€10,55-15,80 or $14,30-21,45) per night depending on the Caravan equipage. Note though that the idea is that you only stay for one or two nights. It is not like a regular camping place.

56ans Café is located in Tors, Bro, along road 148 about 8 kilometers north of Visby, which is the Old medieval Hansa town you arrives to when coming to Gotland with the ferry from the mainland.

Lifecruisers 56ans Nostalgia Café photos (20).

Lifecruiser ♥ Gotland
 

Old faithful vacation homes at the farm we’re staying, now retired. It was just a couple of years ago since hubbys daughter stayed in the green one. She loved it!

So old, so darn cool – don’t you agree….?

Lifecruiser ♥ Vintage Vacation
 

It was a year ago now since we were in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Andalusia, Spain and experienced the big famous event of the pilgrimage Romeria de San José.

This is an ancient tradition from around 1280 for the Spanish people to make a pilgrimage to the White Dove, the Virgen del Rocio – in the church in El Rocio, Huelva.

It’s done 3 times a year. This one was around the Dia de San José (San José Day) in March, with people from Andalusia participating. There is also one in May and another one in the autumn, but that one is by foot.

There is a telling about how the third voyage of Christopher Columbus (1498) had to delay the departure from the Sanlúcar port until the crew returned who was on the pilgrimage of El Rocio.

We were absolutely stunned, because Sanlúcar was invaded by thousands and thousands of gorgeous Spanish horses, with wagons or riders (Romero’s) and even donkeys etc.

Where ever we looked there were horses and peoples in a very festive mood. We had such a good time just watching this stream of equipage coming into town – and it never seemed to stop, an endless stream it was.

I’ve never seen so much horses in my whole life and those were beautiful Andalusian horses mostly. This one looks almost exactly like in a saga!

We soon found out why they came exactly that way: they were planning to cross the river Guadalquivir with the ferries, to get to the Doñana National park which they’re riding through to get to El Rocio.

Can you imagine to pack yourself in with all those horses on the ferry to cross the river?

They were jammed and the ferries (several) went back and forward in at least 2 days to get them all over!

They had a lovely road in front of them, staying overnight in the national park, some sort of camping out. You can see that they’re well prepared with their wagons. What a feast!

Sanlúcar looked very empty afterward when they all had left, abandoned like a good old Western ghost town.

The place where they were heading, El Rocio, looked very similar to an old Western town with sandy streets and places to tie up their horses outside the saloons… Ehrm, I mean restaurants.

Yes, we just had to follow them there to see when they arrived at their goal and had an absolutely fabulous day, photographing, eating and drinking, watching the people and horses.

Something that’s very striking on some of the horses, are their manes. Just have a look at this gorgeous one:

This is such a combined folk feast really, on one hand something religious, on the other hand an excuse to have a giant party and meet family members, relatives and friends. We love it, such a fantastic experience.

First thing they did when arriving was to go straight into the church and visit the virgin to be blessed by her. As you can see the church is very well maintained, a really beautiful church.

When they came out, some of them went to rest I’m sure, but there were some very persistent romero’s that kept partying on the horseback all evening!

We couldn’t force ourselves to leave that festive atmosphere with the singing and partying Romero’s, so we stayed late in the evening having such a good time. Ah, what a memory.

Little did we know that we should be so lucky to aim our stay in Sanlúcar at the right time to be able to see one of Spains most famous romeria‘s, which for a horse lover like myself, was like being in heaven. It was a traffic stocking, but by horses!

This was only the small one, the big Romeria del Rocio is in May (I think it’s 27 May – 3 June 2009): when people comes from the whole Spain: up to a million of them! Just to see the lady.

There are 4 main routes:

1. Sanlúcar, used by people from Cádiz province
2. Los Llanos from Almonte (the oldest one)
3. Moguer, used by those from Huelva province
4. Seville, most popular for other provinces and even from abroad

If you’re planning to go to Andalusia, be sure to go there during the Romeria in May – though I suspect that you have to book your accomodation well in advance as always when there are big events.

See Lifecruiser’s Romeria San José photos overview if you’re short on time – or all of them in the Romeria San José photo slideshow.

It was such a great time and we wouldn’t mind going back another time!

Lifecruiser ♥ Andalusian horses
 

1. The edible hotel room in New York. How about booking into a yummy chocolate designed suite? Run to the Byrant Park Hotel! The room has a chocolate inspired dining table and a chocolate wall made with more than 10,000 confections!

   I might need to ask for more towels though, because of all the drooling… *giggles*

   Read more at: BBC News

2. Bikinis Rules at Mexican Airline. The discount Mexican airline VivaAerobus have been influenced by Ryanairs earlier Calendar, but with cheesecake shots of attractive female flight attendants. Now airlines has started to use sex to sell.

   I suspect we might see more of this now during the crisis, the competition about the travelers are going to get tough!

   Read more at: MaxaBlog

3. Craziest party hostels around the world. Top list of the 20 craziest (or more fun?), whether or not you want to go there – or to avoid going there.

   I do wonder about Wombats in Berlin though. If it’s like Wombats in Vienna, the partying does not disturb you IF the partying is mostly going on in the Wombar. We slept very well – when we wanted to sleep…

   Read more at: Matador Nights

4. How to avoid getting the flu. Adventure Doc gives tips how to protect yourself during flu season, especially for us travelers. One repeated advice: Wash your hands! There are also some other great advices, including book tips.

   Read more at: Matador Life

5. How To Backpack. A complete, very impressive and useful backpacking – hiking and trekking – guide. The best one I’ve ever seen so far! Great advices mixed up with illustrations.

   Read more at: Google Knol

6. Ten Innovative camping products. My favorite products are: The Cocoon, top-of-the-range cross between a tent and sleeping bag, a solar powered tent and the Respite: A cross between a hammock and a tent.

   I wanna see more inventions like these ones, might even get me camping. Really useful and comfortable!

   Read more at: Camping Tourist

7. Five star hotel airplane. The A380 is the ultimate in luxury. It has three decks: the top two for passengers and the lower one available for a medical centre, shopping or a fast-food franchise. The aircraft has features like spas, casinos, gyms, bedrooms, and duty-free shops.

   I’m not sure I like the mention of Titanic though…. *giggles*

   Read more at: Wheels Mania

8. The worlds best job. Everyone is talking about it and many is applying for it:

   Caretaker of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef. One of the main duties are to report back to Tourism Queensland as well as the rest of the world what’s going on at the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef.

   Who wouldn’t love that job…?

   Read more at: Island Reef Job

This is also submitted to my social bookmarking sites, so if you feel like adding me, you find my profiles here: Lifecruiser at StumbleUpon or Lifecruiser at Digg.

Lifecruiser ♥ Travel