Time for new adventures – travel plans for 2018

Greetings from Cyprus! After our 6 months road trip in eastern and southeastern Europe in 2017, it was time to ditch our car for a while (it’s waiting for us in Athens), and to head for new adventures!

Cyprus is an island in the Mediterranean Sea, south of Turkey. It is a new country for us, and most famous for being a beach holiday destination. But on top of sandy beaches, there are also gorgeous mountains, historical cities, castles and unspoiled nature. And yes, the island consist of two separate regions, the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. You can find all post related to our adventures Cyprus here.

After exploring Cyprus for a month, we will fly to our home country Finland for a few weeks visit! The main reason for this is work related, but it’s also super nice to see friends and family! In March it will be 9 months since we left from Finland. We haven’t really been homesick, but it’s still awesome to have a chance for a short stay with our parents and to hear face to face how our close friends are doing. We will be working for couple of weeks for Oulu Music Festival in our former home town, and in addition to that we will enjoy the snowy, and hopefully sunny, late winter of Finland. Some cross country skiing is in the schedule for sure. In early April our nomad adventure will continue in southern Europe, and regarding that we have some news and plans to share!

AirBaltic ambassadorship

We are happy to announce, that we have just started as airBaltic ambassadors! This co-operation means, that during the year we will be flying to interesting destinations with airBaltic, promoting them in our channels and writing travel guides based on our experiences. AirBaltic is the national Latvian airline, that offers flights to over 60 destinations in Europe and beyond. We are really excited about this opportunity to work with airBaltic, as it has been our choice for low cost flights in Europe several times during the past few years. AirBaltic home base is in Riga, the capital of Latvia, and they also fly from Tallinn in Estonia and Vilnius in Lithuania.

Travel plans for 2018

We don’t yet have fixed plans for the whole year, but these below destinations are on our initial itinerary;

Portugal

We are planning a round trip around the country, starting from the gorgeous capital Lisbon. We have only visited Portugal on a one day stop-over in Lisbon, so there is a lot to see in this warm and beautiful country in the Iberian Peninsula. We plan to reserve roughly one month for exploring Portugal.

Minsk, Belarus

Since early 2017 there has been a possibility to visit Belarus visa-free for the citizens of 80 states, including all EU countries, so we are planning to utilize this chance this spring / early summer. Visa-free stay is unfortunately limited to 5-days (and only through Minsk airport), so we will most probably focus on just getting to know the capital.

Edit: Visa free stay extended to 30 days in July 2018

Central European road trip

After visiting Minsk, we will fly back to Athens to pick up our car for a road trip in Central Europe in June. We have still three tiny European countries that we have never visited; San Marino, Monaco and Andorra, so we will try to see them all, on top of finding new destinations and hiking routes in Italy and France. We will take our camping gear with us for this trip for sure.

Prague, Czech Republic

In end of June we will head to the capital of Czech Republic, Prague. Our wind orchestra in Oulu, Teekkaritorvet, is traveling there to participate a wind music festival near Prague, and we are planning to join them! That will be a joyous re-union for sure! This visit will possibly be combined with a longer road trip around the country.

Iceland

Iceland is the only Nordic country that we have never traveled to, so it’s time to fix that this year. Planning to travel around this stunning island full of nature wonders for around couple of weeks. Hiking and camping will be the backbone of our itinerary in Iceland.

Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran

We have been talking about traveling in Caucasus and Iran for some time already, and with airBaltic we will be able to fly to Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, and back from Baku in Azerbaijan. Initial plan is to travel couple of months in these four countries by land, mostly using buses.

Tel Aviv, Israel

For the late autumn and winter we don’t have exact plans yet, but visiting Israel for few weeks sounds tempting. AirBaltic flies to Tel Aviv, the second largest city of the country after Jerusalem. This coastal metropolis has also been called “the Miami of the Middle East”.

Abu Dhabi, UAE

Probably the last destination of the year will be United Arab Emirates, which differs from Israel like day and night I guess, never traveled in either of them before. On top of Abu Dhabi, also Dubai is on the UAE itinerary, and maybe the remote desert dunes as well.

OK, when written down as a list like this, the travel plan sounds quite breathtaking… We have been changing our travel style towards slow traveling lately, but this years itinerary doesn’t sound slow by any means. Let’s see how we will manage to make this plan reality. It would mean visiting at least 17 countries, out of which no less than 11 are new for us. Welcome to this nomad adventure with us!

Related post: Travel year 2017

What kind of travel plans you have for 2018? Share them in comments!