Let me take you back to 1993, yes, I know, that’s a long time ago, I’m really showing my age. Back then I was just a young boy and life was a lot simpler. There were no smart phones or social media, even the shrill of a dial up modem was a feature of a future yet to pass.

Back then whenever the wind blew, the alarms for half the cars on the street would set off in tandem as a kind of out of tune and out of time orchestra. Cars were much smaller and squarer, with bigger leaded 4 star engines and they were easier to steal so if you didn’t have a yellow autolock on your steering wheel or gear stick, you were asking for trouble.

Obviously the memories of someone from over 30 years ago are a little hazy so there may be a few details I get confused, but as I remember it we had a white Nissan Sunny. Back then it wasn’t all that common to go on holidays abroad and as the first child of three working class nurses in suburban Manchester, we were no exception.

A holiday for us might have been a trip to Butlins in Skegness or a caravan in Marine Park in North Wales but my Aunty Gel lived over in Belfast at the time, and this is where my love of travel began.

There was me, and my younger sister and brother and my parents. This trip was a little unusual though as my mum had travelled ahead, she was already in Belfast and the rest of us were to join her, staying at my aunties house.

It’s fair to say that I was a little bit of a “mummy’s boy”. Quite shy and sensitive, carrying a little bit extra timber even at that age. This particular trip felt like a good father-son bonding trip though.

As kids we would argue over who got to sit in the front in the car. As the tallest, eldest and chunkiest, it was normally me but the opportunity didn’t come often as usually it was both my parents so it felt like a bit of a treat to be in the front passenger seat for this trip.

I remember my dad making sandwiches. He took a loaf of bread, buttered each of the pieces, made a combination of fillings then put the sandwiches back in the cellophane and packed a pack lunch with crisps, Swiss rolls and drinks ready for the long journey.

We were to catch the Stena line Sea Cat catamaran from the port of Stranraer, way up in Scotland and it was an early morning crossing which meant travelling through the night.

My brother and sister spent most of the journey asleep in the back of the car but I was taking in every single detail, particularly as the roads got more bendy and windy as we travelled through rural Scotland. The sky was pitch black and the only light was from the reflection of our head lamps.

I remember my dad giving me a look. It was a look of pride. Sometimes no words are needed but the message between you is loud and clear. My mum gave me the nickname radar eyes as a baby as I was constantly scanning and observing, and there I was, quietly doing what I do best, taking it all in as I watched the rabbits and hares dart across the road and even the occasional dear. Outside, it was cold and dark but in that car I was safe and warm as my dad expertly navigated the windy terrain.

Funnily enough, when I got to the age of 17, I didn’t have that massive desire to learn to drive myself. I enjoyed getting the bus to get around. I was 20 before I started driving lessons and just a week shy of 22 by the time I passed.

The SeaCat was another amazing experience. I remember getting to go up on the Bridge and the Captain allowing me to pretend I was steering the ship with the disappointingly small wheel. Watching my dad drive the car onto and off the boat was certainly an experience but nothing compared to the return flight when we found our car had a flat tire when we returned to it and a kind stranger helped change the tire in a race against time before we docked back in Stranraer.

I remember going home after that trip, with a replica SeaCat toy in hand and emptying our huge bag of random lego pieces onto the carpet and building a multi deck replica of the SeaCat, complete with retractable cargo doors and being very proud of it, taking it into school.

These days I tend to be the driver and I get that same feeling of pride when I’m transporting a partner as my dad had all those years ago. When they fall asleep and you know you’re going to get them home safely. I keep my side of the car icy cold like a fridge (the joys of dual zone climate control) whilst they stay snug as a bug. My ability to drive for hours on end powered by red bull and iced mochas without needing the toilet is quite impressive. I love night driving. I love the quietness. The sound of trees rustling, the bleating of sheep when surrounded by fields and the tranquility of running water as you pass by rivers, lakes, lochs, canals and the coast.

There’s something special about seeing how small we all are and how intricate and vast the valleys and mountains are. At that moment, the hussle and bustle of busy urban life disappears and you just become at one with the natural world all around you.

My second big travel experience was another trip to Belfast but this time it was me and my Aunty Mary travelling together on a plane for the first time. It was a small Logan Air propeller plane and the flight would only have been short. Back then, you actually got given orange juice and biscuits for free as part of your ticket. I remember watching the engines and feeling the strange butterfly sensation as the wheels of the plane lost contact with the ground on take off. Again, I got to go into the cockpit and say hello to the captain during the flight. Something you would never be allowed to do now, but back then it wasn’t even uncommon for people to smoke on planes. The world has changed a lot since those days.

You would have thought that I may have been a little scared, given that I had (and still do to a lesser extent) a bit of a fear of heights but no, I was just mesmerised by the whole experience and in awe of the marvel of flight. It wouldn’t be until I was 16 that I would experience flight again, this time to Reus airport on our first family holiday abroad to Lloret de Mar.

It’s a privilege that I don’t take for granted, being able to fly. Budget airlines have opened up (aircraft) doors to everyday working class people to experience something that previously was reserved only for the wealthy and with the rising cost of fuel, it may soon become a more luxury experience once again.

What travel gives you is freedom, and a chance to experience different cultures, different geographies and climates and the more I travel, the more I realise that people the world over are all just the same when it comes down to it.

Perhaps one day I’ll tell you the story of my first experience being a passenger in a car crash or of the opulence of flying in first class on an A380 and business class in a Boeing 747, but for now, think about what your early memories are of travel. What did it mean to you? What went wrong? We all have funny stories and precious memories to tell!

I met my first long term partner at the young age of 19. I used to tease her that I was still technically a teenager when we got together. We were together for more than 20 years. We always enjoyed travelling and worked really well together as a team. She was very good at navigating, we had a very well used road map and she was great at finding what I would refer to as “the fun roads”, minor C roads, often single track with passing places. I would drive, she would complain about the trees getting in the way anytime she wanted to take a photo. She would pop sweets directly into my mouth as I concentrated on the roads.

We did lots of trips, particularly in the UK. We did Manchester to John O’Groats then to Lands End and back in a circuit, staying at cheap Travelodge's along the way. We did a weekend cruise from Newcastle to Bergen, which resulted in her losing her cap in the sea and my car battery dying and having to be push started when we got back on shore. We did trips to Edinburgh, the Isle of Mann, Orkney, Builth Wells, Cornwall, Swansea, Skegness (at the third attempt) to name but a few.

Then there were trips abroad to the Norwegian Fjords proper, a 14 country road trip across the EU in 8 days, a trip of a life time to New York with Niagara Falls thrown in for good measure then another trip to Los Angeles, sun bathing on Venice Beach and sipping cocktails in Santa Monica.

During that time, it’s just how the way things were. Our skills complimented each other really well. I was good at coming up with ideas and planning. She was really good at the practical side of things. Finding things I’d lost, like the time I lost my phone and wallet at the Yankee stadium and she found it. How she was so good at packing things into a bag that seemed like a Tardis when she packed it. Once I’d done the planning, there would be a detailed itinerary for each day and she would go into teacher mode, making sure we executed it and I could just relax and let her do her thing. We took turns to lead, playing to each of our strengths.

I guess I kind of took for granted how lucky I was to have that kind of a relationship. It was a massive culture shock suddenly finding myself single and starting again. I wasn’t starting from scratch, I was starting from experience and experience that had taught me a lot.

I didn’t let it stop me. I had a trip to Portugal with a friend, another trip to Mallorca with my family and a Baltic adventure to Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Finland with my dad. All these trips were special and different in their own ways but it wasn’t really until this year that I started doing trips entirely on my own.

Travelling on your own, when you’re used to being part of a couple is very different. There’s no one to help you pack or tell you to turn “that way” when you can’t see which way they’re pointing.

There’s a premium cost for travelling solo as you’re not splitting the costs between two people for accommodation and fuel etc. I can’t share food with someone else so it’s always a bit of a waste eating out as I can’t eat a lot anymore.

I love travelling. I love the adventure and the challenge of it. I like meeting new people, having long conversations with taxi drivers and hotel receptionists but I must admit, when you’re sat down at a table for one in a restaurant, when you’ve got nobody to hold your bag when you queue for a ride at a theme park or keep an eye on your towel when you bathe in the sea and when you’re on a 6 hour road trip and there’s no one else in the car to talk to, just the sound of the playlist you put together yourself and nobody to enjoy the scenery with, taking photos whilst I drive. It can be a little bit lonely in the silence.

Don’t get me wrong, for anyone in the same position, I would tell you not to let fear get in the way. Go out, experience things, meet people. It’s nowhere near as scary as it can feel when you first do it and you can meet new people and make new friends. A stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet, after all.

Make hey whilst the sun is shining. Life has taught me that you never know how long you’ve got left. Our health, and our wealth can disappear in an instance so whilst you still can do things, don’t be the one with regrets because you didn’t take those chances and make those memories. Even if things go wrong, and lets be honest, things can always go wrong, at least you’re left with a story to tell. Some of the best stories of my travels started off with a disaster. For example, a hotel that felt like something out of a horror film in Budapest turned into a night on a boat hotel on the river Danube, enjoying baileys and watching the world go by. The delayed flight home from Alicante that meant I could have that share experience of watching England in the world cup with random strangers.

I’ve been fortunate enough to find a bunch of people that love travel just as much as I do and I’ve now done four Extreme Day Trips with other people and I have at least one more group trip booked.

Hopefully it will be a good way to make new friends and maybe one day I’ll find someone I can share my life with again and we can do those things together, but until then, I’m not going to let anything stop me from living life to the full, having adventures and seeing the world.

Life is too short to waste it. If you’re thinking about booking that solo trip, don’t be afraid, or should I say be afraid but do it anyway. You’ve got this!

I mostly use this blog to talk about my travel adventures and extreme day trips. That’s something that I’m passionate about and brings me a lot of joy but there’s more to my life than just a rucksack and a passport.

After a 20 year relationship ended, I found myself in a position where I had to rebuilt my identity from scratch. I used to be a husband. I used to be an uncle to nephews and nieces on my partners side. My sense of purpose was built around people that decided that I no longer mattered, and that was tough to deal with psychologically but in that scenario, I had just two choices, I could drown in my own misery or I could make a change and pick up the fragments of my life and start again. I chose the latter.

I can be very proud of the phoenix that arose from the flames. The home I’ve build, the friends I’ve made, the weight I’ve lost (15 stone over three years is nothing to be sniffed at). Now there’s only one thing missing. I would really like someone to share my life with. Not out of a need for someone to complete me, I’m already whole but because I have a big heart that simply wasn’t designed to keep it all to myself. I want to be the reason someone else smiles. I want to be their safe harbour when the storms of life are raging. I want to be part of something bigger than just myself.

I must admit, I have found the modern world of dating hard to navigate. I am not gifted with a silver tongue and charisma that just drips off my torso. I’m a slow burn that struggles to get through the initial awkwardness of meeting new people in a dating context. I find it hard to introduce myself without sounding duller than a black and white paint catalogue from 1989.

Still, we can’t expect the world to revolve around our own desires and idiosyncrasies so I force myself out of my comfort zone and onto the turbulent territories of dating apps and in person meet ups.

Tonight I attended my third “single mingles” event. It was about 10 months since the last one, which was a spectacular failure where I only managed to evoke the ire of a polish woman I’d upset in a facebook group for having the audacity to be honest about my values.

Still, it had been 10 months and in that time I’d lost at least 10 stone in weight so maybe it was time to give it another shot? Tonight’s event was a 40s and 50s event, with an 80s and 90s theme disco much more to my tastes, at least in theory.

It wasn’t something I was planning to go to, I had been speaking to a lady from Leeds for a little while but sadly that wasn’t meant to be so I thought “fuck it”, why not? I had nothing to lose so I booked myself a ticket last minute and there were 9 other souls from a facebook group I had joined that were also attending. I met with a couple of them before the event.

I forgot that I lost weight so when I tried on my smarter shirt attire, I realised it looked too big so I had to make a bee line to Slater menswear on the day to find something to match up with my expensive smart black jeans and fanciest shoes (not that fancy, they’re just hush puppies but to a man that lives in Sletchers slip ons, they’re fancy enough). £49.99 for a shirt! They must have seen me coming, but I was in a rush and it did at least fit nicely.

I headed to Dukes 92 to meet up with some of the guys from facebook for a pre-party drink. I don’t normally drink and I just got myself a diet coke in Dukes. Meeting other guys in the same position helped calm the nerves a little. It was clear that Dukes was full of other guys and girls doing exactly the same thing. It almost felt like a high school prom with some of the elaborate attires, particularly with the ladies attending.

We headed over to the Single Mingle about half an hour after “doors open”, nobody wants to be too early. They give each of the guys a padlock and the girls a key. It gives you a reason to go round and introduce you to other people. I applied one last squirt of my CK one parfum de homme before putting my bag in the “cloak room” and entering the main event.

The 10 months made no difference. I was still nervous. I still felt uncomfortable in a very busy room with lots of people and noise. It felt like a school disco, but at the school discos I was the kid sat akwardly in the corner of the room refusing to dance and it wasn’t any different alll those years later.

I tried to circulate. The second lady I spoke to happened to be my matching lock and key mate, so we were entered into the prize draw and already I had no reason to speak to other people. I did get to keep my padlock and “pretend” it wasn’t already unlocked but I was too polite to interrupt ladies already speaking to other guys. There were some girls I found attractive. I seem to find short brunettes particularly attractive. I’m not sure why and not that it helped me engage many in conversation.

You see, the thing is, I’m not actually shy. Put me in a context I feel comfortable, a pub quiz a casual walk or even on an Extreme Day Trip, I will happily chew your ear off but surrounded by a lot of people and noise, I naturally drift into the background. Dating feels like it’s designed for extroverts and I’m just not that. I have a lot of qualities, empathy, kindness, generosity, intelligence but extroversion is not one of them.

I decided to renege on my self imposed alcohol hiatus. I had a double JD and diet coke, 3 lagers and a baileys. It went straight to my head and somehow for the last hour I found myself on the dance floor with a very attractive brunette that was humouring me but I couldn’t quite bring myself to be brave enough to cross the line into making a move. Hey, it was progress just to be on the dance floor.

The hope for these events is that by putting myself out there, it would help me build up confidence to approach ladies. It’s not something I’ve ever really had to do. Most of the ladies I’ve had relationships with have approached me, not the other way round, and they’ve been drawn by my solitary super power, the ability to string a few words together.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ll never be that outgoing, confident, charmer. I am what I am, and you know what, that’s ok. Instead of trying to compete on other people’s terms, I need to compete to my own strengths. It’s worked before and it may just work again. I just need the right kind of lady that will value what it is I have to offer.

The staff at these events are very friendly and helpful. I still had a good time, regardless of whether that had to be alcohol induced or not. I’m going to keep trying to find events, whether it be walks, games nights or any other excuse for people to meet. One day I will find the right woman and in the meantime I just need to keep being me, enjoy life and not give up hope.

For someone to love you, you first have to love yourself, and I do. Not in a vain way, but I can be proud of how far I’ve come in the last few years and what I’ve achieved. I need to give myself credit for that!

On Wednesday, 16th September I took a 0550 flight from a cold Manchester Airport to the Italian capital city, Rome.

It had been just over 5 weeks since my last extreme day trip to Dublin on 8th August. In June and July, it felt like I was off somewhere every other week so it was nice to have a little gap. As much as I’m addicted to travel, Extreme Day Trips can be very tiring.

The day before the trip, I managed to wound my foot slightly, wearing trainers that are a little worn out whilst on a walk. It was quite sore on the Tuesday night but I found a nice big plaster, doubled up my socks for extra protection and switched to a spare identical pair of trainers I’d already worn before.

I considered breaking with tradition and getting the bus to the airport instead of the 3 mile walk, but in the end, my foot felt fine so I left the house around 0220 and actually made it to the airport in just over an hour, despite missing a turn and taking a detour through an unlit park in pitch black.

The airport was really quiet when I got there, there was no queue at all for security. My bag did get selected for a quick check, I think because I was carrying an empty flask ready to fill up in the airport, but the process was really quick.

I headed to the Sporting Chance bar where I met up with Linda from our Manchester EDTs whats app group. I had met her previously on the Cologne trip. Sometimes it’s nice to go on these trips with other people. It’s a good way to make friends and meet people.

For some reason, they decided to put two flights departing at the same time on gates right next to each other, with the queues for Katowice and Rome Ciampino getting mangled up a little. Anyway, we soon boarded the correct plane and actually departed slightly early, landing just after 09:00.

Passport control at Rome went extremely quickly too. Ciampino is quite a small airport so it was easy to find out way to the bus station where we got the 520 bus to Cinecitta. It was contactless payment on the bus and costs a bargain €1.50 for our journey, including the bus and the metro. The 520 runs around every 20 minutes but we hardly had to wait at all. It took about 20 minutes, and the bus stop is right next to the Metro station, which again was contactless payment at the barrier but you aren’t charged again if you swipe the same card and your journey is within the 100 minute period.

Our plan was to start with the Spanish Steps, so we got the Metro Line A towards Battistina and got off at Spagna (17 stops, 24 minutes). I do sometimes find metro stations confusing but the Roma ones were quite easy to navigate. When we got off, we took the Piazza di Spagna exit, which is close to the bottom of the Spanish Steps.

Last time Linda and I met, our first activity was climbing up Cologne Cathedral, by comparison the Spanish steps were much more straight forward. We took a few photos at a fountain at the bottom. All the fountains have gorgeous blue water and there are a lot of fountains in Rome. At the top of the steps were a few stalls where you could buy little souvenirs, plus you got some nice views of the city.

We walked back down then headed to our second destination, the Trevi fountain. When I first put a poster together for Rome and advertised it, some people said that it took them a couple of hours to get anywhere near it but that wasn’t our experience.

They have started charging if you want to get close to the bottom of the fountain. It’s only €2 each, there was a long queue but it was well marshalled and moved quickly but I bought the tickets online instead from Viva Ticket so we pretty much just went straight through. There were lots of people there, all taking turns to take selfies. It is a beautiful fountain from the baroque period. I think we spent about half an hour there.

We then did a little bit more tourist shopping, I picked up a model of the Colosseum and we found somewhere to sit down and eat. The first place we went to had a sign for pizza plus 2 aqua for €6 but when we looked at the menu, there was no €6 pizza. Also the menu was a little small and didn’t have anything we both could eat.

Linda doesn’t eat meat or cheese and I avoid carbs and need small portions. Conscious of time, we found another place next door with a wider menu and we both got pizza. To be honest, I would have been better off with the smaller street food style pizzas you can get from many small eateries but I wanted somewhere where we could sit down as rushing food isn’t good for my stomach. I got a nice pizza with Parma ham and rocket but it was far to big for me, so I had 3 small slices before I was full. They packaged the left over pizza for take away.

Next was the walk towards the Colosseum. The Colosseum was the main attraction for me, I build the rest of the day around it. It was about a 30 minute walk and when you first catch site of it, it feels very similar to approaching a modern football stadium. You could imagine what it would have been like in Roman times, with huge crowds walking towards it and how impressive it would have been.

We booked a guided tour. You can just book an entry ticket for just €18 each but I like going with a tour guide that can give you more of the story behind the attraction, plus the queues to go through security to gain entrance to the Colosseum are quite long but if you go with a tour group, you still have to go through security but it’s a much shorter queue.

We were all given a single ear piece radio so we could hear our tour guide. Our tour guide was quite tall which really helped as once inside the Colosseum, it was easy to get lost with the sea of people. The ear piece was a bit flimsy but it did the trick and worked quite well.

One thing to note about the tours, there are three levels of access for the Colosseum. If you want access to the Arena tour, make sure you get a ticket that covers it. You have to book those tickets a month in advanced as they sell out quickly. Then there’s the general admission tickets and finally there are tickets that also cover the Hypogeum, where the gladiators themselves would have been underneath the original floor. Those tickets are much harder to gain access to. My tour included the Arena floor, Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. It took around 2 and a half hours.

If you want a self guided tour, you can buy entry tickets one month before from here.

If you want to do the same tour I did, it was this one through Viator.

The tour started from the Metro station before entering the Colossium. You need to bring ID with you and you can’t bring anything glass or sharp. You have to put your bags etc through a metal detector and there are no trays, so put anything loose in your bag. Only small bags are permitted.

The tour guide had a book with him so he was able to show us pictures of how things would have looked. He recommended the best places for photos and was very knowledgeable and asked questions for us to guess too. It was amazing to see, a real feat of engineering. After the Arena itself we headed to Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. It’s a lot of walking if you’re not used to it, I wouldn’t recommend it if you have bad knees or ankles. The floor is not even and some of the steps are steep but it is an amazing spectacle.

It got me thinking about what the future would hold for our civilisation. Will people in 200 years be going round doing tours looking at the buildings being built now? How many of them will stand the test of time like the Romans have? How long will our civilisations lasts and what will come after us?

The Romans thought they’d last forever, and the Roman influence can be seen everywhere in the way we do things now with their public infrastructure, roads, political systems etc.

On the tour, we were encouraged to use the fountains to refill water bottles. It was a warm day with temperatures in the early 30°Cs , apparently it was as hot as 43°C a few weeks earlier. There were lots of people selling fans, ice cold water and hats on the street but the water from the fountains was so clean and pure and cool. I’m not the biggest fan of water but that’s more to do with things added to our water. I brought a small concentrated squeezy cordial bottle with me to add a bit of flavour.

After the tour finished, we found somewhere to grab a Gelato (when in Rome and all…). I tried Tiramisu flavour and mint choc chip. It melted really quickly. The flavours were subtle but it was very welcome in the heat, washed down with a raspberry slushy.

Around 6pm it was time to head back to the airport for our 2055 flight. The original plan was to catch the metro then get the 720 bus but google maps came up with a faster route involving the metro, a regional train and airport shuttle.

We walked to the Colosseo metro station next to the colosseum to catch a metro to the Termini train station stop. It was rush hour, and the trains were packed. We missed a sign towards the platform to Jonio so it took us a little time to find the right platform on the B line, but we found it and it was only 2 stops away to the train station.

The train station was huge and caused us some confusion. We assumed we’d be able to tap our contactless cards on the barrier to get access to the trains as we did for the metro system and buses, but the barrier we found wouldn’t accept our cards so we found a barrier right next to the platform for our train. It was platform 23 right at the other end of the station. We tapped through the barrier but I noticed I’d been charged €14 when I wasn’t expecting to be charged at all, I just assumed the trains were part of the same system as the metro and buses.

It turned out we were charged as if we were getting the Airport express train to Fiumicino Airport, which is the main airport but a little further away than the smaller Ciampino airport. When I looked it up, the journey should have cost us €2.70 for the train ride but it was very unclear how to get that fare. Maybe we went through the wrong barrier, despite it being the one next to the platform. Maybe we needed to use an app. There were ticket machines but they were for longer distance trains, not regional ones.

The train was very busy and it was a double decker train. I’d never been on a double decker train before. I went up to the top deck and found a spare seat. It was only 1 stop and 11 minutes to Ciampino station. You then wait for an airport shuttle bus, which is another €1.20, so a journey that could have cost us €1.50 in total if we took the route we originally planned, ended up costing €16.70 and should actually have cost €5.40 but still, it was excellent value for money considering a taxi would have cost a flat rate of €40 each way.

Once again, we went through security really quickly but we couldn’t go through passport control until we knew our gate. Ciampino is a really small airport. There was one small duty free shop, a McDonalds, a pizza shop and a couple of other places. There wasn’t a bar and seating was limited too. It wasn’t rammed though so we did find somewhere to sit. Our plane was half an hour behind schedule and when we did get to the gate, it was a bus to a remote stand. They didn’t board any non-priority customers until all the priority customers had been boarded and there were a lot of priority customers. There was nobody sat in the middle seat on row 10, so I had a little extra room to stretch. It was a very uneventful flight with a smooth landing and we were through border control in Manchester within minutes.

Linda had parked at the Crowne Plaza hotel, which seems to have the best rates for airport parking and she kindly dropped me off home to save me the walk. I walked 26,765 steps in total, 12.37 miles in total that day.

In summary, it was a really good day. There’s so much to see and do in Rome that you could always do more. We didn’t try to fit too much in and it was just the right balance. It didn’t feel rushed but it was busy. I’ll have to go back some time to visit the Pantheon and Vatican City. I would also love to visit Naples, Pompeii, Mt Vesuvius and Herculaneum as a multi-day trip. The trip has brought back my childhood fascination with ancient history and what we can learn from it.

I would rate Rome level with Alicante as my favourite EDTs to date.

My next travel adventure is not an EDT, it’s a 2 night trip to Reykjavik, Iceland. From 30°C in Rome, to 3°C in Iceland. A very different type of trip but hopefully very enjoyable too.

I’m on a mission to visit every country in Europe so when I’m doing an Extreme Day Trip, I tend to favour countries I’ve never been to before, but as the list of virgin destinations shrinks faster than the size of freddo bars, that’s becoming increasingly difficult so not every EDT is an imperial conquest of virgin soil.

Dublin fits into that category. Dublin and I have history.

Let me take you back to the summer of 2004. I came up with an idea that my then girlfriend of the time and I would each plan a surprise trip for each other. I was going to take her to London and Barcelona but, as it happens, a back injury put pay to that trip, but we did go ahead with her surprise destination, which turned out to be the Irish capital.

It was an interesting time in my life. I had recently gone on a medically supervised liquid only diet called lipotrim and lost 8 stone in weight. I was 21, about to enrol as a student at University, I was learning how to drive and I had a lovely lady in my life.

It was the lowest weight I’d ever been as an adult and the future looked rosy. We did all the usual things, a trip to the Guiness Storehouse (it turns out I don’t like Guiness, sorry guys), we ate at an Italian restaurant near Temple bar, we tried Irish Cadbury’s Dairy Milk and enjoyed the ambiance.

24 years later and everything had changed yet somehow things were still the same. My weight loss didn’t survive Uni. Turned out that stress was a big risk factor for me and that swapping food for 600 calories of liquid a day was unsustainable long term but over the last three years I’ve managed the same kind of weight loss with a different strategy, having lost 15 stone in that time. Still a long way off my 2004 peak, but it somehow felt cathartic to go back to one of the sites where I have a picture of myself at my lowest weight and take another one having again beat the odds to lose substantial weight.

Sadly, this time there was no girlfriend to accompany me. I went on to marry that lady and we had 20 good years together before having to completely rebuild myself as a newly single man.

Returning to Dublin was a no brainer. First of all, it was incredibly cheap. Just £29.98 for the return ticket, on a Saturday too. Considering that it sometimes costs me £20 to travel the 2.8 miles from the airport to my home in a black cab, £14.99 for a flight abroad is unbelievable value.

Although, I do have a confession. Forgive me EDT gurus, for I have sinned. I always pay to pre-book a seat. I love to film the flights. I stick an action camera on the window with a suction cup, film take off and landing plus the rest of the flight in hyperlapse mode. I have so much footage from all my EDTs this year that I haven’t quite found the time to edit together yet, but one day I will catch up.

Not only do I always prebook, but I pretty much always book the same seat on Ryanair. Ryanair only fly Boeing 737 derivitives and the layout is the same on all their flights. I pick seat 10A, on the left hand side of the aircraft. It’s just in front of the number 1 engine and you can get good views looking back at the wings, so I can see what position the slats are in and watch the air breaks and reverse thruster doors on touchdown (yes, I do realise how sad that makes me sound).

Well, for the Dublin flights, 10A was already taken, and I forgot about row 11 and booked 11A instead. Unfortunately, 11A is the one windowless window seat on the 737 planes. It’s the “N” of Ryanair on the livery. My plan to film was ruined but hey ho. On the plus side, if you like to sleep on flights, not having the window there gives you somewhere to lean on other than the seat in front.

Flight itself is very short, less than an hour. The crew don’t even have time to do the duty free service.

When I landed, I got my prebooked Dublin Express coach to Dublin. It cost €6 each way and although you reserve a specific time, you can use your ticket on any coach that day. The coach was very modern, with USB plugs on each seat and decent air conditioning and padded seats. It took 25 minutes to get from Dublin Airport Terminal 1 to Eden Quay, the closest stop to O’Connell Street.

I had a little walk around, found a souvenir shop to pick up a fridge magnet, walked down O’Connell Street, took some photos and videos next to the river Liffey, crossed Ha’penny bridge and had a look around Temple bar then went back towards where I started as I had booked a 45 minute boat tour with Dublin Discovered Cruises.

As I was walking, I noticed a yellow amphibious vehicle going around full of tourists wearing viking helmets. It turned out to be the Viking Splash tour. It looked like great fun, if I return to Dublin, I’d definitely give it a go.

The tour I actually booked on was right next to a replica wooden clipper boat called the Jeanie Johnston. The original ship was used as a famine ship for Irish migrants moving to Canada to escape the great potato famine.

The tour guide on the Dublin Discovered trip had the stereotypical Irish charm and humour. We were not allowed to take video footage on the boat but photos were allowed. It was a barge type ship with very large windows. The tour itself was quite short and the river Liffey is tidal and the tide was out which meant the boat couldn’t go as far as usual. I’ll be honest, it wasn’t the most interesting boat trip I’ve been on, despite the best efforts of the crew. I think I would have enjoyed Viking Splash more. We did pick up a lot of history and information about the river and the history of Dublin though.

After the boat trip, I walked back towards temple bar to do a bit more exploring and headed to the Dublina Viking Museum. Back in May, I went to a similar Viking Museum in Stockholm so it was nice to see the Viking experience from another perspective too. I preferred the Stockholm museum but I enjoy people’s history so found the museum enjoyable. It cost €16 and kept me entertained for a couple of hours.

Next I visited St Stephens Green. It’s a beautiful park with lots of benches, flowers and lakes to enjoy and it was very busy in the warm August weather. I retook a photo. It wasn’t quite the same, a selfie stick is a poor substitute for having another person to take the photo for you.

You can’t go to Dublin without getting a photo of Sweet Molly Malone, so that’s where I headed next. I did notice that there were parts of the statue that seemed to have been polished slightly more than others, I can’t for the life of me imagine why!

I picked up some sour dough donuts from The Rolling Donut to take back with me after a recommendation from a friend, it was so hard to pick which ones as they all looked amazing.

Then it was time for the obligatory visit to a traditional Irish pub. I had a pint of shandy and a nice vegetable soup with soda bread then it was time to make my way back for the coach. The coach was half an hour late, which made me a little anxious. I wasn’t the only person there waiting. Traffic had been bad that day, but still, all’s well that ends well, eventually the coach turned up and I needn’t have worried. Through security within minutes. I indulged in the airport with a Baileys. I felt I’d earned it after 28,975 steps and 12.31 miles covered that day.

The flight back was 30 minutes late, having taken off late from Amsterdam in the previous sector. I got talking to another bunch of people who also did the same extreme day trip. It’s definitely a popular one to do.

I would recommend Dublin as perfect for an Extreme Day Trip for beginners. If I went again, I would book the Viking Splash tour and I would visit Kilmainham Gaol. You have to book that quite far in advanced but I think I would have enjoyed it. If you like Guinness and Whiskey, you will enjoy Dublin too.

I’m considering a trip to Belfast next year. A place I’d been many times as a child in the 1990s but it would be interesting to see how it has changed, plus it would be nice to visit the Titanic museum.

On Sunday 26th July, I completed the set. It was a strange old start to the day, an 0815 flight and my insistence of getting to the airport 3 hours before meant a walk starting at 4am. By this point, it’s a route I could do with my eyes closed. This morning though, it was raining, the fine kind of rain that finds a way to penetrate waterproofs. By the time I got to terminal 3, I was soaked.

Security was a bit sluggish, it was peak season so very busy and not only did I set off the body scanner, but my carry on needed swiping too. All clear in the end, it was fun having to open my bag then trying to put the buckaroo back together. I travel with 2 action cameras, a drone plus two battery packs, a change of clothes and accessories.

Having made this journey so many times now, I’m very efficient at getting round the terminal.

I headed to Costa for a few drinks to wake me up, then headed towards the gate. Todays aircraft was switched from a slightly larger 737 Max 8 to the older 737-800 Malta Air operated flight.

I noticed a lady with an extremedaytrips.com tag. I made a poster for this trip and advertised it on a Facebook group and I know at least one person booked as a result. At this point, I seem to be a minor Ryanair influencer.

In fact, another party sat behind me on the plane were also doing the same EDT. they really are popular now thanks to sites like extremedaytrips.com.

For large sections of the flight the fasten seatbelt signs were on, we had mild turbulence but several passengers completely ignored the cabin crews repeated instructions, getting up to go to the toilet. Now, it’s possible they had some hidden condition but it always amazes me how many people can’t cope without the toilet for a couple of hours, especially people in their 20s.

I got talking to a couple of ladies sat next to me, I had a camera suction cupped to the window and they were asking if it was for tiktok. I explained a bit about my travel adventures and they seemed quite interested in how it all worked. I love the people you meet on these trips.

The flight departed 20 mins late due to the standard French ATC summer strikes.

Getting through EES in Ibiza was a breeze. I’d gone from wet and cold in Manchester to mid 30s Celsius in Ibiza.

I hadn’t planned much for this trip, it was just a case of head to the beach. I had been given the impression it was walkable, so I set a walking route with google maps. At this point google maps decided it wanted to kill me. It had me walking down a dirt path then crossing a busy dual carriageway. After 40 mins of walking, I decided to abandon efforts and instead head back to the safe paths around the airport for a taxi. The queue was massive but the stream of taxis was like a conveyor belt so it wasn’t long before I was on my way.

I really enjoyed swimming in the med in Alicante, so I did the same again. I found a luggage storage place right next to Playa d’en Bossa beach called “Drop and enjoy”. It also offered showers but they were fully booked unfortunately.

I picked up some comfortable flip flops, the customary magnet and some swimming goggles. I was hoping for somewhere I could change into some swim shorts but there was nowhere so I just took off my socks, grabbed my waterproof camera, the goggles and flip flops and headed to the sea. The sand was nice and soft, the waves were a little less calm than alicante but the sea was refreshing and warm. I must have spent at least an hour in the water, leaving my flip flops and luggage receipt on the sand. It was a lovely way to relax. I experimented with the camera under water so I’ll see what that looked like at home. It was also nice watching the planes taking off so close to the beach and immediately turning.

I tried to dry off walking in the sun then I picked up my bag. I had to get changed in a public toilet. The toilet itself wasn’t flushing and had the contents of the last inhabitant inside. It was a good job I didn’t need the facilities. It was a bit awkward trying to de-sand myself with wet wipes, that shower would have been great, but anyway, I managed to get changed then went for a walk around the area and found a nice bar on the beach where I could sit down, enjoy a shandy and some nachos whilst watching the sea.

Suddenly the fluffy white clouds in the sky swapped for the wet kind but I didn’t mind, the rain was actually quite cold and refreshing against the warm air. The waitress offered for me to move to a table better sheltered, but I’m a northern lad, I wasn’t going to let a few drops of rain stop me.

By this stage, it was time to head back to the airport, I hailed a cab from the street and was back at the airport in 20 minutes. I still felt relaxed as I hadn’t tried to fit too much into the day, it was more a change of scenery kind of trip. No issues at the airport with security and I actually fell asleep on the plane back before getting a taxi home. 22,917 steps for the day, wish I didn’t have to go to work the next morning so I was glad of the sleep on the plane.

Overall, it was a lovely day trip. I did prefer Alicante and I think 4 EDTs in a month had left me a little bit more tired. I do prefer Saturday EDTs because it leaves me with a day off to recover, still, much nicer being in the sea in a gorgeous Spanish island than getting soaked in the grey Manc rainshine.

Quite often the same questions come up again and again in the various Facebook pages and groups about Extreme Day Trips. People are interested in trying but don’t know how to go about it. Rather than repeating myself, I thought I’d put together a guide for people looking to dip their toes into the water.

This article is going to be a more detailed version, but if you want a quick guide, I’ve produced a shorter, more visual guide too, as not everyone likes reading!

Extreme Day Trips Beginners Guide

4.48MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

You can download the guide here for free, please drop a comment on this page to let me know if you find it useful and also if you have any other tips of your own!

How to find Extreme Day Trips

So, you’ve decided you want to try an extreme day trip, how do you find flights that work so you can fly out somewhere and come back on the same day? preferably as cheaply as possible

There are two main tools I use to do this, plus the airlines own websites and apps.

The first is the excellent website and app www.extremedaytrips.com

ExtremeDayTrips.com

ExtremeDayTrips.com is a search engine that will help you find flights from UK airports to anywhere, where the flight out and back is on the same day, so exactly what we are looking for. Choose you outbound airport, leave the destination as anywhere and hit search. It will find you flights leaving in the next two weeks, ordered by cheapest first.

How to filter

The cheapest flights are often to Ireland, but if you want to go further afield, you can use the Exclusions button to filter them out.

If you’re looking for a specific destination, you can search for that too.

Another option is to choose your departure days. Maybe you’re only free at weekends? Don’t worry, the site has got you covered.

The other useful filter I use regularly is to set the minimum Time at Destination

When you see a deal you like, click Select and it will give you the links to book directly with the airline

You cannot book flights directly through extremedaytrips.com. Budget airlines like Ryanair only let you book directly through their own website and app, cutting out the middle man to keep your flights cheaper.

Also note that airline prices are dynamic and change incredibly quickly. What the airlines do is they allocate seat prices into buckets, with some tickets available at the cheapest price, then incremental prices for each bucket. They sell the cheapest buckets first so if someone has booked the last seat in one bucket before you reserve your seat then the price can change. This is why I highly recommend booking as soon as you’ve decided you want to do the trip, otherwise the price may go up so use the prices as a guideline, not a promise.

What if I want to book more than two weeks out

To search further into the future, and to get emails with early access premium flight options, you can pay to use the premium version. At the time of writing it costs £37.00 a year for the premium version, allowing you to search for 1 month for an anywhere search or £49 a year for the premium plan plan, that lets you search for prices upto 6 months in advanced.

Is it worth paying for Premium?

I would say that if you’re just thinking of trying an EDT for the first time, just use the free two week tool and I’ll share with you a little trick, but if you are like me and addicted to Extreme Day Trips and want to do several a year, then it’s absolutely worth using the premium plus service.

My trick

The reality is that airline tickets get more expensive the closer to the departure date. There are sometimes deals where the prices have been dropped if the flight is not full, but the sweet spot for most of the best deals is 8-12 weeks in advanced, but the free version of the site only gives you a 2 week search engine.

Here is what I did when dipping my toe in.

1. Search for flight combinations on extremedaytrips.com

2. Go to the airline website

3. Look for the same flights 8-12 weeks out

Why this works

Airlines usually fly the same services all season so if you’re searching for flights, that Wednesday return trip to Paris is likely to run the same schedule every week, but there’s a higher chance it will be a cheaper fare for the flight 12 weeks away.

In my opinion, the hardest part of finding EDTs is finding a combination of flights that work where you can get to and from the same destination on the same day and have a good amount of time at your destination. ExtremeDayTrips.com makes that bit really easy.

SkyScanner.net

Sky Scanner is another service that makes it easy to find flights. You pick your start airport, set the destination to everywhere and you can choose the same date for depart and return and click Search.

You can then see a list with prices by country and drill down.

Another option is to choose the flexible dates option, which will show you when the cheapest flights are

Click on the same date in the calendar for Depart and return then click Find flights

SkyScanner is a great tool and I do use it sometimes but it’s weakness is there’s no filter to look for flights on the same day, so you have to just try combinations and you only find out if the flights are suitable for an extreme day trip after drilling down. There’s no point finding a really cheap flight out if the return trip is only a few hours later.

You can use the departure time filter for each flight but you have to drill down at least two levels first to do that so it’s more time consuming than using extremedaytrips.com, which is designed to do exactly what you need it to.

You can also use Google Flights the same way too, but I don’t usually bother for extreme day trips

What should I consider when it comes to booking an Extreme Day Trip

Book Early

The cheapest prices are typically available 8-12 weeks in advanced. Don’t wait until a week before you want to fly. You may get lucky, but you’re much more likely to get a book price if you book in advanced and don’t wait to book, that initial price you see isn’t confirmed until you actually complete the booking.

How to pay

If your flights are with Ryanair, you have the option to pay with PayPal Credit if you want to pay for your ticket later, but make sure you pay it off within the four month window if buy now pay later is an option.

Otherwise, it’s worth paying by credit card as that gives you extra protections if something goes wrong with your trip.

Midweek flights are often cheaper

If you can be flexible, you will often find better prices for flights on less busy days of the week.

Some departure airports are better than others

If you live near London, you’re going to get more choice and better prices flying from Stanstead or London Luton than Heathrow. If you live in the North, Manchester has more flights than Leeds Bradford or Liverpool. Of course, you have to offset that against the cost of getting to the airport and parking.

For parking, try using websites like Your Parking Space to find cheap parking rather than official airport car parks that can be much more expensive.

Check the destination airport too

Sometimes the flight is cheap for a reason. Budget airlines cut costs by using less popular small airports, often further from the area they represent.

There’s no point booking a cheap flight to Paris Beauvais (BVA) for example, if it’s going to take you 1 and a half hours by coach to get to Paris and another €30 for the coach, especially if you only have a short amount of time at the destination.

Airports to watch out for are:

• Paris Beauvais (Upto 1 hour 30 minutes to Paris)

• Frankfurt Hann (2 hour 10 minutes to Frankfurt by coach)

• Brussels Charleroi (1 hour to Brussels by coach)

• Oslo Torp (1 hour 30 minutes to Oslo by bus and train)

You certainly can do EDTs and have a good time using these airports but make sure you factor the travel into your plan for the day.

Check:

• Price of public transport or taxis

• Frequency of public transport

• First and last services

• Traffic in the area

Also consider the time it will take to get through border control, particularly with the new European Entry Exit System, that requires finger prints and iris scans to be taken. This may impact how long you need to leave before returning to the airport.

extremedaytrips.com/closest-airports is a great resource to view the best destination airports for EDTs based on travel times from the destination airport.

Consider time at your destination

I typically pick flights with a minimum time at the destination of 9 hours, but I’ve found many trips with 13 hours plus.

Remember, the time you actually have to enjoy a place is going to depend on how long it takes to get through the airport, border control, security on the way back, EES, transport to the place itself and back so your usable time is less than just the hours between landing and taking off.

Delays happen, it’s always a risk with an Extreme Day Trip. One tip to minimise the risk of delays is to get the earliest flights of the day. If your flight out takes off at 0550 in the morning, chances are, it’s been waiting at the stand since the night before.

A 0930 flight might already have done one sector and any delays from earlier on can accumulate. Budget airlines run very efficient operations. They’re often only on the ground for 30 minutes because when a plane is on the tarmac, it isn’t making money, but that does mean that short delays throughout the day can stack up.

How to know if your flight is likely to be delayed even before airport announcements

I use the website/app flightradar247 to look up my flight numbers. The app will tell you which aircraft is scheduled for your flight. From the aircraft, you can then see the list of flight sectors the aircraft is doing that day. You can then look at the flight before your current flight. If that flight is delayed significantly, then chances are, your flight will be too and you can track the flight until it reaches your destination.

They often start the boarding process at the same time as the existing passengers are disembarking to avoid further delays, but you may be waiting in a stair well or holding area beyond the gates to speed up the process.

Be aware of booking flights on different airlines

Sometimes, it works out better to fly out with one airline and back with another to maximise time on your schedule. This is not a bad strategy and I often do it, but beware, if your outbound flight gets cancelled, you will usually be able to get your money back for the outbound flight but you might not be able to get it back for the return, whereas if the tickets were purchased as one transaction, the airline will normally have to refund your full trip.

Make sure you have sufficient travel insurance

Make sure your travel insurance policy covers for extreme day trips. Some policies don’t cover you if your trip is shorter than two days. I recommend finding a good annual travel policy if you’re planning on doing multiple trips. Make sure it covers cancellation. If you’re carrying phones and cameras, make sure these are covered as part of the deal. Be careful with buying annual policies with the airline directly as they may only cover you for trips using that airline. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

Planning your trip

Ok, so you’ve booked your flights, what next? You have limited time so its best not to waste time working out what to do once your there.

Find out how you’re going to get from the airport to your destination. What bus numbers? Can you pay by card? What is the schedule? Which bus stand do you need?

Plan what attractions you want to see. One common mistake people make is they try to do too much and run out of time. I choose one main attraction that I really want to do, then I work out the best time to do that thing.

Some attractions you need to book way in advanced, for example a Rome Colosseum tour or visiting Auschwitz. Others you can just walk up to. The more you know before you go, the less surprises you’ll have.

Check when shops and attractions close at your chosen destination on a given day. Is it a special bank holiday or festival? Do they have a siesta culture? In some countries places maybe closed on specific days of the week. Google and ChatGPT can be your friend here to find this information out.

Make sure your plans are flexible. Don’t book a tour late on in the evening of your trip or within the first hour of arrival. You need to be prepared for delays and to be flexible and change plans if something goes wrong.

Packing for your trip

It’s finally come to the day before your trip and you’re all excited. What should you pack?

I take a small rucksack with the following items

• Phone

• Power bank (this is key on an EDT)

• Print outs of any bookings

• Charging cable

• Passport

• Photo of passport main page on phone just in case

• Bank card

• Medication

• Food/snacks

• One change of clothing

• Cameras and selfie stick

• Headphones

• Empty water flask

• Concentrated mini squash bottle

• Sun cream if somewhere hot (travel sized tube < 100ml)

Size matters

One of the ways airlines make extra revenue is by charging passengers who have brought with them a bag that is too big for their baggage sizers. It can be as much as €70 per bag at the gates, so make sure your bag fits.

As of 27 August 2026, the dimensions allowed with Ryanair for an under seat bag are 40cm x 30cm x 20cm. Many walking rucksacks are far bigger than this. I searched for a bag that specifically says it’s made to fit the Ryanair requirements.

If you have paid for a 10kg cabin bag, the size is currently 55cm x 40cm x 20cm. One thing that often gets people is that this includes the size of any wheels and handles. If the wheels stick out in the sizer, you will have to pay to have it put in the hold.

I’ve noticed that if you’re bringing a rucksack, and you go to the gate with it on your back, they’re much less likely to notice and get you to put it in the sizer, so if you’re borderline with the limits, make sure it’s on your back and walk through with a smile, be polite and have good manners.

Saving money at the airport

You may have snagged a bargain £30 return flight but you can easily spend the same again on a toastie, bottled drink and bag of sweets in the airport. Airports are very expensive places and you’re a captive audience. You can get round this by packing some food to take with you but you can’t take bottles of liquids over 100ml through security with you.

However, you can take an empty flask and at most airports there are water stations to refill your drinking water once through security. I’m not a fan of plain water, so I bring a small squeezy bottle of concentrated fruit squash (under 100ml) that I can use to make my water a little fruitier.

Prepare your phone for data abroad

Take advantage for the 2 hours free wifi many airports offer. I download videos on YouTube premium in advanced so I can watch them on the plane or whilst waiting. I do the same with spotify playlists.

I use a smarty sim, which gives me free data roaming in the EU, upto 12gb per month. Make sure your phone is configured with data roaming set up ready and you have a plan in place that enables you to use data.

If your network doesn’t offer a good rate, you can use an eSim with a company like holafly, but make sure you know how to activate your eSim before you go.

I use google maps to download an offline map of the place I’m going to in case there is no data connection, and I make sure I have the language pack for the country I’m visiting downloaded in Google Translate. I’ve not needed it yet, but it could be useful in a country where English speaking is less common.

Paying for things abroad

It’s sometimes useful to have a small amount of foreign currency with you just in case you need it, but to be honest, most of the time all my transactions are contactless. Some banks will block foreign transactions so just check with your bank if you need to change any settings to use your card abroad.

I use Revolut. Revolut allows you to hold money in different currency pots and you can exchange money from one currency to another at anytime. The rates you get are often better than using a regular bank exchange rate. I only use the free version. I have a physical and virtual card and you can create a new virtual card on the fly if you need to. When I visited Copenhagen, I had my wallet stolen by pick pockets. I was able to instantly freeze the card through the app and generated a temporary virtual card that I could use to pay for things so it turned out to be a minor inconvenience rather than a disaster. The thief did use the card for one transaction, but as I reported it straight away to the police, revolut refunded the money within an hour.

I exchange money in advanced, during the week as revolut charges a small fee for conversions at the weekend. There are other travel cards that do the same thing. I am not sponsored by revolut or anyone else but I have had a good experience with using it for multiple trips to many different countries.

Paying for things by card tip

If you are paying by card, either at an ATM or to make a transaction and you have the option to pay in GBP or local currency, always choose local currency. They dynamic exchange rates are always a rip off and much more expensive than the rate and fees your bank will charge you

If this guide has helped you, please share it with your friends and encourage them to enjoy their own travel adventures

My latest EDT was a trip to Alicante. I’d heard good things about it as an EDT on the Facebook groups, so I thought I’d give it a try. It was a bit more expensive than other EDTs I’ve done, because it was peak season and a Saturday but having previously done Menorca and with Ibiza still to come, I really fancied trying main land Spain.

The timing for the flights was really good, an 0550 flight out and an 2350 flight back home, really maximising my time in Alicante. The flight out was Ryanair and the flight back was Jet2.

It’s generally a little bit safer to book both flights with the same airline on a trip like this. The worst case scenario is your outbound flight is cancelled. The airline would have to compensate you but it would be harder to get the money back for the return flight.

As is becoming the custom for these trips, I started with a walk to the airport as I only live about 3 miles away. It takes an hour, at a leisurely pace, setting off at 0230 in the morning. The official advice is to be at the airport 2 hours before your flight, but I add a little bit of extra contingency as I’d rather be safe than sorry, and Manchester is a very busy international airport.

I got through security smoothly, got some breakfast and an iced coffee to wake me up from Costa and headed for the gate.

Getting the first flight of the day reduces the risk of delays. Low cost airlines turn around very quickly. If the plane isn’t in the air, it isn’t making money, so they try to squeeze as many flights as they can in. Sometimes delays from flights earlier on in the day can stack up. They’re very efficient and good at pulling back time, but if you can get a flight between 0530 and 0700, you’re less likely to be delayed and it maximises the time at the destination.

As it happened, the aircraft for our outbound flight was changed to a slightly smaller aircraft and Ryanair were looking for 8 passengers willing to swap for a later flight to Murcia or Alicante in exchange for 250 euros voucher. If I was on a week long trip, I’d definitely take the offer, it’s more than you’re paying for the flight so you’d already be in a profit, but with it being an EDT, a later trip would be a disaster. I wouldn’t like to be a passenger at the rear of the boarding queue, only to find the flight is full. If you’ve paid for specific seating or priority then you’re probably less likely to lose out.

It’s actually fairly routine for airlines to slightly overbook flights because, believe it or not, it’s not uncommon for passengers to fail to turn up.

I watched a few YouTube videos I downloaded (a perk of YouTube premium) about Alicante on the plane. One showing where to go to get the bus into Alicante itself.

When I arrived, the airport wasn’t too busy so I got through the dreaded new EES system, which was organised very well in Alicante, almost entirely automated. I went up to departures, went outside and the C6 bus was already there waiting.

It wasn’t overcrowded either, 4.50 for a ticket, which I paid with a contactless card and it was only a 15 minute trip. I got off the bus at the side entrance for Santa Barbara castle. There is another stop on the sea front where you can access the castle via a lift for a charge of 2.70 but I decided I’d take the walking path up instead. There was a constant high pitch hum from the insects in the trees, I assume crickets. The sun was beating down but the walk wasn’t too steep, just very exposed with little shelter. There were golf buggies offering to take people up but I enjoyed my walk in the sunshine.

The castle and grounds are free to visit, although there was an exhibit you could access for a fee, but I didn’t bother. By the time I got up to the top, I was dripping with sweat a bit, so I went into the souvenir shop and brought a Spanish fan, and a small hand towel to dry myself off with. Oh, and the customary fridge magnet, wherever I go, I get a fridge magnet, preferably a nice interesting shape one rather than the boring printed kind.

Souvenirs sorted, I found a drinks kiosk and got some nice cold water and a slushie, then took a few pictures.

Something always goes wrong on these trips, and today was no exception. I managed to lose my selfie stick on the plane, which made it much harder to take selfies but a nice man came up to me and offered to take some. I’ll be honest, I was a little bit nervous letting a stranger handle my phone. It was both my digital wallet and my boarding pass too, but then again, where we were was very public and he got some full length pictures of me which I struggle to get myself. The joys of being a sole traveller.

The last three EDTs I did, to Menorca, Cork and Cologne were with other people I’d met from a group and I really enjoyed having the company. It felt a bit strange doing it on my own without the nice people I’ve met through these groups.

The views of the beach were stunning, the Mediterranean see was looking very inviting with the sun beaming on full power. The floor was a bit slippery and uneven, and I had to catch a lady who was struggling getting down from one of the steeper parts of the castle in flip flops.

I decided to get the lift down. The queue for down was much shorter than up and the lift is hidden in a nice cool tunnel. I was expecting to pay but it appears they only charge one way. There was a long queue to get up in the other direction. It’s not a big lift so only takes about 8 people at a time.

I walked around the sea front, got some pictures of fountains, did a bit more shopping, buying yet more cold drinks. I wasn’t planning on doing any swimming on this trip, I’d only packed a change of top, not spare shorts and underwear but the sea was just looking too tempting so I decided to pick up some cheap flipflops and a pair of swim shorts and I looked up a place where I could leave my bag online.

It was a place in a residential building just one block away from the sea, close to McDonalds where you could leave your luggage and there was also the option for a shower. The guy that owned it was really lovely, he had a cute dog that doted on him and he was very kind, constantly offering people drinks of water and coffee. You had to book a time for a shower, but I wasn’t going to take anything electronic like my watch to the beach so I guessed that 1930 would be a good time for a shower, and went off on my way.

I walked down Calle de San Francisco, a street lined with mushroom sculptures, and you know me, I’m a fun guy, so I couldn’t resist.

There were lots of bars and tapas places. I stopped for an ice cream, mint choc chip and tiramisu flavours, and I also got another slushie.

After drinking the slushie, I felt a little queasy. Just to explain, I had a gastric sleeve op in December, and sometimes your body rejects food. It doesn’t happen often by my stomach didn’t like the slushie, I think it was too much sugary syrup in it and I ended up being sick in a plant bed. I’m sure if the locals saw me they’d have thought I was drunk or something. I immediately felt fine afterwards though and carried on towards the beach.

When I got to the beach I realised that there actually were lockers there I could have used to put my bag in. The sand was warm and soft white sand, the sea was very clear and clean and I must have spent a couple of hours just floating in the warm sea water, having an amazing relaxing time.

I didn’t have anywhere to put my flip flops so I wrapped them around my hands, which probably made it look like I couldn’t swim but I really didn’t care what I looked like, I was just loving being in the sea.

There were no clocks anywhere so I had no idea what the time was. I might invest in a cheap waterproof watch and some googles the next time I do a trip like this.

When I got back to the locker place, it was only about 1730 but the owner managed to squeeze me in for an earlier shower time. It was nice to wash away the sand so I was nice and clean and comfortable for the journey home.

I found a nice little place called Lu & Lus to sit down and order some tapas. It was simple food, small portions and absolutely perfect for my needs, and I enjoyed a Pina Colada to go with it.

I noticed a few English people sat on a table close to me. They struck up a conversation, asking about my camera. I was wearing a DJI nano action camera which clips to a magnetic necklace on my chest.

At first I thought he was just interested in what the camera was, but I think he thought I was actually filming. I just carry it like that so I don’t lose it. He was with another tattooed English gentleman that had a cute miniature sausage dog. I think these guys were ex-pats living in Spain.

I then witnessed the three of them threatening to fight each other. They were clearly looking for trouble and the worried female Spanish waiters were trying to keep them apart and considering calling the police. It’s no wonder why many Spaniards don’t like the English when they see people behaving like this. It was totally unnecessary. I kept out of the way but I felt really sorry for the waitresses having to witness that kind of behaviour.

It was time to head back to the airport, I caught the C6 bus back to the airport. Again, I was impressed with how quick and efficient security was. You never know what you’re going to get with some of these smaller airports, but there was plenty of places to get food in there, two burger kings, a subway, a Budweiser bar. Loads of different shops.

Jon being Jon, it didn’t occur to me when I booked the trip that there was potentially a world cup quarter final that weekend. If our flight was on time, I would have missed the majority of the England vs Norway game but it wasn’t on time, the flight out from Manchester to Alicante was an hour late.

Here’s a tip for you, often airlines and airports won’t tell you if your flight is going to be delayed until late on but if you use flight radar 247 app, you can look up your flight number, then you can find out which aircraft is allocated to your flight, and you can see the previous flights that aircraft has for the same day. If you look at the flight before your one, you can see if it has taken off on time or not. If it hasn’t, then you know to expect a delay way before the boards tell you.

It was a very strange atmosphere in the airport, it was full of English fans watching the game on their phone. When Norway scored, there was a small cheer from Burger King, I’m not sure whether there were Norwegians there or just Spaniards that didn’t much like the English, but when England scored, it was like an acoustic Mexican wave filling the whole building with sound.

By the time we boarded, it was close to the end of regular time. The flight was actually only about half full and the middle seat between me and a young woman was empty. We were all captivated by the football so I put my phone in the middle seat angled towards her and her friend across the aisle so we could all watch the game.

England scored in Extra time just after we took off, so we had to wait another couple of hours before the captain announced that the game had indeed finished 2-1 to England. Nobody was paying attention to the security briefing on that flight.

I have to say, the Jet2 A321 neo aircraft we had is my favourite short haul economy flight I’ve had so far. The air conditioning works well, the seats are comfortable and the windows are nice and big. I actually fell asleep for part of the flight, which is unusual for me.

Overall, this was my favourite EDT so far, I think because it was very relaxed and just what I needed after more hectic trips. I would highly recommend Alicante

If you want to get the cheapest deals for EDT, often it means travelling midweek, which for me means taking time off work, so where I can, I prefer weekend trips.

However, for Cologne, I made an exception as it was a trip that was already organised by the lovely Tina White, so I decided to join her, Paul, Linda and her son Matthew for a trip to Germany.

I had been to Germany before, once on a driving trip starting and ending in Berlin without actually spending any time in the country itself, and once an overnight stay in Frankfurt on a trip of a lifetime travelling from Manchester to New York via Frankfurt on a Singapore Airline A380 in business class. Sadly, the Cologne flight wasn’t going to be a luxurious affair, no disrespect to Ryanair.

Again, we met up in the Sporting Chance bar in Terminal 3, our flight out being 07:45. It was really nice to meet more fellow travel enthusiasts. Boarding the flight went smoothly but despite boarding on time, our departure slot was delayed by 20 minutes.

This is a common occurrence in the summer season unfortunately. My understanding was that delays caused by strikes in France by Air Traffic control were having a knock on effect, meaning flights not landing on time. To be honest, 20 minutes is not really a big issue, but when you’re on an Extreme Day Trip, delays to the outbound flight are a big worry. If you’re on an early flight, it’s less likely. Delays in the system compound over the course of the day but there is normally a little bit of slack in the flight plans to anticipate for these kind of minor inconveniences.

Once we landed andcleared customs, we headed to the train station. I chose to purchase a ticket on an app, rather than use the machines, €4.00 single was good value. I did notice that on the train a lot of people had put luggage on the seats, which did make be laugh as there is a stereotype about Germans and beach towels, although to be fair, blocking seats with bags happens in the UK too.

The train only took 20 minutes to get to the centre. The first thing on my agenda for the day was to climb the famous Cologne cathedral. The cathedral was right next to the train station. It looked a little odd to me the way you have this very old cathedral surrounded by newer developments very close together. It was a very impressive building. Myself, Linda and Matthew decided we wanted to do the climb.

We had to walk all the way around the cathedral to find the right entrance for the tower. There were signs in the shop saying you couldn’t buy the tickets from the shop, with a QR code to buy them online.

Jon being Jon, I decided to buy the tickets online but didn’t think to choose the English translation option, so I managed to purchase the wrong tickets for the Cathedral itself instead of the tower. That was particularly stupid as I already had done my research beforehand and knew the tickets should have been €8 each yet paid a higher price for the Cathedral and exhibit inside too.

So, I ended up paying again, this time for the right tickets. It’s 533 steps to the top of Cologne Cathedral and it was a warm day. At work, I regularly walk up and down 6 floors of steps. I’m in much better shape than I used to be so I thought to myself “how hard can it be”.

This is typical of the naïve enthusiasm I throw myself into these kind of situations. Despite having a fear of heights (or to be more accurate, a fear of falling from a great height), I regularly forget that fear and think it’s a good idea right up until faced with the reality of a sheer drop.

It wasn’t so much the number of steps but the fact the steps were quite deep and it was a narrow spiral staircase with people going in both directions. The good thing was, there weren’t that many windows so I only briefly got a view of the height we had climbed. The bad news was, it was quite warm without having many windows and I didn’t think to bring a drink with me.

It was the fact you didn’t know how much further you had to climb and there were very few places to stop to catch your breath without annoying the people behind you waiting to climb. We got to the bell house, which did give us a little bit more time to catch our breath, and I remember thinking to myself, if this thing goes off now, I’m going to have a meltdown. Fortunately it didn’t.

There was still further the climb though. We eventually reached an open area, where you could sit and catch your breath. I was quite thirsty by that point and Linda very kindly gave me a bottle of water, that I very much appreciated.

I thought I had finally made it, but I was wrong. The “final boss” was yet to come. From that point on, there was a metal staircase, that was completely exposed so you could see how high you were and how easy it would be to fall.

Matthew was very kind, he knew I was struggling with the height. In truth, I was refusing to look anywhere other than at my own feet, so he was encouraging me and telling me how many more flights we had to go. Once I was up to the top, I was actually ok because there was a mesh grid all the way around so you couldn’t accidentally fall to your death. The mesh did make it harder to take photos, but we managed it.

By that point our legs felt like jelly but the view was worth it and I felt a sense of accomplishment. The journey down seemed much easier, and as we passed people going up I was encouraging them, telling them not long now, which probably made no sense to the German speakers.

By the time we got down, I picked up the customary fridge magnet of the cathedral itself and we went to find the rest of the gang who were endulging in a bit of shopping.

We had booked a boat tour for 3pm, so we headed in the general direction of the river Rhein, found a cafe to enjoy the local Kolsch beer and chatted. Time went quite quickly, we headed to the pier to catch our boat but it turned out the same boat operator ran lots of different boat trips and we went to the wrong pier, then we were directed to another pier, which also turned out to be the wrong one. It was my fault, we should have confirmed the correct pier before going for a drink, but we watched our boat depart without us on it.

What made it worse was the last trip of the day was cancelled, otherwise we could have switched onto that one. So, the morale of the story is make sure you confirm you know where you’re going and give yourself plenty of time in case you make a mistake.

We decided to head to the Lindt chocolate museum instead. It was a mini factory where they show you how the chocolate is made, so they can sell it to you later. They give you free samples. The technique worked well on me as I spend about £50 on various chocolate souvenirs to take back home.

Not content with just the view from the top of the cathedral, I decided to take a ferris wheel ride, right next to the chocolate museum. I think I got about 5 loops because it was very quiet.

After that, we went for a walk around the old town, admiring the architecture and finding a spot for a meal. I had a pretzel. I like to try something authentic when abroad but the main meals would have been too much for me. It was nice and warm, and the butter melted straight away on top.

Finally it was time to start making our way back to the airport. Although it felt like we packed in a lot, it didn’t feel like the day was rushed, it was perfectly balanced.

We got talking to a guy from Egypt who was studying in Germany. He was very interested in our trip and he was really nice and friendly. It really is the people you meet along the way that makes these trips worthwhile.

Cologne airport impressed me. There were lots of different food options closer to the gates. We did have to wait a while before they’d let us go through EES and into the area where the gates were, which was a little frustrating but it didn’t impact our flight. Linda very kindly dropped me off home, saving me a late night taxi ride.

I would say Cologne is a perfect place for an EDT. The transport to and from the airport is fast and efficient. It’s quite compact and there’s a lot to do. I can imagine it would be great in the winter months with Christmas markets. It has given me a taste for exploring other parts of Germany in the future.

I’ve visited Dublin years ago and Belfast was a frequent destination as a child due to family living there, but I’d never ventured further South. The flights weren’t ideal for an EDT, departing from Manchester at 10:00 and returning at 18:00, leaving only 7 hours in Cork but for the price of £14.99 each way, it was a bargain.

This was the second group trip, with Zara, who I had met before on the Menorca trip and we were joined by Tina, who was the lady that came up with the idea of organising group EDTs. Tina herself blogs about her travel adventures and travel consultancy business, you can follow her on instagram www.instagram.com/iamtinawhite/ .

I did my usual walk to the airport, so we met up in Sporting Chance bar, on the second floor in T3. T3 is not great in terms of places to eat and drink but many people don’t notice the Sports bar on the second floor so I find it’s often slightly quieter than the rest of the terminal, plus it’s a great place for views of the runway. It’s expensive but no more so than the rest of the airport. You can use the QR codes on the table to order food and drinks directly rather than queuing at the bar.

One trick I have with flights is using FlightRadar24 to look up which aircraft is operating the flight, from there you can view the schedule for that aircraft before your flight.

Doing so means that I often know if the flight is running on time way before any announcements in the airport. One of the things ryanair do very well that enables to keep the costs down is how fast their turnarounds are.

There is a reason they don’t have a seat back pocket, menus, magazines and removable safety cards on their flights, it’s so that they can turn around quickly without having to check all those things. It can be as little as 30 minutes between disembarking one flight and boarding the next. Aircraft are not making money when they’re not in the air and ryanair can fly as many as 7 different sectors for a single aircraft in a day with their shorter routes.

Our aircraft had already flown from Cork to Manchester than morning before the return flight at 10:00. The flight to Cork is very short, taking about 45 minutes. There wasn’t even time to do the full duty free service.

When we landed at Cork, the aircraft did a turn on the runway itself, which was quite novel for me, but I observed other flights doing the same thing so it must be standard procedure for Cork.

Although the aircraft was branded Ryanair, the flight was actually operated by it’s subsidiary, Malta Air. Ryanair bought Malta Air from the Maltese government in 2019.

We were soon through security at Cork and caught a bus to Cork. The same bus runs in both directions from the airport so you need to be careful not to get the one heading to Kildare. The bus is very frequent, running every 30 minutes and the journey to Cork took us about 25 minutes. We downloaded the TFI Go app to purchase the ticket before boarding. You need to remember to activate it too. It only cost €1.70 for a single so it was good value.

Once in Cork, we had a walk around the English markets, which was an indoor market area selling lots of meats, fish, cakes and pastries, arts and crafts. It was nice looking around and trying free samples.

Then we had a walk around the centre, I took some footage from the sky with my drone before we went and sat down for a drink in a traditional Irish pub. Well, I say in, we sat outside. I found a souvenir shop to pick up a fridge magnet, we watched some dancing leprechaun street entertainers then we headed for the Marina market.

The marina market was in a bit of an industrial area in an old factory warehouse that had been converted. There were lots of different types of food and drink to choose from. It was expensive. Everything seemed to cost €14 or more but the atmosphere and vibe was really good so we really enjoyed our time there. It was more of a food court than anything else and the service was slow for the place I tried. I wanted something traditional, so I opted for an Irish stew. The portion was quite large but I did have to wait with a pager for about 20 minutes before I got the food. I would have thought something like that would have been made in a big batch and just needed dishing up, but maybe not. It was busy, so maybe it would be different at other times.

By the time we had been to the marina market, it was already time to start thinking about making the trip back to the airport. We managed to find a shop to pick up some Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. You see, I had been to Dublin around 2005 and I noticed that CDM bought in Ireland tasted considerably more creamy than that bought in England, so I wanted to see if that was still the case.

The quality of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk has took a nose dive since it was subject to a hostile takeover from Kraft foods, who have, over time, replaced cocoa butter with cheaper palm oil. There was still a difference in taste but it’s not the same creamy chocolate I remember, so it seems the Kraft cheapscaping has impacted Ireland too.

It took us a little while to find where to get the bus from as it wasn’t at the main bus station but round the corner. We only got back to the airport 90 minutes before the flight home but security was a breeze and there was no EES to content with.

The one good thing about not having a lot of time in Cork was that it wasn’t late by the time I got home, I didn’t feel exhausted. I would have spent more on a night out in Manchester so it was a nice way to spend the day. Due to the lack of time, we couldn’t really do a lot but a change of scene is as good as a rest and it was nice to see a different part of Ireland, that I wouldn’t have visited had it not been for the extremely cheap air fares.

To put it into context, when I get a taxi home from Manchester Airport, a distance of 2.8 miles and journey time of about 15 minutes, it usually costs about £20.00 yet for £15 I could fly all the way to the south coast of Ireland, courtesy of Ryanair’s ruthlessly efficient operating model.

I would recommend Cork, if you can get an earlier flight out and later flight back, even better, but 7 hours was enough for us to have a taste of Ireland and make new friendships and memories.

I met them in the departures lounge in the terminal 2, flying out with Jet2 and returning with Ryanair. We booked a glass bottomed harbour boat trip, but other than than, we didn’t have a lot planned.

Zara, the lady that suggested the trip bumped into Wayne Rooney with his son Clay in the lift at the airport, so that was an exciting start to the day.

Our flight out was later than what I would have picked myself, departing at 0830 and arriving at 1215. I usually look for earlier flights, and there was an earlier option, but it was a little bit more expensive. The flights were £58 but the earlier flight would have added an extra 1 hour and 40 minutes for an additional £38.00.

We boarded the Jet2 flight on time but our departure slot was delayed so we were already an hour late by the time we eventually took off.

We decided to get a taxi from the airport when we arrived. Luckily security was quite quick.

Menorca felt very quiet. There was a little market, where we picked up some magnets. It had a feel of a Sunday in the UK. Not many people around.

Then we found a nice little place to grab a drink and some olives whilst we worked out where to go for our 3pm harbour boat tour. It turned out it was very close to where we were. There was a lovely British expat couple sat next to us, and they helped us with our order as we accidentally ordered olives stuffed with anchovies. They were very nice, telling us about there lives and finding out about our trip.

We walked over to our yellow catamaran harbour boat tour. There were toilets and a bar on board to get a cold drink and snacks. It was a recorded tour in four different languages. There was an upper outside deck and the main boat plus an underground section with glass windows in so you could see under the water. It was a bit like a sauna down there, but I did get to see a few shawls of fish swimming.

It was a pleasant way to relax and spend an hour, looking at the harbour from the boat.

After the trip, we headed off in separate directions to explore the old town. I got my drone out to get a bit of footage and try a few things. Then I found somewhere for an ice cream, interesting smurf flavour that didn’t taste of very much. I did a bit of shopping, got a few photos then met up with the girls again at a restaurant and had a nice refreshing shandy.

By then, it was already time to head back to the airport, another 15 minute taxi ride.

On the flight back, I witnessed a thunderstorm over the UK from above. You couldn’t hear the thunder, and it looked a lot less dramatic from above it, but seeing the clouds light up like a flash from a camera was quite enjoyable.

It was lovely to meet Zara and Louise, hopefully we will meet up again on future trips as all three of us are keep travellers and have lots of stories to swap.

On the way from Copenhagen to Stockholm, I wanted to visit Malmo and the Goteborg on the west side of Sweden but I like to come back a different way to make it circular. For me, the driving is part of the fun, it’s a challenge. It’s not just about getting from A to B, it’s the views on the way. You never know what you’re going to find.

I normally start and end a trip from the same location and that’s because it can be very expensive to drop off a hire car at a different destination. Technically, I could have flow to Copenhagen then returned from Stockholm, but the extra fees wouldn’t be worth it.

I also could have spend an extra day and got back to Copenhagen, flying the next day. That would be more expensive but potentially less stressful as if anything went wrong, at least I wouldn’t be in a rush. That’s just not how I operate these trips though. I grew up watching shows like Top Gear, and when you have a deadline to get back for a flight, it feels like an adventure.

So, for this trip, my plan was to drive from Stockholm to Copenhagen, starting at 0400 in the morning and instead of heading back by the west coast, I was going to follow the east coast, visiting Kalmar castle on the way.

My flight was at 1700 from Copenhagen. Normally I would get to the airport two hours before the flight departure, but the EU has introduced a new biometric entry/exit system and it’s causing delays. It caused problems when I landed in the country. So the target was to get back to the airport for 2pm.

I also needed to allow myself time to stop, to eat and drink and refuel. Many people like to stop every couple of hours if they’re doing a long drive but I find I only need one of two breaks. When I’m in the mode, I’m in the mode. You also have to factor in traffic. I use google maps to check my routes, but sometimes unexpected things happen. Accidents, sudden road closures.

Without stopping, the route is 731km (454 miles) and just under 9 hours so I decided to leave at 2am instead of 4am. In reality, it took me a while to set up my cameras, I was filming a hyper lapse with two separate cameras, one on the windscreen and one on a side window. It was difficult setting up the side window without a second suction cup mount. I managed to get something working using the seatbelt and hat clip, but it wasn’t straight so we’ll see how the footage comes out.

I drank a cold coffee, went to the toilet and then checked out of the hotel and so the journey began.

At that time, there was very little traffic on the roads, not even many HGVs. For an equivalent journey in the UK, there would be HGVs everywhere but the Swedish roads were quieter.

The motorways are two lanes almost everywhere, the speed limit is typically 110 kmph, with some sections at 120 and some at 100. I did hit a few sections of road works but these tended to be much shorter than they would be in the UK, rather than closing lanes for entire junctions, they just close the small section they’re working on and it’s back to normal speed as soon as you’re through.

I have to admit, I find motorway driving very boring, and it was no different in Sweden. The roads were very flat, few big turns, surrounded by trees most of the time, not a lot to see. I prefer my rural routes and I had hoped I’d have some coastal views heading down the E22, but sadly not.

By 0900, I reached Kalmar and had a walk around the castle. The internal part and the shop only opened at 1000 and I didn’t have time to wait, but I got some photos and sent the drone up for a bit of aerial footage, mindful not to spook the sea birds occupying a little island next to the castle. Sea birds can take quite an interest in a drone so you have to be careful where you fly.

I stopped for fuel at the last exit in Sweden near Malmo before crossing the Oresund bridge back into Denmark. Fuel is cheaper in Sweden than Denmark. The Oresund bridge is a spectacular feed of engineering, build in the late 1990s. The bridge disappears into a tunnel in an artificial island in the middle of the sea before reappearing in Denmark. It’s not cheap, but it was worth the view.

Copenhagen airport is just after the bridge, in fact, I watched a plane landing whilst on the bridge. I got a little bit confused about where to drop the hire car off, it was a little further away from the airport than I remembered. I was a little tense by this time as it was 1430, and I planned to be in the airport by then.

I had to catch a free shuttle bus to the main terminal, headed straight to security, which was very fast and smooth then discovered my flight was delayed half an hour. That gave me more time to use the toilet, do some last minute shopping and grab something to eat.

Ryanair use the cheap gates at the far end of the airport. It’s a bit of a strange setup and you don’t go through border control until you’re at the gates, but you can’t go to the gates until you know which ones you’ll be using. Fortunately, it didn’t seem to be an issue.

I was tracking the flight using flight radar 24. I knew the flight would be later than anticipated as the plane was at least an hour late heading from Manchester to Copenhagen before our return leg. It was one of the older air Malta operated services using a 737-800 (not the max variety). The seat pitch is slightly narrower and the seatbelt only just fastened. There was nobody in the middle seat next to me this time, which was unusual.

I made a cheeky request to the cabin crew to see if the captain was willing to put my camera in the cockpit to film part of the flight, she said she’d ask but it never happened. I did get to say hello to the captain, but it has got me thinking about being a bit more persistent and trying again. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

The flight was less than two hours and very smooth. Curiously, most of my flights home have been late flights so I rarely get to see anything interesting during landing but this time I could see Stockport County’s stadium and also recognised Dovestone reservoir on the way. It was very strange being able to recognise a place I know very well from the ground, from the sky.

After a long trip, I was tired. I got the tram home then walked the 20 minutes route from the tram stop home, just as the rain began to fall.

As soon as I got home, the fatigue of all that driving set in and I fell asleep.

I really enjoyed my time in Denmark and Sweden, it was a great trip. It’s such a massive privilege to be able to travel and see other countries and cultures. I look forward to my next adventure, which may well be to Vancouver next April.

The last 6 months have been unusual for me in terms of the amount of travelling I’ve done. The weight loss has given me a new impetus to do things that would have been much more difficult in the past, whether that’s booking a single seat on a plane, walking 10 miles plus, sitting in a regular seat at a restaurant without worrying that it will break or I’ll get stuck or just riding a rollercoaster.

The original plan was to do the Vasa museum, then look around the old town. I thought about seeing if I could squeeze in the Viking museum, the Abba museum, another boat trip and a hop on, hop off bus too, but as I was already running late, I decided to just play things by ear.

I had planned to use public transport, but with time being the biggest enemy, I decided to get a taxi instead. The taxi driver was really nice, we had a good chat about AI and the financial markets. I have to say, the people I’ve come across on my trip have been really friendly.

The vasa museum is a 17th century Swedish war ship, that sunk on its maiden voyage in Copenhagen harbour, due to the fact that nobody wanted to tell the King of Sweden at the time that they made a mistake with the design. Basically, the boat was very tall but quite narrow and didn’t have enough ballasts to stabilise the weight. A slight breeze struck the ship, and it keeled, taking in water through the gun turrets and sank. 300 years later, it was rediscovered in tact at the bottom of the harbour and was carefully re-floated.

Had the boat been built properly, it wouldn’t have survived. It is in fact unique in that regard. The boat was preserved so well because the Baltic sea is brackish, i.e. more freshwater than saltwater, and the sludge from sewage dumped into the harbour acted as a preservative.

When it was raised in the 1960s, it had to be kept wet for years and preserved with the same chemical compound four in liquid.

It was an unbelievable site, just the sheer scale and attention to detail with the hand carvings all over the ship. You could imagine what a spectacle it would have been at the time for any enemy vessels, had it actually been structurally viable.

There were some preserved bones from the sailors that drowned in the disaster. At least 30 people drowned.

The museum itself has viewing platforms all around the ship at different levels so you can see it. The preservation work is ongoing but they don’t know how long it can be kept intact, with the result of body heat from visitors and oxygen reacting with the chemicals in the wood. The iron bolts have had to be replaced twice due to the rust process. It’s a reminder that everything we build may feel very permanent but in reality, it’s only a matter of time before nature reclaims it. I’m fascinated by the thoughts of what technologies ancient civilisations may have had that we don’t know about because we only know about the things that have some how been preserved and survived.

There was also an exhibition about James Cameron’s under sea explorations, sparked by his curiosity into the Titanic.

After Vasa, I headed for the Viking Museum. The Viking museum was not so big, it had a few helpers in traditional dress telling you about what life would have been like, the money, the jewellery, the games they played etc. There was a lot of effort to try to separate the reality from the mythology surrounding the Vikings. I got to try on a nice heavy Viking helmet. At the end of the museum, there was a “ride” that took you through the story of a particular Viking family. It was a bit like a ghost train but not scary, more interesting.

By the time I had finished with the Viking museum, I was hungry. I wanted to find somewhere to eat, but by that time it looked like my plan to squeeze in another boat trip was already too late. I settled on an ice cream then I was going to fit in the ABBA museum but my body had a bit of a reaction to the ice cream. It’s not that there was anything wrong with it, it’s just my body does occasionally react strongly to certain foods post surgery and sometimes a food that is absolutely fine one day, can be rejected the next.

Given I was feeling a bit queasy, and given the fact that I was going to have to drive back from Stockholm to Copenhagen, some 425 miles in the early hours of the morning, I decided that instead of trying to fit more in, I’d get a taxi back, have a rest then start preparing for the trip back. I needed fuel and I needed supplies, and I needed to repack.

I did manage to pick up a few more magnets for my collection on my fridge before I went. Magnets are great because they’re small, their cheap and they’re collectable. Exactly what I needed when I’m flying hand luggage only.

That afternoon, I had a little nap and recovered from the ice cream, then I tried to find a supermarket for cheap supplies. When I’m on a long drive, I need cold coffee or sugar free red bull to keep the concentration levels up. The fuel stations are very expensive.

Google maps found a Lidl but when I got there I realised it was a city centre one with no parking so it was completely useless. I eventually found a big, out of town one. I love driving and driving in foreign countries doesn’t bother me, but I must admit, driving through city centres is not enjoyable. Suddenly you find yourself stuck in a bus lane with no way out or the sat nav says left but the map shows right and you’ve got a split second to decide. When all the signs are in a language you don’t understand, at times you’re just guessing and hoping for the best.

Anyway, I survived and made it back to the hotel, ready to rest for a few hours before the long drive back.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

It wasn’t wonderful, hard boiled eggs and meatballs were the only hot food, even the selection of meat, cheese and bread was limited, but it’s budget accommodation in an industrial area near the E4 and E20.

I decided to walk into downtown Stockholm. It was a bit hairy at first as google maps was confusing, wanting me to walk in places there was no pavement but once I got out of the industrial park and crossed the motorway on a foot bridge, there was a very chilled path following close to the train line. Very flat, large areas for cyclists and separate area for walking.

There were quite a few bolt powered bikes and scooters. I’ve never cycled, but I was tempted to learn. I might look into adult cycling lessons when I’m home.

I crossed a beautiful bridge as I got close to the city centre, headed to Slussen to catch a commuter ferry to Skansen. It was part of the integrated transport system and I could just use my contactless card to pay. The services were very frequent. It only took about 10 minutes to cross and I could see rides in an amusement park over the water.

I looked it up, it was called Grona Lund, operated by the same Tivoli group as in Copenhagen. In Copenhagen I really enjoyed the wooden rollercoaster there so it was tempting as this park also had a wooden coaster.

I did look it up but decided to carry on to Skansen open air museum first. Back in the UK, there is a place called the Beamish museum, where you can walk through a town made to replicate different eras such as a 1950s high street and Victorian carnival. I love history so I really enjoyed that.

I imagined that this place would be similar. I was imagining people in traditional dress demonstrating traditional schools. There were a few people dotted around in dress, but not many. I did enjoy seeing the traditional Swedish wooden buildings though. There was a children’s zoo with some brown bears. Nothing to write home about but still a nice day out.

I took a funicular railway from the entry up to the museum. It was unnecessary as there was also a free modern escalator that I found by accident later. There was an old trio that didn’t seem happy we were there, not sure why.

There was some kind of brass band playing in an open concert part.

There were lots of food options. I decided to try a wrap shaped as a cone containing crushed potatoes and elk meat, that was in very small pieces. Unsurprisingly, it was very gamey. I wouldn’t go out of my way to try it again, but it was something different to the usual burgers, hotdogs and ice cream.

That area had lots of attractions, the Abba museum, the Viking museum, the vasa ship museum and Grona Lund were all close together.

I spent half the day in the open air museum, then headed for the theme park. I knew I wouldn’t be doing a lot of rides. They had at least 3 variations on vertical drop rides, several coasters but I knew I’d only try a tame one so it wasn’t worth paying for a wristband so I paid for park entry and bought enough tokens for a couple of rides.

I joined the queue for the wooden coaster, twister. It wasn’t an old coaster, the track was wooden but the frame was steel. There were young kids queuing. Watching it though made me nervous, it was faster than the other one I tried. It was a tight fit. It was very fast I was very nervous, holding on for dear life but it was fun, I did it twice, then had some churros. I’m glad I did it that way around and not eaten first.

People were walking around with massive chocolate bars and pringles from some of the games.

I got the ferry back and explored the city centre. Sweden also has a monarch. I watched the guards around the palace. I was starting to get tired. I found a little Italian restaurant to get some food then got a bolt back to the hotel around 11pm. The travelling was starting to catch up on me.

I would be back again for the vasa museum the next day and to find some Stockholm souvenirs but need a bit of a rest after the hectic nature of the trip so far.

Subscribe to read about the penultimate day of the trip

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Before I left Denmark though, I had to sample some Danish pastries for comparison purposes, of course. The things I endure for you guys.

I found a nice traditional bakery, gawped at the delicious food on display then asked the server to surprise me with four. I probably should have just asked for one. I think my blood sugars were rising just looking at them. I enjoyed one that was described as a cheesecake but looked like a custard pastry with berries on top. It wasn’t as sweet as I imagined it would be, but it was delicious. The pastry had a crunch but didn’t fall apart, so it was easy to eat, and went down well with an iced latte.

Having been suitable refuelled, I set off for Malmo in Sweden, which involved crossing the Øresund Bridge that joins Denmark and Sweden, it turns into a tunnel in an island in the sea. Am I the only person who gets excited about unusual bridges?

I noticed how calm the sea was. It costs £106 return for the privilege so it wasn’t cheap, but hey, better that than a dinghy.

I found a nice waterside park for a walk in Malmo. Given it was a Saturday, Malmo was very quiet. Everyone I met seemed to be running. There was a nice sea breeze but without the salty smell. It’s no wonder everyone I saw looked so fit and healthy. I had a nice short walk around the sea front to stretch the legs and use up some of the sugar, then plotted a course for Göteborg.

My remarks on the roads are that there’s not a lot of traffic, the motorways are just two lanes, no potholes, no road rage, travelling mostly through trees and it was very flat.

When I got into Göteborg, I passed a theme park and some form of sports stadium. Göteborg looks like quite a good place for entertainment. I had originally planned it to be just a pit stop, but I had a walk around, almost got tempted to go in the amusement park, they had another wooden coaster and this place seemed much more impressive than Tivoli but I decided to head to the old town instead. I enjoyed the view from an old fortress called Skansen Kronan, then found a nice café to try some proper Swedish meatballs. They were served with mash and gravy. The portion was too big for me, 4 massive meatballs. It was really good though.

It was still nearly 5 hours to Stockholm. I may have put a bit of abba on the playlist, along with the hives, Swedish house mafia, ace of base and aqua. That kept me busy.

Had to fuel the car up, that was expensive and it took me a while to work out how to open the fuel cap, there was a release mechanism In the footwell.

In the whole journey, covering hundreds of miles I only saw two Ikeas, I see more than that going from Liverpool to Leeds. Very disappointing. Part of me is tempted to see if I can work in a visit.

It was gone midnight when I got to the hotel and I got chatting to the porter, it turns out he’s into travel adventures too, so we had a chat for over an hour.

The room itself has no windows and a single bed. Very basic, but it’s just somewhere to lay my head for a few hours before exploring Stockholm.

Oh, I managed to crack my phone screen protector too. Hopefully that’s my bad luck used up now!

Tomorrow, I will explore Stockholm. Subscribe if you want to hear how it went

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

It was an on foot/public transport day, leaving the car at the hotel.

I used google maps navigation to get me to the metro station, which was only 10 minutes away.

When I got to the metro station, I spent 5 minutes trying to scan my debit card, thinking their contactless system would be like the Manchester Metrolink, where you just swipe your bank card. It wasn’t. In the end, I downloaded an app to pay for my fare.

That wasn’t the end of my confusion. Google maps was being very unhelpful, first it navigated me to a different line than what it suggested, then it wouldn’t tell me which direction train I needed to get when it realised where I was.

The trains themselves were great, very clean, frequent and gated so you couldn’t fall into the track. They were driverless. I walked to Tivoli gardens rather than do what google suggested and go to a different station for one stop.

There was a big queue outside, but I wasn’t sure if it was for the lego shop or Tivoli Gardens itself, so I decided to save time by purchasing a ticket on the Tivoli app. It was a fateful mistake.

That morning I debated whether to wear my hoodie or my coat. I was on a boat ride later and figured it could get cold so opted for the hoodie.

I took a very small shoulder bag with me, with essentials like wallet, phone cameras and battery pack. My hoodie doesn’t have zip pockets, my coat does.

At some point in the five minutes I was distracted and had my wallet in my pocket rather than in the anti-theft bag, someone pickpocketed me.

I wasn’t aware when it happened, but I realised within minutes when I reached for my wallet to pay for a ride in the theme park.

I’m very good at losing things, I checked every pocket, every hidden compartment in the bag, it was gone. I immediately froze every single card. That’s when I realised there was a purchase I hadn’t made from a 7/11 store just 5 minutes after I paid for park entrance. It was a horrible feeling, but it was a small amount and my actions prevented further loss.

I went to the customer service, they pointed me in the direction of the police station in the metro station. I spent half an hour reporting everything. The police took my evidence and details and gave me a report.

I felt stupid and violated as I had specifically brought the bag with me to stop pick pockets, but they were quick.

I didn’t let it ruin the day though. I had lost my wallet, driving license, cards but there was no cash or anything else. I still had my passport. I still had the ability to generate a new contactless card. I was even able to reverse the transaction.

The irony was that the 7/11 was in the same metro station, right in front of the police. I checked the bins, as they likely discarded it nearby, but I couldn’t see it.

I went back into the park, I went on a “galleon” ride, clinging on to my phone and bag with vigour. I then went on a wooden rollercoaster. I haven’t been on a coaster since my early 20s. It felt good to fit in it and I enjoyed it so much, I did it again. The second tome the operator didn’t let me pay, I think the card machine was more of a faff for them than it was worth. You could either buy a ride pass wristband, buy tickets for rides on the app or use cards. It wasn’t worth the cost of the wristband unless you were doing more than 3 rides, and, to be honest, there aren’t a lot of rides. Many are for young kids.

I tried a traditional danish hotdog, then made my way out of the park for a boat tour. My boat tour was moved 30 minutes later, with a different start point, but that suited me. It was a 1 hour 45 minute trip from newhavyn, a tourist hotspot with pretty coloured buildings. I picked up some souvenir magnets, as usual, enjoyed the nice relaxing boat trip then had an ice cream before heading back to Tivoli Gardens to find food.

It’s a very busy weekend in Copenhagen due to a bank holiday called Ascension Day. There is a free concert in the gardens. It is very expensive. I wanted to try some traditional Danish food, open sandwiches on rye bread are the thing here but bread isn’t good for me anymore, especially if it’s dense.

I’m also not a fan of fish, they eat a lot of herring and salmon. I tried a roast pork sandwich with pickled cabbage and cucumber and left the bun. The pork was very nice.

I don’t know why, but I saw a 4x 20cl beer tasting thing and thought I’d give it a go. I’m not really a drinker anymore, I probably managed the equivalent of 1 drink. I guess it was more because I could. Some people do end up transferring addictions from food to alcohol after weight loss surgery, but it just doesn’t interest me enough to do it.

Will shortly be trying to navigate the metro again to get back to the hotel. I was planning on walking it, but Gemini says it’s not a good idea, with no lighting in areas. I’ve already walked nine miles today. Tomorrow is the long drive to Stockholm, so early start.

Hopefully no more dramas tomorrow!

Sometimes in life, things go wrong. I could have panicked about my wallet, I could have let it ruin the rest of the day but there’s no point worrying about things you can’t control. It’s already happened, nothing I can do, may as well just enjoy my day!

As has become traditional with my solo trips, it started with the 3 mile walk to Manchester Airport, this time not early in the morning.

Walking it with a 10kg suitcase as well as a bag was slightly more challenging but the wheels and handle did their job.

I was tempted to jump on a bus or tram, especially when there was a sudden patch of rain and light hale, but I figured I was half way there already so kept walking.

It was another Ryanair flight, which meant departure from terminal 3. Ryanair are the only airline left that use the dated terminal. The facilities are nowhere near as good as the renovated terminal 2.

Terminal 3 and terminal 1 are essentially the same building but there are lots of corridors blocked off. Ryanair refused to move because of the higher fees and they have the market share to force their influence.

Security had improved from March, being a Thursday afternoon, it was very quiet and I was through within minutes. No need to take out liquids or electronics anymore, even in T3.

I believe there are upgrade plans for T1/T3, hopefully the facilities will improve. The terminal felt cramped and other than a small KFC, Costa and a couple of WH Smiths stores offering eye watering prices, nearly £5 for a disappointing bag of Haribo anyone? there’s not a lot there.

There were a couple of bars, but they weren’t big and didn’t offer food. I was genuinely considering paying £25 for an hour in the escape lounge, at least there would be some spare seats, but in the end I discovered the Sports bar on the second floor that many people missed, so it wasn’t quite as rammed.

I did manage to get a good seat by the window, overlooking the runway. You could order food from the comfort of your table and the service was quite quick. I ordered some small plates, mediocre chicken wings, a couple of small tacos that were actually quite nice and garlic bread, which was very bold on the cheese and had pesto inside it too. It was not bad, although you’d hope so for £24.

Anyway, after a couple of hours watching the planes take off, I headed to the gate.

The last trip I took with Ryanair, which was Albania in March, I still needed a seatbelt extender on the plane.

For the trip to Malta, outbound on easyJet and back on jet2, I didn’t need it but the newer A320 and A321 neo airbus planes have been configured slightly better for bigger passengers. It was a massive confidence boost to not need the belts and to be able to put the tray table down and I’m pleased to say it was the same this time on Ryanair so I have made progress even though it doesn’t feel like a big difference to me in the last couple of months.

It’s a good job too, as I’ve had someone sat next to me in every flight. In the past I always used to have to book 2 seats unless flying with someone I knew that was understanding.

The flight to Copenhagen was just under 2 hours and very smooth, no complaints at all. I bought a rucksack and 10kg case combo designed for ryanair’s baggage rules and it wasn’t even checked!

Starting the trip with an evening flight, landing around 10pm wasn’t ideal. The Scandinavian countries are expensive, I remember that from Norway. Landing at night essentially means paying for an extra nights accommodation, which wasn’t cheap, but if I will insist on these little adventures, ticking off another country each time in my quest to visit the whole of Europe, that’s how it’s going to be. I’m not a package holiday resort kind of guy.

Copenhagen Airport is undergoing some improvements and the current layout for arrivals is very strange. You have to go past all the departure gates before you get to passport control, it’s quite a distance and would be easy to get lost.

The new EES system was causing big delays. It took me an hour to get through, which made me very nervous as the car rental office closes at midnight and I still wasn’t through by 2315.

A GB Gymnastic squad were in front of me, listening to their confidence about beating the Danes was at least some entertainment. I tried to ring the desk for the car hire to explain the situation. There was an automated system in Danish but it did tell you to press 0 for English, which then gave you another message in Danish before looping back. I was a bit worried by this point.

When I eventually found the way out of the airport and followed the path to the shuttle bus to car hire, I was quite anxious. It was 2345, the hire place shuts at 0000 and I didn’t know when the last bus was, how long it took etc. My only comfort was there were other people waiting for the bus too. It came, I got on it and it was only a few minutes to the car rental building.

I could see from the bus that all the shutters were down in the building. It wasn’t looking hopeful, but there was one guy in a green t-shirt there, Europa car, the company I booked with. I was very relieved. Maybe they waited because they new I was booked on a late flight.

The guy was lovely and very helpful. I explained that I needed cross border travel as I was visiting Stockholm. He purchased the tickets for the bridge for me and he upsold me from a Toyota Yaris Cross to a Rav4. For £40 extra, it was worth the upgrade.

I’ve driven abroad in lots of different countries and I always find the first drive stressful. You’re trying to get used to the car, navigate to a place unfamiliar and adjust to the differences with roads, signs and speed limits. After a few hours, it becomes second nature but I took my time to familiarise myself with the car. It was only a 10 minute drive to the hotel and by this point, I felt tired. Also a little lonely. I have done solo trips before, but not a road trip. It just felt a little bit wrong being sat in a big car on my own with no one to talk to.

I parked under the hotel, it took me a while to work out how to pay for parking in the basement, I went to the reception and they couldn’t find my reservation, so I pulled up the booking.com app and it showed my Stockholm booking but not the Copenhagen one, which confused me as I checked it the day before.

I looked in my emails and there was an email saying I hadn’t showed up. Clearly, I was there. I had to sit and wait for a manager to investigate, not knowing whether I’d get my room or not.

The manager was really nice though. He said they had me down as arriving from 6pm. Now, it could have been my mistake, maybe I missed a box when I booked, but I was still in Manchester at that time, anyway, he managed to override the system and booked me in, much to my relief.

The room is the smallest hotel room I’ve ever stayed it, it feels like student accommodation. It cost £187 for 2 nights even for this tiny room and I think the one in Stockholm is even smaller, without a window. It doesn’t matter though, I’m not going to be in here much. The queen bed is comfortable and I appreciated the fan in the room, even though it’s very noisy.

Tomorrow, I will be exploring Copenhagen on foot and by public transport. I haven’t really seen anything of the city yet.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

To give you a little context, I live roughly 3 miles away from Manchester Airport. It’s a nice, easy, straight forward flat walk through the mean streets of Wythenshawe, a walk that I’ve done many times to visit the Airport Pub or the Aviation Viewing Park.

I probably wouldn’t walk it if I had to wheel a suitcase with me but given I was just taking a small rucksack of bare essentials with me, I enjoyed a nice leisurely hour long walk under the street lights. It’s very quiet at that time, I saw more foxes than people.

Manchester Airport have invested a lot of money in renovating Terminal 2, which is where every airline except Ryanair departs from. It didn’t take long to whiz through security. The new, more powerful scanners mean you don’t need to separate your liquids.

I went for a walk around the terminal to find somewhere for breakfast, and I had yoghurt with granola, fruit and honey, along with an orange juice.

My flight out was the 0540 Easyjet flight to Malta, on an Airbus A320. I did decide to pay for seat reservation at the time of booking, adding £12 to the cost of the flight but I’m very fond of sitting in a window seat, in fact, I always seem to choose a seat on the right hand side, just in front of the left wing, so I can see the engine and slats on the front edge of the wing. Yes, I know, very sad and geeky.

In the past, I would have had to buy two seats, unless sitting next to a partner and I would bring my own seatbelt adapter along with me to avoid the embarrassment of having to ask cabin crew. The crew are always very good about it but you do feel it as it draws attention to you.

I had my seatbelt extender in my coat pocket ready to pull out once I got to my seat, but this time was different. I didn’t need it, it just fit. I can’t begin to describe what a good feeling that was. Even better, when I put the tray table down in front of my seat without an issue. There was a passenger sat immediately next to me, which used to be one of my big worries.

The flight was very smooth and on time, I managed to get a little rest. When we landed, I was already prepared for delays through border control. The EU has rolled out a new entry and exit system that uses biometric data (fingerprints and facial scans) to track visitors to the area. In some countries the new system has caused lots of delays, but it was very smooth in Malta.

Once through security, I followed the signs towards the taxi pickup area and used the Bolt app to get a taxi. It only took 2 minutes for my ride to arrive, and it was a 20 minute journey to Valetta, the Maltese capital.

Malta is one of the most densely populated countries in the EU and there is a lot of traffic. It felt familiar as the Maltese drive on the left, as we do in the UK. The weather was very pleasant, around 22 celsius. In fact, I changed from my joggers to shorts in the airport.

Malta uses the euro as its currency and card payments were accepted everywhere, even for small transactions, which was good as I didn’t bring any cash with me, just my digital revolut card pre-loaded with euros.

Normally for a trip abroad, I spend a lot of time planning a detailed itinerary but because this was only a single day trip, I had booked a boat tour at 1230 and had a rough idea of when I needed to head back to the airport, but the rest of my time was just going to be exploring on foot.

The taxi dropped me off near Tritton’s fountain and I walked towards upper barrakka gardens, where you get a good view of the harbour. At the time I was there, the Enchanted Princess cruise ship was coming into port. It was massive, and a very impressive sight. If it wasn’t for my pre-booked boat tour, I would have stayed to watch the ceremonial cannons being fired at 1200, but instead I made my way to the ferry to cross from Valetta to Sliema, where my boat tour departed from.

The ferry crossings are every 30 minutes and only cost 3 euro per person. Generally Malta was a very affordable place compared with prices in the UK. Unfortunately, due to the swell in the harbour, the ferries had been suspended for the day. There was a very small yellow sign saying this, but I couldn’t see it from where I was queueing for the ferry. When the 1200 ferry didn’t arrive, I got anxious and rang the boat tour operator and it was actually them that explained that the ferry wasn’t running and I should instead get a bus or taxi. Very kindly, they agreed to switch my booking from the 1230 boat tour to the 1430 boat tour.

I got my second Bolt of the day over to Sliema and with time to kill before my boat trip, I got some traditional Maltese pastries from jeff’s pastizzeria. I tried a ricotta cheese pastizzi, a small fried puff pastry dish that was very crunchy. I’ll be honest, since losing weight, I’ve gone off rich pastries a little bit, the cheese wasn’t particularly flavourful. It was nice, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to get one. I also tried a Maltese date pastry that reminded me of a fig role. That was quite nice.

To wash it down, I bought a local carbonated drink called Kimmie. It’s a bitter orange drink with a bit of an aftertaste. I can’t say I was a huge fan. At first it tasted a little like iron brew, but then with a grapefruit kind of bitter aftertaste. It’s good to try these things anyway. I never really understand people that go to a different culture, then only want to eat and drink things that they would get back home.

I found a tourist souvenir shop and picked up a fridge magnet to add to my growing collection. I can never choose just one. I tend to look for more unique shapes, so I went for a Maltese cross one.

I treated myself to a “Caffe” slushie drink, to get rid of the taste of Kimmie, then queued up for the 90 minutes harbour cruise with luzzu cruises. I do enjoy boat trips, it’s a nice way to relax for a while and watch the world go bye, taking in the scenery and listen to the commentary. I bagged myself an end of row seat on the upper deck. There were quite a lot of German tourists on the boat so Malta must be popular with Germans as it is with Brits too.

Outside of the harbours themselves, the sea was a little choppy, which doesn’t bother me in the slightest, I’m the kind of person that enjoys a little bit of turbulence. It was not too rough, but if you’re travelling with young children or if you’re of a nervous constitution, you might not enjoy it that much, but most of the time we were in the calmer harbour waters anyway.

After the boat trip, I walked to the St Julian’s area. There was a bar with this sign, so I just had to stop and see if it was true.

I enjoyed a shandy, after first confusing the waitress, by asking for a shandy made from the local cisk beer. It turned out that their shandy wasn’t like in the UK, where you get half a pint of lemonade combined with half a pint of lager, mixed together, it came in a can, I guess similar to bass shandy. It was quite nice, but I’m not quite sure it hit the sub zero temperatures I had expected from the sign.

I had a nice little walk on the “beach”. It wasn’t a sandy beach, it was very rocky and I had to be very careful where I was putting my feet with the uneven surfaces but I enjoyed seeing the little fish swimming in small pockets of water in the chasms in the rocks.

I found myself a pizzeria. With Malta being not far from Sicily, I expected authentic Italian style pizza. Simple ingredients with great taste, thin crusts and fresh. The menu suggested that the pizzas were 7”, which would have been perfect for me, but the pizza was a lot bigger than I was expecting. I managed to eat two thirds of it, which I was happy with. I had spicy sausage, with mozzarella and I really enjoyed it.

I walked off my pizza and discovered a garden area that was also a cat sanctuary, with cat beds everywhere. The cats were friendly, I saw some sat on people’s laps, enjoying a petting session, and I introduced myself to a couple of feline friend too. I wasn’t really expecting it, so it was a nice surprise.

It was almost time to get my final bolt of the day back to the airport, but I managed to sneak in a gelato, caramel and peanut butter before the way back. It was a nice day to end a perfectly pleasant day. I covered 10 miles in total on foot over the course of the day and had a really nice relaxing time.

The weather in the UK has been unusually cold compare to the previous few Mays, and a bit of sunshine can really help lift your mood.

The final taxi driver was a really friendly guy and we had a good chat about my extreme day trip. The people in Malta were all lovely and very friendly.

The airport was very busy, there is not a very large seating area. Security was quick though and the flight home was courtesy of Jet2 with one of their A321 neo aircraft. It was a bit of an unusual flight as there had been a warehouse issue so the cabin crew could only offer tea, coffee and water on the flight, no other food, drinks or duty free.

Having tried my first extreme day trip, would I do it again? Definitely, although I think if you can extend your stay overnight and find cheap accommodation so that you get to see a little bit more, it would probably be worth it but I kept thinking to myself what I would have been doing if I just stayed at home instead. Sun, Sea and chill in Malta vs washing and dishes in rainy Manchester? It’s no comparison really.

The costs soon add up though, my cheap day trip ended up costing much more than I would have liked. Perhaps with better planning, and being a bit more savvy, I could have spent less, but then again if you compare it to the cost of a day trip in the UK, that isn’t cheap either.

If you would like to hear about my trip to Copenhagen and Stockholm, subscribe for the next article

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

I signed up to the newsletter for extremedaytrips.com. It takes out a lot of the difficulty of planning an extreme day trip by finding combinations of flights that work, departing and returning the same day and maximising the time you spend in that other country.

The website is designed for travellers departing from UK airports, but you could do the same thing yourself using websites like Sky Scanner. Extreme Day Trips makes it easier because it finds the cheapest fare combinations, that maximise the amount of time you get to spend in a given destination. There is also the option to extend your trip with an overnight stay if one day isn’t enough.

There are some considerations you need to make to get the most out of it. Budget Airlines like RyanAir often fly to/from cheaper airports that are less popular, for example, flying to Paris with RyanAir means Paris-Beauvais Airport, which is 80km (48 miles) from Paris. It takes 90 minutes by shuttle bus to reach Paris itself and when you’re only visiting a place for a day, every minute matters.

Paris was indeed one of the places I considered for my trip. I’ve been to France several times but never to the capital. The flight fares were very attractive, just £46 for the return.

Extreme Day Trips - Tips

I would recommend that you make a shortlist of places you’re considering, then check things like where the airport is, how good is the public transport and how affordable it is too before buying any tickets. Sometimes the cheapest options are cheapest for a reason.

Often the cheap fares are mid-week flights, if you need a weekend option though, you can filter by the day of week. I also filtered my search results based on a minimum of 10 hours at the destination location.

Remember, there could be delays and there could be queues to get through border control. There could be heavy traffic or irregular transport to get to and from the airport. You need to factor in enough time to get back to the airport for your return and to make use of the short time you have in the location.

Plan what you want to see and do before you get there. You only have a short time, so pick one attraction that you really want to see, make sure it’s open and that you know how to get there. Do not try to cram in too much and risk missing your return flight.

Whilst the main benefit of an extreme day trip is to cut costs by not having to pay for accommodation or baggage, it can still be more expensive than you anticipated by the time you factor in transport to/from the airport, food and drink and attractions. A package holiday may be better value over all as you have more time to enjoy the location.

My shortlist

So, I created my shortlist looking at the available search results from my home town airport. I ruled out UK and Ireland trips, such as Belfast and Dublin. I ruled out places I’ve visited before. My goal was to visit another European country that I wouldn’t ordinarily have visited.

My shortlist looked like this

• Paris, Thursday 7th May, depart 0640, arrive 0900, return 2215. Total cost £46, 13 hours in destination.

• Naples, Wednesday 6th May, depart 0815, arrive 1220, return 2205. Total flight cost £59 for 9 hours 45 minute in Naples.

• Pisa, Tuesday 5th May, depart 0605, arrive 0935, return 2215. Total flight cost £69. 12 hours 40 minutes in Pisa.

• Rome, Wednesday 6th May, depart 0550, arrive 0935, return 2045. Total flight cost £73. 11 hours 10 minutes in Rome.

• Paphos, Sunday 10th May, depart 0920, arrive 1600, return 2230. Total flight cost £83. 6 hours 30 minutes in Paphos.

• Malta, Sunday 10th May, depart 0640, arrive 1010, return 2140. Total flight cost £115.11 hours 30 minutes in Malta.

• Corfu, Saturday 9th May, depart 0655, arrive 1225, return 2330. Total flight cost £121. 11 hour 5 minutes in Corfu.

And the winner is…

In the end, it was a toss up between Malta and Corfu. I had been to France and Italy before, and although I really would like to visit Rome, Pompeii and Pisa, I would like to have plenty of time for a trip like that. I’d never been to Malta or any part of Greece. I am more interested in visiting Athens than the Greek islands so I decided it would be a good opportunity to tick Malta off my list of EU countries as it’s one I probably wouldn’t have thought to go to normally.

Corfu would have been easier as it would have been a Saturday trip. My Malta trip was on a Sunday, which meant I was back in work the next day after getting home in the early hours but at least I did not need to use any annual leave to accommodate the trip.

How to book

You use the Extreme Day Trips website to help you find the flights, then book them yourself on the airlines website. Extreme Day Trips is free, but there is a paid subscription if you want to get early access to the best offers. I haven’t paid for the premium version as I was just dipping my toe in the water, but that may become more helpful if the cost of such trips increases in the future and if you intend to do multiple short trips a year.

In my next post, I will give you the low down of how my trip to Malta went, so subscribe below for more.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

It’s something that interested me as soon as I heard about it, but despite that interest, I’d never tried it until now.

What was it that led me to take the plunge now?

Fuel for thought

The first factor is a geo-political one. I live in the UK and the UK imports between 50-65% of its aviation fuel from the middle east. With the situation involving Iran and the straight of Hormuz, that supply line has been severely affected, with fears over shortages and higher costs as a result.

Luckily, many low cost carriers hedge their fuel, i.e. they sign long term contracts that commit them to buy a certain quantity of fuel at an agreed price many months in advance, so although the cost of jet fuel has doubled since the conflict in Iran started in late February, the full impact on air fares has not yet materialised.

Jet fuel accounts for about 40% of an airline’s costs, so it is very likely that air fares are going to go up significantly after the peak summer season, so I decided to take advantage now, whilst the prices are still low.

It does add more risk as there is a genuine chance that flights may be cancelled to preserve dwlindling reserves of fuel and most travel insurance policies have clauses that exclude travel cancelations as the result of ongoing conflicts.

In Europe at least, consumer protection is pretty good, airlines have the responsibility to get you home safely if they cancel your flights and offer additional compensation for any accommodation costs occurred as the result of their cancelations but there is still some risk.

For example, if my outbound flight on one airline was cancelled, I would be entitled to a full refund for that flight but if my return flight on another airline is not cancelled, then I wouldn’t be entitled to a refund for that flight but thus far, there have been very few cancellations. Airlines need to keep flying regardless due to aircraft and crew positioning, for freight haulage and to keep their valuable airport slots.

Weighing on my mind

The next factor is a much more personal one. On 28th July 2022, I weighed 34 stone 2 pounds, that’s 478 pounds or 216.8 kilograms. At that size, every aspect of travelling was difficult. I would have to buy two seats on a plane for my own comfort and for that of other passengers. I had to wear a seatbelt extender in cars and on planes. Using toilets on a plane was impossible. I loved to travel, but being that size held me back.

At the time of writing, I now weigh 20 stone 9.5 pounds, 289.5 pounds or 131.3 kilograms. I’m still overweight and I am continuing my weight loss journey but my health and fitness has improved massively from where it was. My blood pressure is normal, I’ve gone from wearing 8xl tops and 66” waist trousers from specialist online clothing shops to 2XL t-shirts and 46” waist trousers from standard high street stores. I don’t need to book two seats on a plane anymore. I don’t need seat belt extenders. I can actually fold down the tray table and sit comfortably with the arm rests down. I walk regularly, sometimes distances as far as 15 miles (24 kilometres).

My quality of life is so much better and it’s the simple things that people take for granted that mean the most to me. It has opened up a new world of possibilities and opportunities and I want to make up for lost time, making the most out of this second chance that I’ve been given to actually live life rather than just exist.

I share my story in the hope that it will inspire others.

If you’re struggling with your weight or mental health, don’t give up. It’s ok to not be perfect and have ups and downs. It is a real struggle at times but the view from the top of the mountain is worth the climb, so just keep going, one step at a time.

If you’re interested in booking an extreme day trip, subscribe as in my next article, I will be telling you the tools I used to do it and how you could do it too.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment