Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
- Jenna Knox
- Jul 23, 2018
- 6 min read
So often these days we see instagram posts and pictures on Facebook of people traveling the world. It's a wonderful opportunity that so many of us get to experience these days, but it's not always as easy as it looks to plan a great trip. There is a lot of planning that goes into international trips, especially when you are trying to squeeze in as many activities or sites to see in a short amount of time. The meticulous planning pays off though (or at least I feel that it does for me). There was a lot of researching and scouring the internet for the best deals going into our Iceland/Norway trip, but the hours of searching resulted in a trip of a lifetime. My goal with this blog is to try to find ways to share some tips and tricks that I've learned throughout my planning, to hopefully help other people out with planning their trips as well.
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
Booking Flights
The first part of our planning was probably the most time consuming and most stressful part. As many know, booking flights can be exhausting since there are so many options. Being a West Coast native, Southwest Airlines has always been my go-to for air travel, but unfortunately they do not operate internationally at this time. Luckily, living in Seattle, there are many international flights each day, and the options are pretty much endless. As much as I wish I could splurge on the most direct route flights, I do have a budget and was trying to cut the cost as much as possible on flights, while still being able to have a little leg room and not have a 48 hour flight each way with 3 or more layovers. Fortunately, for our Iceland Trip, we were lucky enough to get some direct flights that didn't break the bank, though that is not always the case with the direct flight options. Eventually during my search my internet browser became packed with tabs, each with a different flight company pulled up, constantly refreshing to find the best route. We new we wanted the most amount of time in Iceland, but also wanted to go to a couple cities in Norway. We looked up all sorts of variations of flights between the countries, and variations of the order we wanted to travel in. We settled on flying out of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, into the Keflavik airport in Iceland. We found the site JustFly.com to be incredibly helpful and we got the cheapest (or so we think) but also reasonable length flight from Seattle to Iceland, and Norway back to Seattle. For the leg of the trip from Iceland to Norway, we booked through Norwegian Air directly.
Flight details:
Seattle to Reykjavik, Iceland --- Direct Flight - Duration: 7 hours 15 minutes - $617.72 per person - Iceland Air
Reykjavik, Iceland to Bergen, Norway --- Direct Flight - Duration: 2 hours 20 minutes - Norwegian Air
Oslo, Norway to London, United Kingdom, to Seattle --- Oslo to London Duration: 2hours 20 minutes, 1 hour 10 minute layover in London, London to Seattle Duration: 9 hours 55 minutes - $667.80 per person - Norwegian Air for both flights
Momondo - ***This was easily my favorite site to use when I looked for flights to Croatia. I wish I had known about this when booking our Iceland/Norway flights. Very easy to use, and easy to compare flight options on different days.
Start the Adventure - I used STA Travel when I booked my flight to Greece in 2016 and got a killer deal for it. Unfortunately, at the time of booking our Iceland/Norway trip, there were no flights between Seattle and Iceland or Norway.
Google Flights - Not sure how I went so long without knowing about this feature. Google really can do anything. Helpful for getting a general idea of how much flights are going to cost for different destinations and dates. This is now my go-to site before booking any flights, to get an idea of some of the best pries I might get. I then usually use other sites to narrow down the best options with more specifics.
Train Travel
For traveling in Norway from Bergen to Oslo, we decided to take the train. We heard that the train ride between the two Norwegian cities was one of the most beautiful rides in Europe, and after experiencing it for ourselves, we would have to agree that it was worth the extra time to take in the incredible views. We got to sit back and put our feet up (in the most literal sense, since I sprained my ankle 20 minutes before our train left) as we made our way through the countryside of Norway.
Bergen to Oslo --- Train - Duration: 7 hours 15 minutes - 449NOK per person ~$55 per person - NSB Train
***Side note: The staff on the NSB Train from Bergen to Oslo were incredibly kind and supplied us with an ice pack for my injured ankle. They also helped us figure out where the nearest hospital in Oslo would be, and gave us the address to the hospital so we could get my ankle checked out upon arrival.
Cruising in our Campervan
For the time we were in Iceland, we had one main mode of transportation. It happened to also be our home the majority of the days we were in Iceland. During the planning stages of our trip, we decided we wanted to travel around the whole country via the Ring Road. Knowing that we would need to rent a vehicle to do this, and thinking of all the places we wanted to stop along the way, we decided that renting a campervan would give us the most flexibility. That way, we didn't have to book accommodations ahead of time for the nights throughout our trip around Iceland, we would be able to stop at campsites along the way whenever we got tired. We had the flexibility to go as far or as short as we wanted in a day, as long as we had our map of available campsites to park at for the nights. This was probably the best decision we made when planning our trip, and we couldn't have been happier in our home on wheels.
When looking into Campervan options, we discovered that there were many more options that we initially thought.
Some of the companies we looked into included:
- KuKu Campers -- Our company of choice!
- Rent.Is
Campervan details: KuKu Campers -- 8 days, 7 nights -- $1318 total (including the Insurance Golden Package and the extra fee to drop-off the van at the Airport)
*not included - cost of gas* -- Coming soon will be a post devoted to all the cost details of the trip. Stay tuned!
After looking into prices, reviews, pickup and drop-off locations, and other details about the vehicles, we decided to rent from Kuku Campers. We were very happy with our choice for our home on wheels, and the company was accommodating to our needs, gave us helpful tips, and offered reasonable prices. For more information on our Campervan experience, keep your eye out for my next post about Going Kuku for Iceland!
I hope this post can help guide some people in the process of finding flights, trains, and campervans. We were very happy with each of our choices for transportation on this trip. Hopefully you can find methods that work equally well for you :) If you have any suggestions for other sites that have helped you in the past, or other companies that you recommend, please send me a note and I'll check it out. I'm always looking for more tips to make trip planning a little easier :)
*All opinions from this blog are exclusively from the author. No endorsements or sponsorships were received in exchange for positive reviews.*