15 THINGS WE LEARNED IN THE TRAVELING YEAR OF 2016

When we decided not to start university right away, we knew we still had a lot of knowledge coming our way. In the three years that has passed since school, we've learned more about ourselves and the world we live in that we could have in any geography lesson or therapy session.

We made a few discoveries and even more mistakes, and when we sat down to summarize this year, it was quite clear which bigger, and smaller, things that impacted most on us.

And now we want to share this with you, good people that we are, so you don't need to do quite as many mistakes as we did this year, but also to give you a shortcut on amazing things that you can learn about your own abilities while traveling.

Read and be aghast. Or amazed. And leave a comment in the section below.

WE ARE MAKEOVERED!

"7000... what?"

"...Sure I can write it down...."

_____________________

Oh god were we tired of that.
Trying to brand when you barely remember your own blog name?
Not our best idea...

SO NOW we're still two idiots on the road and I don't think any amount of traveling will change that, but our blog name is officially

- SUITCASEPACKING -

...!!!

LISEBERG CHRISTMAS MARKET

Fake snow in heaps, snowmen on parade and a fantastic tale on ice. 

We grew up today,

bought blue cheeses for hundreds of kronor

and drank glüweihn without having to show ID.

Christmas at Liseberg has been a part our holiday celebration since it opened 2001. 

It's the perfect place to go for afterworks, gift shopping, getting full on free samples... 

It's also quite romatic, if you're into that.

CAFÉ REVIEW: SeaCup Café

"I know a place by the sea", 

Victoria said to me regarding the friday-fika we'd planned, 

and I was immediately intrigued. 

Both because she'd brought me to great places before, 

but also for being in Eriksberg again. 

I've spent many picture-perfect summer afternoons 

strolling the quayside by some of the most expensive appartments in Gothenburg. 

So the mood was set, but did it end up as good as we hoped?

Will I trust Victoria to find us a place for four-hours of gossip and coffee again? 

READ ON AND YOU'LL SEE... 

FAVORITE SPOTS IN ASIA - AND WORST....

For Sofie 
en voor Lovisa,

who are also suffering from 
being-stuck-in-Sweden-when-
you-want-to-explore-the-world 
-aches

SOULFUL SEOUL - A photo essay by Jonas & Julia

Earlier this fall, Julia's boyfriend Jonas went to South Korea to study korean. 

Julia sure is Felicia's sister and therefor seized the opportunity to visit him during the end of his studies. 

Felicia and Jonathan seized the opportunity to get their hands on some asian pictures since the traveling aches was starting to get to them.

And also because we love the idea of spreading traveling inspiration and tips even for places we are yet to visit. 

We want to be a place on the internet where you go to get tips and inspiration for your next trip for as many places as possible, as well as the place to go and take a minivacation and be amuzed when everyday life isn't that exciting.

Look at the pictures, read the cations and escape to hypermodern yet traditional Seoul for a while... 

WHAT TO EAT IN SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA

When you can't travel yourself,
you drool over somebody else's traveling pictures... 

ON THE TOP OF TIANMEN MOUNTAIN, CHINA

Our problem is our ambitions being too high sometimes.
For this post we originally wanted to do a whole guide with prices, tips, maps for this day of ours on Tianmen mountain  - Tianmen means heaven in Chinese - in Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province in China.

But then time goes so so fast and editing photos is a betch and we were back in Sweden again, back to 9-5 and laundry times and trying to keep floating. And our fenomenal advice and anekdotes from the day were left in the fog on the hill tops.

But you know what? We have to remind ourselves that Something... not quite what we had in mind is still better than Nothing at all.
So here it goes. This are our best pictures from the day when we knocked on heaven's door.

SOMEWHERE IN STOCKHOLM

"I'm from a place where we never, openly show our emotions

We drown our sorrows in bottomless bottles and leave them to float in the ocean

I'm from a place where we never, separate people from people

Some generalize, but in general I still believe that we are treated as equals"

"Somewhere in Stockholm"
by Avicii

MOVING ON - ABOUT ASIA, NEXT TIME AROUND

The world is big and bold and waiting right there, but for now, other, less adventerous things has to claim its place in our lives too.

Since Felicia came home from North America, a lot of exiting thing have happened in Sweden for us. Jonathan has started a new job at Volvo and Felicia works for a daycare until Christmas. With a 9-5 lifestyle for the first time in our grown-up lives, the cameralens starts to focus on other things and before we knew it, we had found an appartment.

It all happened very fast. A tuesday in september, Felicia was home sick searching for places to stay. Within half an hour the phone rang. "Do you want to come look at a place, like, tonight?" the voice on the phone said and off we went, feverish and all.

We got to see the appartment and decided there on the spot that we wanted it. The very same weekend we started to ship stuff there and by sunday night, we were all done.

TRÄDGÅRDSFÖRENINGEN IN GOTHENBURG

Light was unfortunately falling and so was the temperature. 

Autumn is coming for real, and soon, but yet we have a couple of nice bright days left. 

LENS FLARE IN SLOTTSKOGEN, GOTHENBURG

Summer is soon to be over, but with global warming extending the 25 C temperatures all the way to October, we took a chance that we would have at least one more cloudless weekend, and took to Slottskogen for some photographing, pokemon-catching and sucking in the last proplets of sun.

We were in luck.

LISEBERG - SCANDINAVIA'S BIGGEST AMUSEMENT PARK: Day 1

This summer, we've been fortunate enough to spend two picture perfect days in Liseberg, one of Sweden's biggest tourist attractions (for a good reason? we'll see...) which also, coincidentaly, happens to be where we both work.

In Gothenburg, almost every kid is crazy about Liseberg. It's the place you go with your friends on your first outing by yourself at thirteen, and it's the place to bring your first date at sixteen. In our childhood, one of the highlights of oth summer and winter was to go crazy on rollercoasters for a whole day, or stroll around and taste as many types of candy as possible in the cozy christmas market.

One might think that when you go to an amusement park every day all summer, it's not that amusing anymore, and in the beguinning of this summer, we were ready to agree. But working in happyland also has its perks - free tickets for us and our friends. So we decided on reliving our childhood utopia and do a real thing of it this year; tourpasses for everyone, tons of ice cream and a positive attiude even though the tolerance for turning upside down seven times in a row had drastically decreased since our youth.

And you know what?
It was as perfect as it could be.

TRAVELING THOUGHTS: ABOUT OWNING THINGS

I, Felicia, just came home from a month-long trip to North America and upon entering my room in dads appartment, I just felt like crying - not because that I hated to be home, or that I missed my overseas family (well, not only), but because the room looked like a bomb of things had exploaded inside of it.

There were things on the chair, things on the windowsill, things in heaps in the corner, and even if Jonathan had done a terrific job cleaning the floor, the room felt more like a storage unit than a place were we actually spend our life.

Have I always owned so many things, 

so much clothes? 

Do I need all of these things, like, really? 

Well, I knew the answer to the last question right away. There I stood, with all things I'd needed in four weeks, in just one suitcase. Of course I didn't needed any of the others things for my survival, but there in the doorway I suddenly realized I didn't needed any of it for my happiness either.

A perfect example of things you don't need but is oh so tempting to buy anyway. Pictures from our post on Baefong Lake in Zhangjiajie, China

BEST PICTURES FROM OUR TRIP TO NORTH AMERICA

A fantastic month, with all its ups and downs, has come and gone, leaving us with nothing but our memories. 

...And of course a harddrive overloaded with pictures. 

For those of you who doesn't have energy to read all the text, here's the story of our trip, told in photos.

CAPILANO SUSPENSION BRIDGE PARK

WHAT: 

A park with rainforest trees turned in to a tourist attraction by putting up a big suspension bridge over a canyon and some smaller bridges between the treetops.

ON THE SPANISH BANKS

DAY 22

SPANISH BANKS

Vancouver seems to be neverending with beaches, just as the time we spend on them. I got my first real sunburn for the trip today. It'll be perfect for the crayfish party season in Sweden that is very much in full swing when we return.

It is the last whole day in Vancouver and although both me and Julia misses our boys like crazy, it feels sad to leave the rest of the family. They are a bunch of globetrotting, funloving, (extremely) goodlooking people that I spend way too little time with because of the globetrotting, but I still love them for it.
They're constant traveling just too stay in touch with each other - we have relatives on dad's side in Germany, UK, Sweden and Candada, with inlaws adding Israel, Pakistan, Denmark and Russia to the list.
It's suddenly clear why I feel this aching hole in my chest whenever I'm not on the road...

NUDIE BEACH & WEDDING-TIME

DAY 19
Today was the day of Museum of Anthropology and, most importantly,

THE DAY OF THE WEDDING

and it was magical and amazing and tearfilled and everything you want a wedding to be. 

The start of the day didn't quite match the end of it though...

KITSILANO BEACH

DAY 18

KITSILANO BEACH

The weather gods has been our friends ever since we left Sweden. I've started to forget what rain looks and feel like. Here in Vancouver, skies are always blue and water is always blue and everything but our feelings are blue. Okay mine have been a little blue. I still miss Jonathan. But today, not even his nest of blond hair and his cute smile could make me wish I was anywhere but here. 

THE 6,236 KILOMETERS BETWEEN US

Traveling, in general, are absolutely awesome. Seeing new things all day long makes me rush-y, inspired so to the point that I can never put down the camera.

Bloging has given traveling a new dimension as well. I can write and edit photos and process the day and its new experiences at the same time. By doing so, I feel like I get the time and opportunity to really appreciate it. It doesn't feel like a fantastic day that is now gone, it feels like a day preserved in the time capsel that is the written word and the taken picture. I never feel more alive than when I stand speechless somewhere beautiful, after having just taken the perfect picture of it and know that I'll always have the memory.

Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, 

the cliffs that seems to be made of something out of this world

GASTOWN, VANCOUVER

DAY 16

A trip back in time?

UWAJIMAYA MARKET

DAY 14
Yesterday was the last day in Seattle, a week we finished of with great fanfare by eating our way through Theo Chocolate Factory in the midday, and eating our way through Uwajimaya Asian Market in the evening.

THEO'S CHOCOLATE FACTORY

WHAT: 

A tour in a chocolate factory specified in fairtrade and organic chocolate. And delicious chocolate.

CHIHULY GARDEN & GLASS

DAY 12
Friday morning and today's plan was... non exsistent. I don't think I'e ever seen my strong-oppinioned family like this - everyone wanted to do something but no one wanted to decide on anything.
Since we live on 1st Ave here in Seattle, the excitement starts as soon as you walk out of the door, so we let the feet decide. And the feet led us to Space Needle.

..Only thing was, none of us really wanted to go up in it.

BEACH'N SEATTLE

DAY 10

You can’t be on top every day.
I fell asleep at 2.30 am and mum slept even less, so the morning was slowstarted. We had plans on going to the beach – everyone except me, that is. I have very little patience for the sand and dampness and constant flow of wind making the hair all humid and greasy that comes with spending time there. I had looked forward to spending the day at the library, catching up on the days I’ve yet to blog about and get some well-deserved time alone. Sometimes I wonder if I even like people at all when enjoying being on my own so much, but I guess you get tired of the silence eventually. (?)

We started off the morning America-style with donuts, bagels and coffee and with just one bathroom for 5 people, the line to it made each of us wait for like an hour. During this hour my mum succeeded in convincing me of tagging along to the beach, which of course ment me and Victor running around catching Pokémons anywhere else but the beach. 

CHEWING GUM WALL OF SEATTLE

We decided to take the feet down to Pike Place Market this morning. We have rented a flat on first avenue, so almost everything tourist-y in Seattle is walking distance.

We hadn't gone for more than five minutes when we arrived at another famous tourist place by accident, and probably the most disguisting one available in the whole state:

SEATTLE - HERE WE ARE!

HOW WE ARRIVED TO THE U.S 

AND 

“WHY ON EARTH ARE MY DIVORCED PARENTS TRAVELING TOGETHER?”

This is gonna be a long one...

THE WORLD'S SMALLEST WORLD

Once upon a time a young man travelled to Canada to visit his mother. This was way before internet, way before dubstep killed the clubs - even before yours truly was born. And back then, times were simpler. People didn't need big advanced technology to keep themselves entertained. And the young man, back in the 70's, visited the tiniest, smallest things of them all and were very happy with his day.
Twenty years, three kids and one divorce later the man wasn't so young anymore. His kids has grown to be adults themselves and were always desperate to be entertained (aren't all of us 90-00's kids?). So the man brought them on a trip back in time, to a place that, despite its name, grown bigger in the last decades:

MINIATURE WORLD 

AFTERNOON IN VICTORIA

DAY FIVE 

MASTERING STROLLING IN VICTORIA

The sky was clear, more azure than cornflower blue. The temperature was hot, but not unpleasantly. North America, especially South Canada, has been under a massive heat wave the last couple of days, but whereever we've been, the perfect middle temperatures seems to have followed. 

TRAVELING ACHES AND ABANDONED PIANOS

DAY FOUR
ARRIVING IN BRITISH COLOMBIA 

A day of traveling is usually not a good day. Everyone is tired, there's ferries to catch and stuff to be packed and brought.

GRANVILLE ISLAND

DAY THREE 

Last day in Vancouver, the first turn, we checked out Granville Island with all of it's markets. We met the cousins and aunts by the Water Park and then continued on to the Public Market, where we got some food. I'll let the picture speak for themselves.

STANLEY PARK-ING

DAY TWO
Apparently, you can't visit too many parks...

With little to none say in schedule-making, I nicely followed where my parents led me. And actually, quite glad I did. Stanley Park was next park in what seems to be the eternal amount of parks in this city, and what waited us outside the car when we finally found a parking lot was quite amazing.
On one side, we had the bay with the impressing silhouette of gas town. On the other, we had totem poles making an outdoors gallery for everyone to enjoy.

QUEEN ELIZABETH PARK

DAY ONE

The weather was bright, the sky was clear, the family behaved... 

After sleeping from 9 o'clock in the evening, the jetlaged forced us to wake up by 5 in the morning. Nethertheless, we were eager to see some Canada and asked our hosts where to go. Just down the block, or sort of, there was a park, they said and gave us directions. 

ONE IDIOT & FAMILY TRAVELING NORTH AMERICA

It's time again to cross the big ocean, in the other direction this time. This time for the cause of a wedding. For almost 4 weeks Felicia and her... let's call it unique family are going to check out the land of maple syrup and free healthcare, as Barney Stinson would put it.

We'll start in Vancouver to check out the city and meet up with relatives. After a few days there we'll take the ferry to Vancouver Island and fulfill mum's dreams of going somewhere English in British Columbia (why not just take a one hour flight to London then, one might ask...). After that we will drive the little car we've rented over to the land of hamburgers and crazy people... and stay for almost a week in Seattle.

TIME IS FROZEN AT FLICKORNA LUNDGREN

As last entry fortold, every summer, we try to go to our aunt in Skåne and live the countryside dream for a couple of days. This year, work was eating all our time and even with rescheduals and countless tries to get some extra free days, we still only manage to stay for 2 nights this summer.

During these days we did have time to go kayaking, ziplining and tobogan-ing, as well as celebrating our aunt's grandson's 2nd birthday - but we didn't have time to visit the best café in all of Sweden:

Flickorna Lundgren på Skäret. 

So this entry brings you back to a sunny, wonderful afternoon last year in july, when we drove the minivan to Skäret, a tiny tiny village in southern Sweden, and enjoyed an nostalgic Astrid Lindgren-like afternoon with a piece of Princesstårta and freshly brewed coffee.

TOBOGAN AND ZIPLINING IN HALLAND

So we went south in the most wonderful way possible - we went to visit Felicia's aunt in the tiny community Kvidinge in Skåne. Tagging along were also Felicia's sister Julia, 19 yo, and her brother Victor, 15 yo.

Coming from a somewhat stressful, modern city like Gothenburg, going to Skåne makes it feels like you're going back in time, or that the time has stopped. All three of the Axelssons have always visited Skåne during summers and family bithdays, so that might be a reason for the nostalgiac feeling.
Last year, we invited Jonathan to this tradition and soon it became a must even for him.

When arriving at aunt Cina's idyllic house that is pretty much equipped with everything you'll ever need in a Swedish summer, like an outdoors hot tub, a strawberry garden, a glassed-in porch, it was hard imagining finding a reason for even leaving the grounds.

Luckily, Cina is a master at finding things to do and we left for Kungsbygget, a ski slope that turns in to a tobogan/zipline in the summer.

FENGHUANG - AN ANCIENT EXPERIENCE?

In the middle of Hunan Province in the middle of China, there is a whole town that is UNESCO-marked for being the same all these years, I think it is over 400 or so. When planning the trip at home, this seemed like a wonderful little adventure out of our usual comfort zones with beautiful scenery and the authentic chinese feeling we feared we weren't going to experience in Beijing and bigger cities.

STREET ART OF GOTHENBURG

In the last couple of years, we've enjoyed street art around the world as a highlight of our trip. Just take Lennon Wall in Prague or the mosaic wall in Hanoi as an example. So when we started to explore our own city, we started seeing street art everywhere.

Why not photopraph it then, we figured, and off we went.

CAFÉ REVIEW: ORANGE n BLK

ORANGE N BLK 

We stumbeled upon this newly-opened gem while walking around in inner city photographing street art.

 Here's our thought, pictures and stupid comments.

GOTHENBURGS BREAKFASTS: Kafé Vanilj Review

We love to eat big breakfast here in Sweden, at least according to Ula in the 2005 major-failiure movie The Producers. One of our favorite things to do in our apartment is to have long morning-breakfasts scrolling around on our computers, making the morning proceed for longer than lunchtime.

The most important part of these morning are each others company hah no. It's of course coffee. Sitting with a cup of coffee playing the Sims 2 while Jonathan is looking at Yogcast playing Civilisation (a.k.a perfect nerd-morning) is plain heaven.

But sometimes we socialize - no, really, it's true. And this morning I decided to take heaven outside of our home and into the city. I met up with Ida for trying out Kafe Vanilj's hotel breakfast.

HOW TO SURVIVE A LONGER TRIP WITH SOMEONE

Before Asia 2.0, we had some trips on our record. We'd been in London when we both had a lot of money saved and not a lot of things they should cover. We'd been to Prague for six days just taking every day as it comes. We'd been to Bali and been so happy we were reunited that the rest of the world wasn't really important.

But for all of those trips, we were away for maximum two weeks. How were we supposed to tackle the trials that comes with being together 24-7, for 60 days? How were we going to not drive each other crazy or start fights over differences in opinions?

Communication, we figured. We have to talk this through.
So we did. And did again. And did some more. And we came up with a couple of questions that everyone that's going on a longer journey with someone should ask each other.

These little 'relationship-exercises' are better performed in the company of a bottle of wine, as all exercises ever are. 

THE GREAT WALL - BADALING SECTION

The last day of many many on the road, we decided to do something... quite memorable. Let's go to the Great Wall to finish this 8 weeks of in glory, we said to each other and scrolled the internet for a good last-minute-tour.

ONLY IN CHINA...

AFTER TRAVELING ANTICLIMAX

Hej kompisar!

We are trying to juggle with a lot right now. We have pictures left from Vietnam, especially Ha Long Bay, that we havn't yet showed you yet (and they're gorgeous!) as well as from The Great Wall, the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven and a lot of more sights. We're also currently working on a list of things you might want to know before going to inner China... 
We have budgets to show so you can see how much you'll actually need for your own trip, we have mistakes to confess and victories to celebrate.

Still havn't told you about the time we got locked in? 

Well... Another time. 

GORGEOUS GOTHENBURG: TÅNGUDDEN

Trying to convince ourselves that the beauty in the world is not limited to unfamiliar contries, we went on a stroll down Tångudden and Nya Varvet as tourists in our home town.

FAIRYTALEIC FRANKFÜRT IN PICTURES

Before finally arriving on familiar soil again, we had one last stop. Initually, I had planned on spending our 12 hours in Frankfürt the same way I'd so many times before: walk the streets of this narrow airport from one side to another until I found pretzels. But I've been blessed with an intelligent boyfriend who thought to seize the opportunity to see some Germany, and off we went.

It was a beautiful day, sunny, with a clear blue fairytale sky to match the wooden houses straight out of Hans and Gretel. We were not prepared for european weather though - exiting Haupfbanhof station 9 o'clock caused for some shivering in the cold air. But soon enough the warmth of midday struck upon us and we continued strolling with content.