Thursday, January 08, 2009

What's in store for 2009?

Just as important (perhaps more important) as recapping the year that was is start planning out the year to come. It's winter, it's freezing cold outside, I'm still in thet midst of a moving process that seems never ending, and here I am with no trips to look forward to. Something needs to give, and as it's unlikely to reach 70 degrees in the next few days, I've turned to the prospect of trip planning.

With the pound being such a useless currency these days, people are having to do a bit more thinking about where they might go this year. Expensive enough at the best of times, the main Euro countries are basically out of contention (France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Greece, etc). Lucky for us, Europe happens to contain a lot of countries, and not all of them are euro-based or as frequently visited by tourists.

So in our quest to plan a trip (so we have foreign travel to look forward to), Mark and I have started looking towards Eastern Europe. Well, not too far east. Essentially, the following countries have made it onto our radar: Hungary, Croatia, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Slovakia is technically a Eurozone country, but has only been so for a week now, so I feel like there's still potential. Slovenia is also a Euro country but is also relatively uncommon and therefore hopefully still packs some value for money. Hungary features Budapest, which has gained some status as a weekend city break destination. And Croatia looks really pretty!

Mind you, we are very early in any potential trip planning, but our idea of the day is to fly into Slovenia (the name of the capital is totally unpronouncable in my book, nor can I spell it) and to rent a car and go on a bit of a road trip featuring some of Slovenia and surrounding countries (it's a little one, so the neighboring countries aren't that far away). Again, we're still early in our idea stage so any opinions or suggestions are welcome!

2 comments:

mark said...

The pound was at one point worth less than 1 euro last month considering about 4 years ago it was 1.7 everyone is thinking 6 euros for a pint is now looking a tad expensive! What happened in Ireland was that every flocked to northern ireland to get the jan sales with an extra boost of the currency exchange!

I have always wanted to check out the eastern euro coutries though and flights are still a bargain plus Italy is next door if you fancied some nice pizzas and wine!

Anonymous said...

Your ongoing desire to visit these countries is still beyond me :-S