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About the trip Traveling Camera Backpack Things to bring with you

Traveling

Car or Train?
Besides the expensiveness of a car, I rather travel by train because it's a much more relaxing way of Traveling You can enjoy the scenery instead of paying attention to the road and you are not sitting alone for all the way. It's also safer, better for the environment and often quicker as maximum speeds in Scandinavia are around the 90km/h on main roads.

Interrail or Scanrail?
Buying independent tickets can be really expensive. A rail card is therefore a must. Just a small example. A ticket from Stockholm to Göteborg costs around €45,- if you travel outside rush-hours on the intercity train. On the high speed X2000 train it costs you €90,-. Considering you only travel on cheap tickets you could make around 6 journeys for €250. For the same price you can also have a rail pass with unlimited rail travel.

The options are Scanrail and Interrail. Below the differences between both cards:

Covers: Duration: Price:

Interrail Zone B: Norway/Sweden/Finland + another zone (e.g. Germany/Denmark/Austria/Switzerland) 22 Days €289,-

Scanrail Norway/Sweden/Finland/Denmark 21 Days €249,-

The cards usually don't cover mandatory seat reservations, supplements for high-speed/night trains and they offer the same discounts for e.g. certain ferries. If you want to travel towards Scandinavia by Train, the Interrail card may be the better choice. From the Netherlands it is a small journey to Germany from where you can take a night train to Copenhagen and from there to Sweden/Oslo. Disadvantage is that you need to pay supplements and you are making a very long journey.

As I will be using the aircraft to get into Scandinavia (which saves time and isn't that expensive) it is obviously a better deal to take the Scanrail card. Scanrail is also available in a cheaper version: 10-days Traveling within 2 months for €215. The €35,- extra for the 21-day card is a better deal however, you can take the train everyday then and don't face the risk of paying money for an 11th travel day.

Flying to Scandinavia
Low-cost airlines sometimes offer very reasonable deals. I have managed to take fly to Copenhagen and back for €39,-. This time I will be flying with Germanwings from Cologne-Oslo and from Helsinki-Cologne for almost €60,- Together with my with scanrail card transportation will cost me €300,- for 3 weeks. Though I have to pay some supplements (in total around €80,- for boats/supplements and night trains).

If I drive 17km on 1 liter of gasoline it would cost me over €600,- (considering fuel costs €1,15/l) to drive 9000km (5300 through Scandinavia and around 2000 to get there and back). This is excluding supplements for toll roads, boats and parking fees.

Camera
I bought a new digital Camera for the trip. All the picture you see on this website I have taken with the Canon PowerShot S1 IS. I have only had it 1 week before I went on holiday and didn't had much time to test it. The only serious consequence this had was that I was not prepared for the heavy battery usage. I trusted on Alkaline batteries which are good for around 100 pictures. NimH batteries (2x as expensive) can last to 500 pictures. I ended up on the 2 best moments of my journey that the batteries got empty and I couldn't take much pictures.
So a good advice, always bring a set of spare batteries, make sure you get the right ones and consider to use rechargeables. Also make sure you have got enough memory for your camera (256mb can fit around 500 pictures with high quality).

What camera to bring along on holiday depends on the needs. Point-and-shoot camera's are very suitable for quick pictures. When you see something you can grab your camera quickly and take a picture within seconds. A larger camera (like mine) is less easy to carry around and take more time to focus/zoom etc. It takes some time to take a picture and you are tempted not to take a picture of everything that way. The quality however can be considerably better and you have far more options when taking pictures.

Backpack/Day pack
The backpack is essential for traveling like this. I got a 75 liter backpack, enough for about 15kg of equipment. More you shouldn't take with you anyway because it's quite heavy carrying all that stuff around. A day pack is also essential so you can walk around with something light while visiting a city. My backpack had a zip-off day pack which was quite small (a 1,5litre bottle of water barely fits in it). You don't take much stuff with you that way but a slightly bigger would have been nice. Zipping the day pack on and off is also useless. When the day pack is zipped-on the day pack the weight gets unequally divided and you are being pulled backwards while walking. Carrying the day pack in the front instead of on your back is a good solution. It looks stupid but is much more comfortable and is usually only needed for a short distance. I only used my big backpack while walking to/from a hostel and left it there while going into town. In cities where you don't have accommodation you can store it in a baggage deposit.
To protect the big backpack from any damage I have a cover which I can zip over the straps. This way the backpack looks like a normal travel bag and it is much safer to have it carried in the aircraft or train. Flight bags may also help, but this is also extra weight and volume.

Things to bring with you
I could make a whole checklist of things to bring along, but everybody knows what the normal things are to bring along. Therefore some advise on what to bring with you:

Make sure to have decent shoes, when walking a lot a 2nd pair may be handy, though 1 pair may be sufficient. Socks are very important as well. For the rest, don't take much with you. Bring along thin clothes which you can carry in layers when it gets cold (1 t-shirt and 1-blouse with long sleeves is as warm as 1 sweater).

Also make sure to bring proper rain-equipment with you. Traveling around for 3 weeks means a 100% guarantee for some rain, especially if you visit Bergen. Even in a sunny place like Barcelona I got surprised by a huge eruption of rain which even flooded the subway stations. Umbrella's are useless, a rain jacket is a must! For your backpack you can use a rain cover, or use spray to make the backpack waterproof. I kept important documents (like the train ticket) in a plastic cover, when water gets into your bag, your documents stay dry anyway.

Don't completely fill your backpack, you will need the extra space while traveling (to store food or souvenirs for instance).
A decent travel-guide is a must. I relied on the Lonely-Planet guide for Scandinavia, it may not contain much pictures but does have all the info you need on accommodation, places to eat and sights in the town. When you are walking in a city you don't need pictures anyway! You'd better take some pictures yourself.

A language guide can be handy, I strongly recommend to learn some words of the language of the country you are visiting. It doesn't only help you to get around, also local people are much more helpful if you show the respect of trying to speak to them in their own language. The most important words to know are: "Excuse me, do you speak English?" "Hello", "Goodbye", "Please" and "Thank you".

If you really like to read you can bring along books, but I found out that they are a waste of space, I brought 4 books with me and didn't read one of them because there was so much else to do. Long train journeys sometimes have breathtaking scenery and when the scenery is boring you can catch-up some sleep easily in a train. If you have no books with you and want to read anyway you can always buy a pocket at a bookshop, many larger cities sell books in English.

A travel journal is also handy, it's a diary and travel planner(agenda) in one. When traveling around you experience a lot, and writing down all those experiences is a good way to tell your story, especially when there is nobody around to listen to. And it is fun to read back what you have done during the day. And you can pass the time with it when sitting in the train. I didn't take a travel journey with me, but after a few days my note block was converted into a small travel journal (with not enough space). Next time I will have one with me.