If you’re a regular reader of Inside Laura’s Head, or if you’ve had a look around, you’ll know that my favourite trips are always countries that are more off the beaten track. Those countries, though, tend to be more difficult to get to, more expensive to get to, or both. I thought it would be cool to write a bit about visiting these more unusual countries, because many people have said to me ‘oh you can’t get to X’ and I want to be clear that you CAN, it’s just trickier.
Take for example Luxembourg, which has been on my list for a while. I can fly to Belgium, The Netherlands or Germany, and take multiple trains or buses to Luxembourg City. But I’ll be changing train/bus a few times, it’s probably too much travel for one day, so it would need to be spread out. You’re looking at a few nights in hotels in cities I wouldn’t necessarily be wanting to visit, just to get to Luxembourg City. Or, I can fly direct, from Manchester, but flight times give me longer there than I really need, and they’re expensive.
Serbia is another example. There are no direct flights from northern airports, and when we did our summer Balkans trip in 2023, we just couldn’t make Serbia work, mostly because we were also doing Kosovo, and those two countries are NOT friends.
I am, at 34 countries and counting, running low on cheap, easy to get to countries now and as I want to keep visiting new countries to hit that 40 before 40, I need to get creative!
I love my multi country trips, as regular readers will know, and I’ve realised that I can fly from Luton to Belgrade and then on to Sarajevo, hitting Serbia and Bosnia in one go, and then fly back to Luton. If I can get enough time off work, I can then fly from Luton to Tblisi and cover Georgia, or I’m thinking of Istanbul to Tblisi in the future. It’s highly likely that one of these trips will happen in September, for my 3rd anniversary with J.
Barcelona, a city I’ve visited as a child but not as an adult, is high on my list and I can, for about £100, add on a day in Andorra, hitting another new country. When I visited Zurich in January, the plan was always to go to Vaduz, Liechtenstein, but the terrible weather caused such a long flight delay we couldn’t make it. Basel, to be able to visit some Switzerland, some France and some Germany, with a short train to Zurich and then on to Vaduz, is on my radar for another future trip, albeit a pricy one.
It does seem like Serbia, Bosnia and Andorra are going to be in my next five new countries, but I’m always open to new ideas so if you have a weird one with a route I’ve not thought of, let me know!
Sometimes, when there’s a country you really want to go to, you just need to think outside the box to make it work. I’d love to hear about any countries you’re struggling to work out, you can let me know in the comments (and maybe I can help?)
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