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Podcast

Living the RV Dream Episode 67 – Going Back to Key West

August 10, 2018 Robert 2 Comments

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Living the RV Dream Episode 66 – RV Travel Research Tool

August 3, 2018 Robert 1 Comment

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Europe, Finland

One Day in Helsinki, Finland, Europe’s Northernmost Capital

July 29, 2018 Robert Leave a comment

Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital of Finland, and its most populous urban area. If you want to know more here’s the Wikipedia article. This is where we are began our epic road trip. Before that, however, we decided to spend a day here and get to know this city a little bit. Here’s a handy link to my video.

Camping in Helsinki

The most convenient campground to park your RV in Helsinki is Rastila. While it is little more than a parking lot, there are hedges between sites, and it is impeccably located. You walk three short blocks and you are at the metro station. Helsinki, like most modern European cities has excellent public transportation and for 9 € you can get a day pass, good for the metro, the bus, the tram, and the ferry

The campground itself has all the expected facilities such as bathrooms, showers, laundry, dump stations, even kitchens and a TV room.

Things to do

Well, this is more like “Things we did”. In any case it is still a good list, and we did return after the road trip and explored a little more. That will be another whole video and blog post though.

As soon as we got off the metro we walked a few block to Senate Square. From there we enjoyed a great view of the Helsinki Cathedral, which is a very iconic building. They were having a festival celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Finnish Armed Forces. Finland as an independent country is a relatively new nation, being under Russian and Swedish rule in the past.

From here, Market Square and the Old Market Hall are a short walk away. They are both super touristy but worth a visit if you want to try some marinated smoked salmon or any other local delicacy. Market square in particular is also a great place to get souvenirs. From here we took a ferry to an island called Suomenlinna, where there is a famous fort, UNESCO World Heritage site. It is a great boat trip with great views of the harbor and the Cathedral.

Helsinki as seen from the Suomenlinna ferry

Two other places of worship come to mind. One is the Church on the Rock. It is basically a structure carved on a rock with a copper plated ceiling. When we went they were having a rehearsal, but they often have concerts as well because of the excellent acoustics.

The other one is commonly called the Chapel of Silence. It sits on the corner of Narinkkatori, one of Helsinki’s busiest squares. It is supposed to be a place to relax and take a break from the hustle and bustle of the city.

Commanding View

If you want to get a commanding view of the city there are two places I can recommend. First one is the Skywheel, which we did not take. It is a Ferris wheel near the harbor. All the glasses are blue so you may get a cool colored distorted version of the city. Instead, we went to the rooftop bar at the Torni Hotel, where unfortunately they don’t serve food, but they have a great local IPA. It is also one of the few skyscrapers in Helsinki.

Esplanadi and the Savotta Restaurant

We returned to Senate Square walking through Esplanadi. It is a very wide avenue, more like a city park, with great ambiance, sidewalk cafes, shopping, and street musicians. We came full circle back where we started to have lunch, more like early dinner at a restaurant called Savotta. It is quite pricey but it serves traditional Finnish cuisine in an upscale environment,

For more details watch my video below

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Podcast

Living the RV Dream Episode 65: John and Kathy Huggins

July 27, 2018 Robert Leave a comment

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Europe, Norway

Our Accidental Visit to Oslo

July 22, 2018 Robert 3 Comments

Back Story

Back in 2015, Petteri Vähäkangas, a friend from Varkaus, Finland contacted me with an offer I couldn’t refuse. He told me “If you ever come to Finland, you can use my travel trailer for free.” Three years passed and I finally decided to take him up on his offer. Now he owns a small RV rental company called Savonia Caravan, so he offered a motorhome instead. I was really stoked because I have wanted to try a European style RV for a while and see how things are done on the other side of the Atlantic. For several months we communicated through messenger, and created a very ambitious plan for the two weeks we would stay in the Nordic part of Europe. VIDEO

Petteri and I at Rastila Camping in Helsinki

Delayed Flight

The day finally came. We had booked a flight to Helsinki on Norwegian airlines, with a short layover in Oslo. In the back of my mind I said “wouldn’t it be cool to see Oslo as well, the Norwegian capital?” but with only 2 hours there would be no time to spare.

I turns out the flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Oslo was delayed by several hours, and even though the agent at the airport said that our connecting flight would wait for us we were skeptical. Nine hour later, when we arrived at Oslo, there was no flight to Helsinki until the next day. Norwegian Airlines put us in a hotel, gave us some meal vouchers and basically said “we’re sorry”. We said “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade” and that’s what we did. We opted for an afternoon flight, so we would have the whole morning to explore Oslo.

Visiting Oslo

I had always heard many great things about the Norwegian capital, a vibrant city. Also we were in Norway, the land of the great navigators, explorers, and Vikings. Names like Roal Amundsen, and Thor Heyerdahl come to mind. I had also seen pictures of this park with hundreds of naked statues. That night, very quickly we drew a plan to take advantage of the few hours we had, and decided to do at least one museum, wander downtown a little bit, and the aforementioned park.

Getting to Downtown

Luckily Norway has great infrastructure, and there is a fast train that goes from the airport to downtown in just 20 minutes. We left our bags in storage at the airport terminal and soon we were walking on the deserted streets on a Sunday morning. Distances on the map often look shorter than in real life and it soon became evident that our ambitious walking tour of the city would be out of the question.

As we arrived by the City Hall we decided to take the ferry that goes to the museums. There are several: The Viking Museum, the Fram Museum, and the one that I wanted to visit, the Kon Tiki. Here they have preserved the balsa raft in which Thor Heyerdahl crossed the Pacific Ocean. He wanted to prove his theory that the indigenous people of South America might have populated Polynesia in pre-Columbian times. The museum was fascinating, and a very picturesque boat ride on a perfect weather day.

Vigeland Park

As time was running out, we went straight to Vigeland Park. That’s where all sculptures are, 212 to be exact, all designed by Gustav Vigeland over the course f 20 years. The park is one of those places where you could spend several hours wandering around. It is a great place for locals to escape the hustle and bustle of the busy city. I am going to call Oslo the “city of statues”. You can see some kind of work of art at almost every corner.

We wished we could had lingered longer but we had a plane to catch. We just got a taste of this great city on this accidental visit, but it left us wanting more. We’ll revisit one of these days, on purpose next time.