5 Quirky things to do in Prague

During a recent trip to Prague and thinking that an easy Google search of "what to do in Prague" would bring up some cool ideas I was quite disappointed to find every website just list museum after museum. So what do you do in Prague if your here for just 3 days and want something a little different? Well check out my list of the top 5 non-museum things to do!

Deals of the Week 27th Aug - 50% off trains, Miami for £244rtn + more

Another round up of the best deals floating around the internet this week. With the best looking like some great flights to Miami or New York from Inverness for as little as £244 return with baggage.

50% off First Class at Virgin Trains

Book before the 28th of Aug to recieve 50% off first class rail fares with Virgin Trains (travel between 11th Sep until 20th Dec)

Virgin Atlantic Summer Sale

With flights from £359 there are some great deals flying from the UK flying to Dubai, Caribbean and North America. Receive an additional £16 saving if you book via Top Cash Back, sign up here if your not a member to receive a bonus £2.50 on your first cash back..

• Economy fares from £359 return 
• Premium economy fares from £600-£800 return 
• Upper Class fares from £1400 - £1800 return 

3nt Iceland break with tour - £319pp

Iceland Air are running a special winter promotion where you can get a 3 night trip to Iceland including tours for just £319pp. The best deals are flying from Glasgow but you can also fly from Manchester, Birmingham and London.

7nt in Trinadad & Tobago - £899pp

How about a 7 night All Inclusive 4* Spa holiday to the Caribbean staying at Le Grand Courlan for just £899pp. Check out this awesome deal from Caribbean Warehouse. Prices are flying from London but other departure points are available. 

Qatar Airways 10% Discount 

 Qatar Airways are currently running a 10% discount code for all premium fares, by using "UKPREMIUM" when booking a flight you can save yourself 10% on the total cost of the flight. Although not the greatest discount its still worth considering as it would bring most business class routes down to £1500pp. Still not a huge saving but worth it if you were planning on a business class flight soon anyways. Book before the 30th of Aug. 

And if there are are NZ or Australian Readers out there you too can recieve a 10% discount on not just premium but standard fares also, NZ use "FLYNEWNZ" and Australia use "FLYTEN".

Cheap Flights

From Glasgow to Madrid - 10th - 14th Jan 2018 = £19rtn
From Glasgow to Barcelona - 5th - 9th Dec 2017 = £20rtn
From Glasgow to Barcelona - 12th - 19th Dec 2017 = £19rtn
From Glasgow to Warsaw - Nov & Dec = From £17rtn

From Glasgow to Las Vagas - 11th Sep - 21st Sep = £340rtn

From Inverness to Miami - 10th - 18th Oct 2017 = £255rtn
From Inverness to New York - 10th - 17th April 2018 = £288

Buy Cheap AVIOS (0.8p per mile)

Buy super cheap Avios (0.8p per Avios) via the Irish Independent until 30th Nov, sign up to a digital copy of the Irish Independent here and receive 18,000 Avios for your €160 subscription. You don't need to live in Ireland to receive this and at no point will you be asked for your home address. This is a great way to buy Avios at 0.8p per mile which you can't loose money on, ohh and you get a years digital subscription to the Irish Independent.

Want the latest travel deals and stories to your inbox? Join my mailing list here and be the first to know when great business class flights of cheap luxury holidays pop up. 

Best places to visit in Italy - Itinerary of where to visit, stay, travel and do (for just £999pp)

Fancy a rail tour of Italy but don't know where to start? Why not try my 21 day tour which spans from Tuscany to Lake Garda visiting some incredible places on the way. This post is best viewed on a tablet or computer since it is packed with information. 

Best Airbnb's in Paris

Everyone needs to visit Paris once in their life, its an incredible City full of culture, architecture, great works of art and of course incredible food and wine. Known as the City of light from being a vast education centre during the age of enlightenment, it's name still lives strong through the lights of the Eiffel Tower to the Moulin Rouge.

Deals of the week - Best travel deals this week, 13th Aug 2017

Well its Sunday again so that means another round up of the best travel deals floating round the inter web this week. The stand out deals are flying business class on Alitalia half way round the world for just £1200. I would hold off booking too far in advance with these guys considering their current financial problems tho.

Cheap Business Class Flight to Chile - £1230 Return

Have you ever fancied visiting Chile but been put off by the thought of cramming yourself into an economy seat for 15 hours? Well your in luck! Alitalia are running a very good deal to Santiago (capital of Chile) flying on a 777 and in the comfort of business class, check out the details of Alitalia Business Class here.

To put this into context it would normally cost you £3500 return to fly Business Class to Chile from Europe and £1100 return to fly economy from Glasgow so this really is a bargain!

Air Italia - Business Class Seats on their Boeing 777

I have put together a sample trip to Chile but the cheapest flights at £1265 are travelling from now until the end of October, from then on the price is still good at £1600 but getting a little to expensive (you can also change the duration from 1 to even 6 weeks if you want).

Connection

The flights will leave from Amsterdam so you will need to book yourself a flight over there. I would recommend arriving the night before at the latest on the way to Chile and allow for around around 6 hours connection time on the way home. You can see my example below of how I planned for a 2 night stay in Amsterdam to make this a twin centre stay.

Where to Book

You can use a simple Google flight search or just click on the link below and select the box with the date in it to select other travel dates and durations.

Amsterdam - Chili = Air Italia Business Class (lie flat seats) = £1265

Glasgow - Amsterdam = KLM economy = £90 

Example Schedule

Departing Glasgow 2nd October 9:00
Arriving Amsterdam 2nd October 11:50

2 days in Amsterdam

Departing Amsterdam 4th October 17:50
Arriving Santiago 5th October 8:00

11 days in Chile

Depart Santiago 16th October 11:50
Arrive Amsterdam 17th October 10:45

Depart Amsterdam 17th October 21:00
Arrive Glasgow 17th October 21:45

Hotels & What to do?

With Chile having so many incredible places it would be wrong to just stay in the one place so I would recommend heading over to Chile's travel site here which has a great planner allowing you to build your own itinerary. You can fly internal to visit some of the most stunning national parks in the world or even head to Easter Island for a look at the stone heads.

Hiking Lochnagar Munro in the Scottish Grampians

It's been quite the year of outdoor activities for me and Jess, we've hiked up Creag Meagaidh and wild camped at the banks of Loch Laggan, camped at Oban Live, Arisaig and spent 3 nights camping on the Island of Islay (blog post coming soon). So when our friends asked us to hike a Munro with them we were mega keen on adding another Scottish Mountain to our bag .

Munro: Lochnagar
Area: Cairngorm National Park
Height = 3789feet or 1155meters
Facilities = Car park, Toilet, Wee Shop
Walk Highlands Link 

Being a 3-hour drive from Glasgow we planned an early 6am start, this, of course, did not happen and managed to get out of the door at 8, whoohoo go us. With the forecast not looking great we were starting to think we should plant the seed with our pals for an all-day session in the pub instead! Luckily for us the Scottish weather forecast is about as reliable as an old Alfa (car joke, I know I'm super funny) and turned out to be a pretty decent day.

Arriving to a full car park we luckily managed to find some space in the coach park up the top and parked almost half in a ditch but it was a space none the less. From here we booted up and headed off on the 7-hour hike into the clouds! Handy note, there's a toilet in the car park which is open from 6am -10pm.

If you follow the same route as we took, the hike to the peak is well marked and besides one little bit of scrambling up rocks was a decent path all the way. From the top Loch, you can see the peak and will take you around 1.5 hours from here to reach it. The idea of lunch at the top kept us going at this point so we soldiered on for food.

Nearing the peak things got pretty wild and felt like we were back in winter, luckily the rock formation at the top offers some much-needed shelter from the hurricane Arctic winds. The view from here was incredible and a top spot for lunch.

It's at this point when you've seen the view, had your lunch and accomplished the peak that you realise your 4000 feet up and 4 dam hours from your car. With no slide or zip-line to the bottom we dragged ourselves down the hill step by step, encouraged by the idea of celebration drinks in Aberdeen.

I was promised a cool waterfall on this hike and after asking the whole way, where's is it? Is it down there or over there? We finally stumbled upon it and it was pretty dam cool!

Just when you think you have reached the home straight at Loch Muick reality comes crashing down when your still walking along the edge of the loch after an hour! Ahh when will this walk end, I need beer!

Well you will be happy to know that after the end of the Loch we found the car park and all made it to Aberdeen, where we proceeded to drink far too much, stay out till 3AM and all woke up with horrific hangovers, sign of a good night?

Big thanks to Matthew and Nikita for the invite to Aberdeen for this little trip, it was awesome!

Lochnagar is a pretty easy hike, it takes quite a while but with an excellent path and facilities at the bottom it's a great starter Munro (just remember to take a wind breaker jacket).

Liked this? why not read our other Munro Hike up to  Creag Meagaidh at the start of the Summer

Deals of the Week - Best travel deals currently available

Back again with the best deals going round the Inter Web this week! I'm going to start this as a regular post on a Sunday so keep checking back for some great deals (or sign up to my mailing list to receive instant news when flash sales or offers occur).

Best Campsite in Arisaig - Scotland?

With the forecast looking great and the camping gear itching to get out Jess and I took a little trip up the west coast of Scotland to the stunning white beaches of Arisaig and the Hogwarts Express.

Its quite a long drive from Glasgow (3.5 hours) but the scenery along the way is incredible, driving through Glencoe with the sun shining made for some pretty dramatic shots. Surprisingly the road was quite straight and we arrived in Arisaig just before dinner.

Don't like reading or want the quick story? Check out a one minute Youtube Video to see what we got up to.

Our first mistake, we didn't book a campsite and forgot that the whole of Scotland takes the day off when the sun comes out so everything was booked up. Luckily for us we found a tiny campsite on a farm which was un-signposted and lay just feet from the stunning white beach of Arisaig. The only way I can show you this campsite is with the GPS coordinates since I couldn't find a name and its not mentioned in Google maps (56.925204, -5.869055), there is a couple of tiny camp sites along the coast so should be room at at least one of them.

The site is very basic and contains just a little toilet block in the middle of the site, but the view and surrounding area well makes up for the lack of facilities. Added to the fact you can have campfires on the beach and it wasn't crowded (probably due to the lack of signage) we found it perfect.

The local beaches in Arisaig are quite famous for their white sand and crystal clear waters and I can see why, if you watched our Youtube video you will see just how incredible this place is.

After a quick swim in the sea we took to the hills to hunt out the Hogwarts Express, actually called the Jacobite steam train. You can hike up to the Glenfinnan Viaduct made famous by the Harry Potter films to watch the train steam past.

If you park in the carpark you can take a short walk to watch from a distance or take the longer walk to the bridge which loops around and back to the carpark (1 hour walk). The train passes during the summer months and the best time to watch is 3pm when you will see both the steam trains pass in opposite directions. If you prefer the comfort of riding the train rather than walking you can book yourself a seat here for the 2 hour journey from Fort William to Mallaig (2nd class return = £35 or 1st class return = £59).

Burnt to a crisp and baking in the heat we finished off the 1 hour hike and swiftly fell into the car blasting the AC on max to cool down. Best cure for a little afternoon sunburn? A swim in the sea! So we headed back to the campsite to cool down before dinner.

It's not just the beaches that Arisaig is famous for, the sunsets here are epic too and lucky for us the weather was perfect for watching the sunset from the beach. With some fire wood, marshmallows and some Old Pulteney Whisky we took to the beach to watch one of the most in incredible sunsets ever.

Next morning, we packed up the tent and set of on our long trip back to Glasgow. I highly recommend a trip to Arisaig to camp or just check out the stunning beaches, it's quite easy to get to being just 40mins from Fort William and has plenty of walks within the surrounding area.

I hope you enjoyed this post, keep tuned for our next camping adventure, Islay! Where we hiked some wild landscapes and visited one too many distilleries.

Our Tent

A side note for anyone who's interested in our gear. We had no idea which tent to buy when we started out so we just copied our pals, which turned out to be a great decision. If you're just starting out with camping and looking for a great lightweight and well-built tent I can't recommend our two person Vango tent enough. You can buy one from Go-Outdoors for around £200 which may seem steep but the quality is well worth it!

Click here for more info or to shop our tent. 

Liked this Adventure? why not check out our Camping trip to Oban last month here.