Heres how to the trip to Stockholm in January awesome. We booked Stockholm in January on a whim as the flights were so cheap and we’d never been before, and thought why not? Even with ridiculously early Ryanair flights to an airport 70km from Stockholm in January when it was minus 8 degrees (in the day!) Here’s the Mind over Money Matters way we made it an awesome, memorable and totally perfect long weekend.
Read our blog Can you have an awesome trip to Stockholm with really cheap flights? to see how we booked it, and our Stockholm in January, what you need to know blog here. This is how we made the answer YES to the getting from home to the hotel experience. The theories here work when you are going on any trip, we are showing you how to maximise the joy and maximise the value of your whole experience.
To have the best experience possible whether it’s a day trip, a short break, or a long Summer holiday, you need to be aware of the following.
- The experience starts the moment you decide where you want to go. Immerse yourself in the planning, the research, finding the best deals, best value, decide what you need to include to make it perfect for you. Read my How to find the best deals for your trip article for a great checklist.
- Little details often overlooked can really elevate your holiday, from the getting to the airport to arriving back home. Budgeting for these and including them in your planning will make a massive difference. I’ll be adding a Airport transfers, lounges and food article soon so subscribe to be alerted when it’s added and you’ll see why.
- Make packing a joy not a chore. If you’re travelling with hand luggage only check out my Essential hand luggage checklist.
- Know what to expect when you get to your destination, and pack / plan accordingly. My things you need to know if you’re visiting Stockholm can also be used as a checklist for other destinations.
- Make a top 5 list of things to do and make sure you do them. Don’t come back with regrets – even if what you do turns out to be a bit of a disappointment (Van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting in Amsterdam – any one else?)
- Get out of your comfort zone, try different activities, different foods, different anything. When you do something new your mind kind of makes a mental stamp, like it stops time. The easiest way to explain this is – when we were kids summers seemed endless, we remember so much, like our first bike, brownie camp, detentions, arguments about school shoes. Now as we are older we say we’re so amazed at how quickly time is flying by and we use these time anchors to make sense of it. Four years since we moved house, 3 years since we went to New York with all our kids, 10 years since we got married (maybe 9, we can’t really remember, and it was end of March sometime!). What did you have for breakfast last Sunday? So do something new and memorable and pause time for a while. Think about last year – seriously how much of it was memorable? How much routine? I will be writing an article exploring this in more detail, subscribe to be notified when it is published.
We started with a 3am alarm. In our world 3am is a mythical time only experienced at Holiday time. I’m not great in the mornings, pretty grumpy to be fair until I’ve stretched my back out, had a tea, shower, and a coffee. Taz is, let’s say a reluctant flyer, pretty much hates flying so needs to zone out. We’ve built a routine that works for us, knowing what to say and do and what not to.
So we arrived at Stansted at 4.15am, we picked the meet and greet parking which we’d not done before and something magical happened. It was dark, cold and raining outside when we pulled up at the entrance and we were welcomed with a wonderful, happy, friendly good morning by the parking guy, a bit of chat and he told us where to drive to, then another happy, friendly chap got us parked in the right place and showed us how where to take our keys. We’d got a really good deal on this parking but the ease and experience was worth more.
Stansted meet and greet reception – great start to the trip
With Ryanair priority and cabin bag you don’t need to queue up and check in at the desks, you just take your boarding passes and go through security. We had our liquids ready and through we went. Easy. You can get fast track through security for about £7 per person (there’s often discounts if you sign up to Stansteds’ mailing list, same with most other airports). But we were through in 15 mins without fast track and enjoy the people watching and overhearing conversations. Put the liquids back in our cases off we went.
Then we headed straight to the lounge for breakfast, and chill out in comfy seats with WiFi and charging points. We went to the No1 lounge as this was one of our freebies with the Amex travel rewards credit card. It’s a pleasant, non fancy lounge. Friendly happy staff, decent food, a comfortable and pleasant place to spend an hour or so at 5 am. We took a bottle of water from there with us for the plane and went to the gate.
We did cut it a little fine as we didn’t realise we had to get the train to the gate but best thing about that was we joined a very small queue and were then told to skip that queue and go to the front as we had priority boarding! Not sure why people are so keen to get on the plane and queue for ages. Get to gate 10 mins before it closes and chill. You’ve got your ticket, you’ve got your seat number, you’ve got priority so there’s going to be a place for your case. Make the most of the lounge.
Stansted No1 Lounge, a great way to relax and fill up pre flight.
The Ryanair flight was pretty standard cheap flight stuff, basic, seats don’t recline, but hey we paid £26 each way for that flight, that’s fantastic value. The crew were pleasant enough. We didn’t buy anything on the plane, we’d already eaten at the lounge and had our water. Why people are buying grim looking expensive paninis at 6am is beyond me. A little bit of planning – see my hand luggage checklist here, makes for a far more enjoyable experience.
One thing that I learned was this. I always pay attention to the safety briefing, when they say life jackets are under your seat, I always make sure. This briefing said life jackets may be under your seat or above your head, what the! There was not one under my seat. Looking above I could see that they were up there, dropping down if needed. There’s so many people not paying attention to the briefing this should be made ALOT clearer.
Landing in Stockholms Stavska Airport (not really Stockholm or anywhere near but we knew that). It’s the smallest airport I’ve ever been to with the longest queue to get out! We were pretty much the last out of the plane (we had seats near the middle near the emergency exits). Next time we would probably pay more for seats near the front. We were all basically in a long, not very wide corridor which led down some stairs to passport control. Most of the queue we found out as we got nearer the stairs was for non EU passports. If you have an EU passport try and make your way past everyone (takes some nerve I know) and get to the stairs where a staff member will be telling EU passport holders to come out of the queue and go to the quick line.
Once through passport control you go through baggage reclaim, at the end you’ll see a machine where you can buy bus tickets, there’s also a countdown to the next bus on here. Ignore this machine totally and go out to the main area. Near the exit there’s a place you can buy tickets and they give you the correct bus time info. If you’ve bought your tickets online via Flygbussarna and have them on the app (well done that’s the cheapest way) check with them when and where the next bus is going from. They seem to wait for a flight to land, fill the bus and off they go. Timings on the machine are wrong.
We thought the bus trip would be lovely and scenic but really it was just a view from a main road until you got nearer to Stockholm, beautiful yes as it was snowy but we dozed for most of it. Nice and comfy though, and warm and supposed to have Wifi but it wasn’t working. There was phone charging points though. All great for about £12. It was about an hour and a half’s ride. The driver was friendly and helpful and there’s no tipping expected or allowed.
The bus arrived at T Central Station and we had already decided we were going to walk to the hotel, we’d looked it up on a map and it was only about 1km, 10 minutes. The bus driver helped point us in the right direction and we asked him how to say Thank You in Swedish – its tack, brilliant and easy. Hello is Hej. That’s all we needed to know.
Stockholm Fabrique no way we could walk past this display.
We got about 20 metres and could not resist the lure of a coffee shop. It was called Fabrique, apparently they are in the UK too, we will have to seek them out. Lovely staff, great coffee and delicious food. A welcome break. Back outside we seemed to have been walking for ages and stopped to get our map out. A lovely lady came to our rescue and walked with us pretty much to our Hotel, she was American and had lived in Stockholm for 15 years, she had a friend in Northern Sweden where it was minus 34. Oh and her husband was just buying a new tv lead, she was on her way to meet him. We seriously love conversations like this.
We got to our Hotel – The carefully chosen Downtown Camper Hotel, walked into the lobby and instantly knew we’d made the right choice. Our review is coming soon , subscribe below for updates.
After the best weekend in Stockholm written about in our Stockholm in January, what you need to know blog here, we headed home. It was pretty much the same experience as getting there, but in reverse. And just as good. We walked back to the Bus Station via Fabrique – it was on the way and we knew we had to stop one more time. We bought rolls (delicious breads and Cinnamon) for the plane. As the bus got nearer to the airport it was snowing heavily and so beautiful to see, proper snow for miles and miles. Stavska Airport has a very small duty free so don’t expect to stock up on booze and cigs. There is food (expensive of course). It’s much better to buy some before you get there. There is a Subway at the Bus station which is usual subway standards and not too overpriced.
There was a lounge at the airport but not one included in my lounge card. We didn’t really need one there though as we’d bought out food with us and there were plenty of seats – we even found some comfy ones. And a hot chocolate was delicious which was lucky as it was about £4. Our Ryanair flight was on time and fine and the meet and greet parking was as friendly and efficient as it was on the way out. Top marks.
So all our planning really worked to maximise the joy and maximise the value of our holiday. We would have been sacrificing our Joy if any one of these really important elements had been missing. So next time you’re planning a get away, do it from start to finish and you will be really happy with the results.
We even did this for our Perfect Weekend break without going anywhere, check it out. It was silly, fun, cheap and an awesome weekend. This is the Mind over Money Matters way of saving money and maximising Joy. Also let us know in the comments if you have any tips for parking, lounges or travel, or Stockholm. And be sure to subscribe for more like this and share with friends.
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