Planning a trip in late August/ September

[dangolf18]

I'm planning a 2-3 week trip in late summer. Any suggestions? I'm in my mid 20's and been to most countries in Western Europe. Have never been to Asia before. Any cities that have awesome selections of cigars at good prices or any cities with htf regionals? I was thinking of Northern Europe but they are not on the euro so probably pretty pricey.

[Jager223]

Finland is on the Euro and you'll have a great time and good weather in August too. It's not a cheap place to visit though and drinking can be expensive in central Helsinki - plenty of great little neighbourhoods to drink with the locals on the outskirts though, and the prices are a lot more reasonable. You could also jump on the ferry to Tallinn, Estonia - check out The Oak Lounge in the old town. Prices are quite reasonable (compared to the UK, Estonia is very cheap for tobacco and alcohol). Also worth checking out Tartu in Estonia, great nightlife, good looking women and your money goes a long way. What's not to like! Failing that, you can also jump on a ferry over to Stockholm from Helsinki too. It's not cheap, but it's a very nice city. You could also take a short 2-3 day visa free trip into Russia from Finland, I know there are companies that offer trips to Vyborg and I think they might do St. Petersburg too these days. Loads of possibilities that'll keep you busy for 2-3 weeks. If any of that is of interest to you, let me know if there's anything else you want to know, I lived in Finland for a few months and go back almost every year.

Edited to add: 'cos i'm kinda a travel addict, some alternate suggestions. The Balkans are very nice too, if you're wanting to see a lot of very different places that aren't overly touristy I can recommend a route I took about 3-4 years back through Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia and Montenegro. Great if you like eating lots of grilled meat too.

For cigars then you must visit Gibraltar, definitely the cheapest i've seen in Europe and the selection is pretty good, but check how much you are actually allowed to take without paying duty (it's 50 cigars if you're British). Nice place, but 3-4 days there is enough. You could bum around Spain/Portugal for a while from there, or hop across to Morocco (haven't done that yet, but it's on the cards!). Hope that's given you a few ideas anyhow.

[dangolf18]

Finland is on the Euro and you'll have a great time and good weather in August too. It's not a cheap place to visit though and drinking can be expensive in central Helsinki - plenty of great little neighbourhoods to drink with the locals on the outskirts though, and the prices are a lot more reasonable. You could also jump on the ferry to Tallinn, Estonia - check out The Oak Lounge in the old town. Prices are quite reasonable (compared to the UK, Estonia is very cheap for tobacco and alcohol). Also worth checking out Tartu in Estonia, great nightlife, good looking women and your money goes a long way. What's not to like! Failing that, you can also jump on a ferry over to Stockholm from Helsinki too. It's not cheap, but it's a very nice city. You could also take a short 2-3 day visa free trip into Russia from Finland, I know there are companies that offer trips to Vyborg and I think they might do St. Petersburg too these days. Loads of possibilities that'll keep you busy for 2-3 weeks. If any of that is of interest to you, let me know if there's anything else you want to know, I lived in Finland for a few months and go back almost every year.

Edited to add: 'cos i'm kinda a travel addict, some alternate suggestions. The Balkans are very nice too, if you're wanting to see a lot of very different places that aren't overly touristy I can recommend a route I took about 3-4 years back through Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia and Montenegro. Great if you like eating lots of grilled meat too.

For cigars then you must visit Gibraltar, definitely the cheapest i've seen in Europe and the selection is pretty good, but check how much you are actually allowed to take without paying duty (it's 50 cigars if you're British). Nice place, but 3-4 days there is enough. You could bum around Spain/Portugal for a while from there, or hop across to Morocco (haven't done that yet, but it's on the cards!). Hope that's given you a few ideas anyhow.

Wow! I really appreciate the suggestions. Lot of food for thought. Gibraltar and Andorra and definitely on my short list. Morocco is an interesting idea, but went to Tunisia a few years ago. When you did your trip in the Balkans, did you rent a car or take trains?

[Jager223]

I travelled by bus/coach through Serbia, Bosnia and on to Croatia then hired a car in Dubrovnik and took it into Montenegro so we could get out into the mountains and countryside. Very cheap place to get around, because of the topography the buses are quicker than the trains in some parts (particularly when considering Belgrade to Sarajevo) but the trains are meant to take a very nice and scenic route. I spent 2 weeks on this trip and 3 weeks would have been perfect. I'll try and dig out a few pictures from that trip, 'cos it's a massively underrated part of the world. Mostar and the Bay of Kotor were particularly good!

[Jager223]

A few of the more interesting things from my trip, 'cos you can Google loads of pictures of the cities and to be honest, my camera was old as the hills and I spent most of the time in varying degrees of inebriation.

Roadside snacks in Serbia, the menu is simple, you can have meat or nothing.

View overlooking Sarajevo, really nice little city with some great nightlife. Gotta indulge in the local delicacies too, burek washed down with a lot of beer. Lots of great places to have some decent coffee and chat to the locals. There's the old winter Olympics facility in the hills, you can get out there, but there are still mines. It's an interesting city with lots of history, for example, it was where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, one of the key events leading to WW1 kicking off. Of course, there's loads of interesting places key to the 90's conflict.

How it looks at street level, in the old part of town.

Worth stopping at Kravice Falls too, you can get down to the water via a rough path and it's great for a swim. My picture really doesn't do it justice, it's a beautiful place.

Worth visiting here too while in Bosnia, Pocitelj - UNESCO heritage site, an old fortified town where medieval and ottoman collide.

Mostar, great place to stay to see the two places above. The bridge is awesome too, but go to Google Images for that as my pictures don't do it justice. It's a pretty cool place to hang out, the locals are all pretty friendly and it's quite low-key compared to Sarajevo, plenty of little bars where you can hang out and play darts or shoot pool with the locals. People are really friendly here and most have a few interesting stories.

Still a lot of battle damage in the city, this is taken from a building that was used as a vantage point for sniping and something heavy like a 20mm cannon that had chewed up a section of road that still bore scars while I was there. The city was divided East/West by the opposing Armies, if you go there, the locals will tell you a helluva lot about it.

Plenty of nice hostels to stay in too

Descending through the mountainous countryside, you eventually get to the Adriatic, this is the Bay of Kotor in Montenegro. Think it's becoming way more popular as a centre for tourism these days. So i'd advise getting there before it's overrun by coachloads of people with selfie sticks. Food and drink here loses the more meat-centric Balkan influence and becomes Italian influenced. Great seafood!

Worth walking up Mount Lovcen, the Mausoleum at the top is awesome - another one you'll have to Google as my pictures suck. I think I was in April, there shouldn't be snow in August.

You can see three countries from the top of Lovcen too on a good day (Albania, Croatia and Montenegro).

Kotor itself is real nice, popular with the wealthy on their gin palaces in the summer. Great place to base yourself out of in Montenegro.

I finished up in Dubrovnik. It's nice, but expensive and very touristy. It's Kings Landing in Game of Thrones if that excites you. It didn't excite me much and so I got told off for walking on the walls without a ticket. It's a nice city though and there's lots of good food and drink.

Nice place to finish your trip though, espescially if you've been slumming it a bit.

All in, it's a great part of the world if you want to have a bit of an adventure and venture off the beaten track. Some of the other travellers I met out there had good things to say about Kosovo and Albania too, so don't rule them out. If you head up further North into Croatia then I can recommend Rovinj and Pula as pretty decent places in the summer. If you decide to go and want any recommends for places to stay or stuff like bus info then give me a shout. There's probably more info out there now than there was when I was planning my trip, but it's pretty simple to get around, even with the language barrier. Your money will go very far too