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Preparations for Lithuania
August 1st, 2019
In this post I will share with you my preparations for the trip to Lithuania. This will be an updated post as I write it while preparing. The goal is to share with you the way I plan a trip, and I would also love some help with your ideas. Lithuania is my first solo travel as a dad (except for one night in Lisbon which I will tell about in another post). After I bought the tickets, I decided to create the blog. so lets start.
Why Lithuania?
Evening, summer, I lie on the hammock in the garden, and start dreaming of distant places. Fly away for a few days off. That was before I decided to start a blog, and before I seriously talked to my partner about the idea of traveling solo. So I’m on the hammock, opening SkyScanner and searching for flights through the Anywhere mechanism (which allows you to search for flights anywhere in the world only by a specific date, or an entire month). I see a really cheap flight to Lithuania for the upcoming weekend. I Google Lithuania, and more specifically Vilnius, the capital, and Kaunas. From the amount of articles I understand quite quickly that there has been some buzz around Lithuania in recent years, and a few minutes later I realize that part of this buzz is an effort by the Lithuanian Tourism Bureau to promote tourism in the country. Despite this, I felt there was enough to do and see. Apparently the marketing worked for them.
But the truth is I really think there is something to do and see everywhere. Everywhere there are people to know. Everywhere there are experiences to experience. You just have to come open. So in the end the decision on Lithuania was made for 2 main reasons – a cheap ticket, and a place I’ve never been to.
Buying a ticket
So first I coordinated expectations with my partner, and it was decided that I should do it in September, preferably in the weekend. The next step was to look for a ticket in SkyScanner. I know that many other blogs recommend lots of flight search engines, and maybe someday I’ll try them myself, but for now I feel that SkyScanner is the most flexible, comfortable, and usually also gives the cheapest prices if you search right. I found a ticket for 166$, Thursday through Monday, from September 12th to September 16th. Depart with Wizz Air for 29$! Return with Ukrainian Airlines for 137$. Not the cheapest, but because I was looking for a ticket on a weekend, and a relatively short trip, it did raise the price.
I did not take any extras on baggage, seat selection, etc. (other than 1$ on a phone update on flight changes). I was also considered flight hours, I land in Vilnius at 16:55 in the afternoon, so it leaves me time to get impressed with the city in the evening and spend time when I arrive, then travel for 3 days, and fly back on Monday at 7:05 pm, make a connection in Kiev, and land in Israel at 14:20, so I can be with my family in the afternoon. I checked now, two weeks after I booked, and today they no longer have this flight time, and the cheapest price for these dates is 192$, and the cheapest ticket for similar hours costs 280$. That’s how I got out 144$ because I booked early. So the date was July 15 2019, and I have a ticket for September 12th.
How do I choose a place to stay?
The next step was to look for accommodation for the first night. I like to find a place for the first night, and after the first night i’ll decide what to do. If it’s a nice hostel, then I’ll stay another night, and if not, I’ll go on a search for another hostel with one of the apps, and through that, I’ll get to know the city.
When I solo travel, I like to stay in hostel dorm rooms, for 3 reasons – the price, the opportunity for meeting new people, and the fact that the dorm room pushes you to spend time outdoors and not get stuck in front of the TV in the room.
The main site I use is booking.com which I am sure you all know, and in the case of hostels I also open hostelworld.com. I make my choice according to 3 key parameters.
First parameter
The most important parameter in this regard is the score. it is most important to try to choose places that are in grade 9 and above, but provided you look at 2 important parameters in addition to the score:
Number of reviews (hotel with a score of 9.5 with 20 reviews, could be worse than a hotel with a score of 8.5 with 1,000 reviews)
Review Content – I always read a representative sample of the reviews. Many may have lowered the grade for not having an air conditioner in the room, but I come in the winter anyway, and I have enough heating. So also pay attention to why grades are going down or up.
Second parameter
The second most important parameter for me is the distance from the center. I personally like being within walking distance of the center of interest, but if you like to be transport by public transport, or if it’s really expensive downtown, then don’t consider this parameter. For each hotel it’s written how many kilometers away from the center, and I take it into consideration. You can also arrange the hotels appearance according to the distance from the center.
Third parameter
The third parameter is free cancellation. First of all, I book something nice, but I make sure the cancellation is free, in case I find a better place later. In the case of dormitories, and one night, it is not that critical, because even so, the price is a bucks per night.
So after an hour or two of searching, I decided to do my first night at POGO HOSTEL. Considerations: Score 9 (with about 800 reviews), 600 meters from the center, 13$ per night, reviews of friendly staff and a common place to stay and meet people. Some of the reviews said it was too quiet there, so if it really was that way and there was no atmosphere of getting to know people, I would look elsewhere.
What the hell is there to do in Lithuania?
The next step is to look for information about Lithuania, and before I dive in, I think about what I would like to do when I arrive in the city? This time I set myself the following:
- Get to know the city through my feet
- Eat good vegetarian / vegan food
- Going out to good clubs and pubs
- Visit attractions (interesting museums / parks)
- nature
The idea is to first read fully and get lost in the sea of information, then to make order out of it. The aim is not to plan the trip myself, but to be aware of the possibilities that are ahead of me.
In this case, if before diving into the sea of information, I wondered if I might get bored, and I’ll be fed up of Lithuania pretty quickly, now I’m worried I’ll never be able to do everything I want.
You are welcome to continue reading the second preparation post, which includes everything there is to do in Vilnius, in a nutshell.
