My Travel Plans for 2025

So far, I am planning to go to six countries this year; Finland, Estonia, France, Wales , USA and Greece. I think that is around the same amount of countries I went to last year. I'm going to an all-inclusive in Greece with my family at the end of September. My mum and stepdad went there on their honeymoon and they said it was lovely. They think I will love swimming in the clear water and enjoy walking around. It will be my first time going to Greece and I am looking forward to going to an all-inclusive again where I won't have to do a lot of meticulous planning on where to eat out and what to do.

Though I find when I travel on my own, I plan everything into detail, sometimes I stick to it and sometimes I wing it. But when I'm travelling with others I just go with the flow. Neither are as stressful, it's just nice to do different things and not stagnate. I don't know what we will do in Greece, but I'm sure the weather will be great. Perfect summer weather is rare.

Finland is a country that I've wanted to go to for a long time. One of my favourite bands, Nightwish originated from there. I am fortunate enough to have seen them in Wembley three times. One of my favourite singers, Tarja is also Finnish and she was their first lead singer. Going on a cruise to Norway and also going to Iceland made me want to explore other Scandinavian countries too.

I've booked a hostel in Helsinki. I'm not sure what I will see for the main tourist areas, but I would like to go and visit a sauna and drink coffee. I will most likely visit McDonalds there just to try out the foods that we can't get in the UK. I heard they do rye bread and that their vegetarian options are very good. On the Saturday I am there, I will be seeing Lordi in concert. Lordi won Eurovision nearly 20 years ago. I think it's going to be amazing to see Lordi in their home country.

I've booked a ferry to Tallin from Helsinki too. In Tallin there is a bar dedicated to Depeche Mode which is one of my favourite bands. I also have a friend who lives in Estonia that I know through Pokemon Go, and if we become lucky friends on the game we will do a trade. And on the weekend I am in Finland and Estonia, Pokemon Go do big events, so I can use the Campfire app to see if there's any meet ups going on to help me get some good pokemon on that game.

I think internationally, Paris is the city I have visited the most outside the UK. There's always so much to do there this year, Go Fest is being hosted in Paris and I've never been to a Go Fest before and I think it would be a lot of fun. I would love to go back to the vegan Japanese resturant that I went to. I believe it was called Cafe Mori. When I left a comment on one of their pictures on Instagram, they said they can't wait for me to come back.

Anime Expo in Los Angeles is a convention I really want to go to. Some of my friends that I made on a pokemon forum often go there. Even though none of us go on that forum anymore, we all kept in touch though different means like Skype, Facebook and currently Discord.

My best friend, Vee also boasts about Cardiff. She said it's one of the best cities in the world. She has Wales in her heart and she calls the place her second home. This year will be the year I will actually go to Cardiff.