Exchange to Europe will be incomplete without touring Europe.
During my time in Finland, planning out my time is crucial as I have to allocate enough time for my studies and use other time to travel around Europe. Travelling around Europe is not so much of a hassle as countries were near one another. Imagine landing 20 mins just after take-off.
The first trip that we went for was Lofoten Trip which was organised by the school. Travelling there was painful as it was a 20 hour bus ride one-way from Tampere, Finland to Loften, Norway. However, sights there were pretty and we were lucky to be able to see Northern Lights as well!
Planning for our own trips were tougher than I thought. We had to factor in price changes for plane and bus tickets. Public transport in certain places were sparse as well. This is especially important in more rural areas. Bus and trains in Europe follow their schedules very tightly and in more rural areas, some buses only run twice or thrice a day, meaning that if we miss a bus, there will be no other bus for the next 4 to 5 hours. Nevertheless, with proper planning, I got to enjoy the trips to the fullest.
One of the most memorable activity for me will be skydiving, even though it is the most expensive one as well. It is 100% worth it though. The whole experience was surreal and definitely worth trying at least once.
The last road trip that I organised was a trip to the Koli National Park. This was one of the most highly recommended national parks in Finland. Due to the fact that there was no public transportation to the national park, my friends and I had to drive all the way to the national park. Even though it was close to a 6 hours drive one-way, I would say that it was definitely worth it as we got so see many things along the way.
(There was a rabbit chasing our car which was going at 50km/h WOW!)
The views from the national park were also fantastic and I will never trade this experience hiking with other exchange students for anything else. This is one of the memories that I will treasure the most.
