When you can’t decide where to go… sometimes it’s best to leave it to the Skyscanner Gods. Filtering by date and price order, the decision was made for us to go to Gothenburg in Sweden for my twin sister’s hen do!

From our short 4 day trip, here’s my top 5 things to do when visiting the city:

CRUISE ALONG THE GOTA ALV RIVER ON A PADDAN BOAT TOUR

A boat tour is always a good idea to see any city from a different perspective. Our tour guide was called Max – a stocky ginger Swedish man with a pot belly and beard. As we cruised along he pointed out key buildings and bridges and made more than a few jokes. Our boat was long with no cover (so remember to dress for the elements) and he said that when the tides are high people have to lie down on the floor to avoid hitting their heads on the low bridges!

This cost around 190 SEK (£15) per person, and lasted just under an hour.

stromma.com

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GET LOST IN THE BOTANICAL GARDENS OF PALMHUSET AT TRÄDGÅRDSFÖRENINGEN

Our visit was in April, and although it was bright sunshine the temperature still felt icy outside! This made the warm Palm house at Trädgårdsföreningen all the more appealing! Inspired by the Crystal Palace in London, it opened its doors to visitors in 1878. Separated in to 5 sections, the further you walked in to the middle, the warmer and tropical the atmosphere becomes. All it’s missing now is some butterflies!

tradgardsforeningen.se

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EAT CINNAMON BUNS IN HAGA

If you’re visiting Gothenburg, then the area of Haga is an absolute MUST. A short walk from the city centre, it’s pedestrian streets are lined with cute independent shops and cafes. Don’t forget to pop in to Café Husaren for one of their famous cinnamon buns, or feast on one of these delicious marshmallow-topped cupcakes! (if you know the name of these please comment below!)

<Rosie’s Hand For Scale

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TAKE A TRIP TO THE GOTHENBURG ARCHIPELAGO

Unfortunately, we only had time to visit Brännö – an island in the Southern Göteborg Archipelago, but this was my favourite place on our visit.  We took a 45 minute journey on the number 11 tram from the Central tram station down to Saltholmen to catch the ferry across. Completely unspoilt and incredibly clean, we took a sunny walk across the island to explore. It was super cute, with lovely little houses, and you can easily walk from one side of the island to the other!

As someone who tends to gravitate towards warmer climates, Sweden was a pleasant surprise and I would definitely recommend Gothenburg! The streets are clean, the people friendly and the seafood unreal.

Follow me on @shore_to_surface for more adventures! Next stop Malta.

My First Lucky Trip:

As soon as I heard about the Lucky Trip App I was straight on my phone downloading it… and what a great idea it turned out to be… I have just returned from my first Lucky Trip to Lisbon!

Booking confirmation came through straight away, and they will even check you in to your flight for you! (although I beat them to this and used the booking reference to do this ahead of time). Although we chose the cheapest accommodation option on the app, we found the room to be clean, spacious and great value for money, in the heart of Lisbon – a perfect combination which would have normally taken hours to find scrolling through various accommodation websites.

In a nutshell this beautifully simple, user-friendly app will search Booking.com and Easyjet to combine the best flights and accommodation (along with optional added activity ideas) to create your next holiday, all at the touch of a button!

Our trip came about from a gift voucher. I was a bit dubious to buy a voucher from an app I had never used, but it was quick, easy and they even sent me a physical plastic card voucher in the post a few days later.

Once you’ve downloaded the app, you can choose from a selection of different filters to help build a personalised trip to best suit your budget, dates and other preferences (including your closest airport) although if you’re lucky enough to have no commitments, the only compulsory filters are budget and number of travellers. Choosing less filters also means you often get to see the cheapest deals around!

Once you have set your filters and clicked on the BIG pink button, your screen will look something like this example:

From here you can swipe on the individual images to choose between around 2-3 options for accommodation in the middle panel and activities on the bottom panel. Depending on how extravagant you’d like your stay to be this then pushes the price of the holiday up or down.

One great thing about the app is it can be as spontaneous or not as you like. For example you can actually select exact dates, and even change the flight times, although again this will sometimes push the price up or down.

You also have the option to save the trips you like the look of, as a way to compare using the heart in the bottom left-hand corner. This is a great feature, especially if you’re as indecisive as me!

I also noticed that if you keep clicking on the pink button to show new trips, eventually the options will come around full circle so you’ll start to see the same ones more than once.

In conclusion Lucky Trip is like Tinder for travellers, except instead of swiping past 300 mediocre options before landing on your (still questionable) dream man, you get to enjoy a great selection of interesting and beautiful travel options, with lots of potential! Now that’s something we can all commit to!