What is it that makes you want to travel and be adventurous? I have no idea. All I know is that I've always been curious about what's further away, what I don't really know.
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ShareWe have mostly talked about trips that Peter and I made together, from our first trip abroad together to Egypt in 2005. But I have also travelled a lot before we met! I have just gone through old photo albums and scanned some photos ... Here is part 1: My travels until the age of 20.
Table of contents
Summers in Tylösand, from 1975 ...
The first 'journeys' were from our home in Lund to our summer house in Tylösand. Here I spent every summer sunbathing, painting seashells, writing letters and visiting friends.
Winters in the mountains, from 1978 ...
Our other family tradition was skiing holidays in the winter. Every year we went to the Swedish mountains for a week and I learnt to ski slalom when I was three or four years old.
Skiing at the East German border, 1985
The ski trip to the Harz in 1985 was my first trip outside the Nordic countries. I was nine years old and thought it was soooo exciting. I remember that we got dumplings for dinner and that mum and dad were compensated with alcohol when we got a room with too few beds (which they were not at all happy about!). My favourite memory is that we lived right on the border with East Germany and could see the guards patrolling the wall with automatic rifles.
First visit to Stockholm ... and riding camp 1986-1989
Photo albums are of little help here, but I know that I was in Copenhagen several times with my class, before I first visited Stockholm with my parents. We visited the castle, Skansen and Leksaksmuseet and when my parents, on the subway, asked what was the most fun I answered (in broad Scanian and to the delight of other travellers) "Eåka subway".
Otherwise, my "travelling" during this period consisted mostly of riding camps. When I was 14, we moved to Stockholm, and the riding camps changed to theatre camps.
To England by bus, 1991
Finally 16 and old enough to go travelling without your parents! At least if you went with a language travel company... My best friend Johanna and I opted for a language trip by bus - because we'd get to see Paris too!
In Bournemouth, I remember that we were given "weird" food (like bread and butter pudding), that our English was much better than the French language travellers in the same house and that they called home with a "collect call".
Exchange student in Iceland, 1992-1993
I was never keen on travelling to the US or UK as an exchange student, but when I found out at the age of 17 that I could go to Iceland, I quickly convinced my parents. I ended up staying with a family on Hemön, an island of 5000 inhabitants south of the mainland. I went to high school (where I studied Danish and typing), learnt Icelandic, ate a lot of haddock and partied hard.
Iceland again, 1993
Even though I spent almost a year in Iceland, I didn't get to see anything more than Hemön and Reykjavik. I wasn't home for very long before I went back, but this time with my parents. We travelled around here and there looking at geysers, craters and waterfalls. Cool country!
With a pen pal in Germany, 1994
Even though I was studying French, I still said yes to a pen pal in Germany. Why not? During my visit to Bad Bramstedt, near Hamburg, I got to watch dubbed German films, go to a party in the forest and go on an internship with a veterinarian. At my boyfriend's grandmother's house, we had delicious fried Camembert cheeses with raw lingonberries.
Roskilde Festival, 1995
What could be cooler than going to the Roskilde Festival? Days on end of music, beer, unwashed clothes and sleeping on a hard tent floor.
When I think back, I have very vivid memories of travelling and excursions, many of which were opportunities to learn about the world and life. Do you also want to give your children the opportunity to have exciting and educational travel experiences? Read more here about how you can earn money for class.
Where did you first travel? What did you like about travelling when you were growing up?
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English (UK) 
Svenska 
Deutsch 
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Polski
Lennart says:
Travelling is life!
25 July 2017 - 7:23
Helena says:
Right? 🙂
25 July 2017 - 7:59
Eva - People in the Street says:
What a fun read Helena! My very first trip abroad was to Finland, we often travelled on the Vasa boat between Umeå and Vasa. Otherwise, we mostly hung out in the cottage outside Bjurholm when I grew up.
25 July 2017 - 7:32
Helena says:
Yes, it was often like that in those days. We were also mostly in the summer cottage really, except for the ski holidays. But I was always curious about travelling, and took the chances that were given 😉.
25 July 2017 - 8:00
4000mil says:
Nice idea and that you are organised and find all the old pictures again.
I've also been planning to scan some old photos from my first "adventure trip", but I'm currently not sure where the album is located after all the moves over the years....
25 July 2017 - 7:48
Helena says:
The photo albums were in our storage, but we recently had to empty the storage because it is water damaged and will be renovated. Then it suddenly became natural to start looking in the albums (and there in is some order ;)) Where did your first adventure trip go?
25 July 2017 - 8:02
4000mil says:
Flight around the USA.
25 July 2017 - 9:48
Helena says:
Exciting! Would be great if you find the album and write about it at some point! 🙂
25 July 2017 - 10:22
Johnny Friskilä says:
Hehe, funny! My first trip abroad was probably also to Finland. Northern Finland. I did not visit Denmark until I was 18 years old.
25 July 2017 - 8:27
Helena says:
Many Swedes have probably started their "travelling career" in some Nordic country ... For me (who lived in Skåne), Denmark was the closest...
25 July 2017 - 10:24
LinizTravel says:
What many wonderful trips!!! Nice to see the pictures too! Hugs
25 July 2017 - 8:31
Helena says:
Great when you finally get round to scanning some! Otherwise they just lie there in the albums ...
25 July 2017 - 10:24
Mr Nils-Åke Hansson says:
My very first trip was by train to Mora. Which I travelled by myself at 13 - 14 years old. Then it was Karesuando a few years later. But before that we were often to Stockholm. Never travelled abroad with my parents (mother).
25 July 2017 - 8:50
Helena says:
It wasn't nearly as common to go abroad in the past. All the more exciting when you finally did it! 🙂
25 July 2017 - 10:25
Åke Hammarbäck says:
My parents bought a caravan directly after a rainy tent holiday in 1976 in the mountains of Västerbotten and Mo i Rana. Then there was a lot of skiing when the caravan had a winter place at the ski slope and many free camping at. northern beaches with bright summer nights, fishing, mushroom and berry picking in the autumn in forest glens around Västerbotten. Has probably coloured me a bit.
With the school in 6th grade we had a friend class in Närpes in Swedish Finland, one week our class went with them and the following week they went with our class in Umeå. The boat ToR Vasa of course!
First own trip when I turned 18,, found a trip to Rhodes, 2 weeks for 800 SEK. There was a lot of windsurfing and diving. After 20, the list becomes long .....
Regards
Åke
25 July 2017 - 9:20
Helena says:
Tents and rain are not a fun combination so I can understand that your parents preferred a caravan! It sounds like you had many nice trips and experiences with it! 2 weeks on Rhodes for 800 SEK sounds great 🙂 Otherwise, I recognise that starting to travel more after becoming an adult!
25 July 2017 - 10:55
Ditte says:
Isn't it fun to have these old albums where the journeys are preserved? And it should be started in time! You have fun memories with you and I think the foundation for a travel interest is laid early and then it easily becomes an addiction where the curiosity about countries, cultures, people, places and meetings characterises you in a special way. I have passed on the desire to travel to my daughters and they also started travelling when they were practically newborns and the interest remains. Now it is also the grandchildren's turn...
Thank you for sharing your first travel memories.
25 July 2017 - 9:35
Helena says:
Maybe it's the case that the foundation for travelling is laid early on? We didn't travel much, but my parents also told me about trips they made with their work, and that made me curious! Nice that you pass on your interest in travel to your daughters and grandchildren! 🙂
25 July 2017 - 19:12
Mr Steve says:
Great reading and lovely pictures. So good to have everything so well documented.
25 July 2017 - 9:38
Helena says:
Photos help memory, and I'm glad I wrote down the year. Otherwise I wouldn't have remembered...!
25 July 2017 - 19:13
Goatfish says:
SO much fun to find old photo albums! Unfortunately, they are becoming fewer and fewer with today's technology.
As a child, we travelled across the border to Norway to buy butter and flour. You were allowed to take a certain number of kilos for each person in the car.
As a 14-year-old, I travelled by myself to friends in Germany (bus, train) and I would never have allowed my children to do this 😀.
Sunny hugs!
25 July 2017 - 10:07
Helena says:
But what interesting memories! I had no idea that people went to buy butter and flour! And sometimes it feels like young people were a bit more independent in the past. It was actually more difficult then than now, without mobile phones, etc.
25 July 2017 - 19:20
Britt-Marie Lundgren says:
In my childhood there were no opportunities for longer trips, holidays often consisted of a week in a tent on the West Coast or Öland. In grade 9, however, we travelled by boat to England for a week in London (70 16-year-olds, our language teacher and a young couple he knew, needless to say we had fun) The same year, those of us who studied German went to Berlin for a week. In high school we spent a month with family in Yorkshire.
My first charter trip in 1975 was to Morocco and my then partner had to spend a week on a drip in the infectious disease clinic when we got home. When we had children, we tried to travel with them. When the economy did not allow for any air travel, it became a car and caravan, the first long trip went to the former Yugoslavia.
25 July 2017 - 10:10
Helena says:
Certainly exciting with trips to England and Germany then! Exciting also with charter to Morocco, but a week with a drip did not sound fun at all ...!!!!! Caravan (and motorhome) is a perfect way to be able to travel and still keep a little budget!
25 July 2017 - 19:24
Across the board says:
Travelling is the best thing ever!
25 July 2017 - 10:22
Helena says:
Can only agree 🙂
25 July 2017 - 19:24
Ninny says:
So much fun with the old pictures! Yes, travelling is the best, seeing and experiencing new things... When I was a child, we travelled around Sweden by car. New places every summer, my parents usually rented a house or a cottage that we lived in, and then we made excursions from there. When I was old enough to travel on my own, I went abroad. The most memorable is probably the trip to Israel when I was 18 years old. A friend and I went to visit another friend who worked on a kibbutz, which was common at the time (80s). A very exciting trip in a contrasting and beautiful country. And a lot that happened to two crazy teenage girls on an adventure...
25 July 2017 - 10:25
Helena says:
Travelling around Sweden can also be an adventure! I have never been to Israel, but I remember that it was popular to go and work on a kibbutz and that one of my older cousins did it. And of course it happens a lot at that age and when you are adventurous ... 😉.
25 July 2017 - 19:26
Birgitta in Umeå says:
There were not many trips abroad with my parents. My brother and I were "commanded" to Norrbyskär where my father worked as a camp manager in the summers. Now I love going there to our little former carpenter's shed.
There have been a couple of charters before we settled on Greece. We go there regularly. I have made a number of trips to Italy, but the one I remember and appreciate most is when my 9-year-old son (he is now 42 years old) and I took the train to southern Italy. It took about 3 days one way. A lot of young people's books were consumed then, and we explored everything on each train. At that time there were glass carafes with water on every carriage! I would never have dared to travel alone, I leaned on my 9-year-old. How many casual friends you made on the trains!
I'm thinking of today's young people and even adults. Now it's no problem to move abroad and work or open a business, you never thought of that. My son lives and works in Thailand and also has a summer house there. My grandson, aged 4, lives with him but also with his mother in China. The world has become global.
25 July 2017 - 12:58
Helena says:
Oh how fun to hear everything you say about Birgitta! Although a 9-year-old may not be able to help so much, I understand that you become braver and more adult in such a company! In addition, it will certainly be more fun 🙂 Certainly it is easier to travel and work in other countries today. Still, there are many who do not dare, or perhaps do not have the right contacts or experience. It is so different ...
25 July 2017 - 19:29
Annalena says:
Oh what fun to see! We had caravan holidays in Sweden when I was growing up. Often Stockholm and Uppsala where we have relatives. Once we went to Denmark. Some Finland ferry as a teenager when it still went from Sundsvall. When I was 15, I travelled to Rotterdam on an SCA boat that my sister worked on. There have been few trips abroad, unfortunately, have been to the USA 4 times but otherwise we go campervan in Sweden, Norway and Denmark 🙂 Have never been on drunken party charters like my friends because I had children early 😀 But I was offered a summer job in Iceland when I was 15 and I am still a little "bitter" that I did not get for my parents 😛 So I want to go there!
25 July 2017 - 16:43
Helena says:
How nice that you share and tell Annalena! I did not know what SCA boat was for something, but had to google and it looked very exciting! 🙂 When it comes to drunken party trips, I do not think you have missed so much ... Iceland, on the other hand, is worth seeing if you get the opportunity sometime! 🙂
25 July 2017 - 19:31
Annalena says:
Wow... it's probably not so strange! If you grew up on an island with SCA industries all around, you think everyone has the same preferences 😀 😀 😀 😀 Didn't think about that... 😛
28 July 2017 - 12:05
Ann-Louise says:
What a lovely post. My most exciting trip during my childhood was a trip to Öland, just for the day, when I was nine. The next longer trip was to Stockholm when I was nineteen and the first trip abroad was to Helsinki a year later when I was twenty. So now I have to travel as much as possible so I make up for all these lost years without travelling 🙂.
25 July 2017 - 18:07
Helena says:
It was common that you did not travel abroad so much before, but then there are all the more fun discoveries to catch up! 🙂
25 July 2017 - 19:32
Husis blog says:
Oh dear, the owner should have been at home so he could have looked at the albums. But a couple of memories have grown particularly strong. The time his family of mum, dad and brother were in Denmark and his dad made a mistake with the big caravan in tow. All of a sudden, his dad was driving on the cycle path.
The second time his whole family was in Dubrovnik, and that's where he got lost. It was before the time of the mobile phone but a German family had taken care of him and he with the German family had stood on a mountain near the square where the owner got away from his family and finally the owner's family saw him and the first thing he got was a little scolding for getting away. He didn't understand anything, wouldn't his family be happy instead, they had found each other again?
25 July 2017 - 18:16
Helena says:
Oh help, ending up with a caravan on a cycle path sounds a bit difficult ... ! 😉 And it was certainly different in the past, when there were no mobile phones. I think it's easy to start barking at children when they are away because you get so stressed by it all, but it feels a little wrong to bark when you finally meet ... 😉.
25 July 2017 - 19:35
Matts Torebring says:
Yes, it was indeed a journey. Our first trip with our Saab V4 went north with tents and a Trianga kitchen, the year was 1969. I had never been to Stockholm and was afraid to go through the city. It turned out to be nothing at all. When we erected the tent, we were in Ö-vik in the evening. "Which PEK*, shall we have for dinner?"? (*Canned food in cans)
25 July 2017 - 18:24
Helena says:
Haha, what great memories! I have a feeling you want to be more comfortable today, Matts 😉.
25 July 2017 - 19:35
BP says:
What an absolutely wonderful post with the old photos! What fun memories. Nice that you share with us! Oh you are really like you - at least from 1995 onwards;-)
My first trip abroad was probably to Holland, when I was 6 years old. Then I was also an exchange student but in Paris when I was 13. Long holidays in the south of France when I was 14 and 15. When I was 17 I made my first flight to Rovinj with my then boyfriend.
25 July 2017 - 20:39
Helena says:
It's so interesting when others see that you're the same, even though you find it hard to see it yourself 😉 You did a lot of travelling early on, I must say!
25 July 2017 - 23:18
Marianne - Glimpses of the world says:
I wrote about my desire to travel and where I had my first experiences abroad on Sunday. My first trips abroad were to northern Denmark, since before I was one year old. Soon I will go there again ? Coming more about exactly that on the blog during August.
25 July 2017 - 20:41
Helena says:
What fun that you have written about this right now! Will look in to you and read 🙂
25 July 2017 - 23:20
gun says:
Nice to read and follow along. I made my first trip as a
9-10 years old to Eskilstuna with the neighbour whose daughter I played with. My parents were farmers and couldn't travel much. When they (the neighbour) were going to travel the following year to Umeå, I backed out. I thought it was too far away :). My first trip abroad was to Innsbruck on a school trip at the age of 15. Since then, I have continued to travel both at home and abroad.
gun
25 July 2017 - 22:03
Helena says:
Haha, how funny that you thought Umeå was too far away! Distances change with time ... or how you look at them 😉.
25 July 2017 - 23:21
Anna, New York - My Bite of the Big Apple says:
Oh, so fun to see and read about this, Helena! So fun to see you as a child and as a youth; you can really see that it is you.
I recognise much of what you write about collect calls etc (although I am a decade ahead of you) 🙂 .
My first trip abroad was to Romania (which you probably already know) when I was ten years old and my interest in travelling was already awakened then. Then we were in Denmark a lot but mostly in our summer village outside Gnesta.
When I was 16, I also went on a language trip and then I went on several train journeys from the age of 18 onwards.
In the 80s and 90s we mostly travelled to Greece. Then we had a small break with travel during the toddler period but got started again around 2006. After that, there have been more and more trips ... and the rest is history! 🙂
25 July 2017 - 22:05
Helena says:
Haha, the age difference between us is not that big ... 😉 Yes, I remember that your first trip was to Romania. I have not yet been there, but it is a country that attracts!
25 July 2017 - 23:23
Big brother says:
Dad's old brown Saab with the suitcases on the roof. I myself may prefer not to camp. But now I am sitting on the O-ring campsite with 2500 places in Arvika. I have driven a caravan for the first (last?) time.
Up and orienteering again tomorrow.
25 July 2017 - 22:36
Helena says:
Yes, it's a bit funny to have that photo with the Saab? 🙂 It sounded a bit awkward with the caravan now that things messed up, so I can understand that you feel a little tired of that particular bit ... That's not always the case ... 😉 Good luck with the orientation!
25 July 2017 - 23:25
Johanna in Skåne says:
I recognise those pictures? I haven't had a tiara for quite some time, about 25 years ago... My first trip abroad was by train to Finland where my father was going to a conference when I was three months old. I had a desire to learn Finnish at least in primary and secondary school and linked it to my early influences from this language. Otherwise, it was mostly trains to Jämtland, sometimes with a day in Trondheim or hiking across the border for having been abroad. Bournemouth and Paris were the first real trips abroad. With the family we did not travel abroad until a few days in Prague in 1993 and a trip to the USA in 1994 (accompanied my father to another conference). All the more travelling after that with you, my husband + children and work?
25 July 2017 - 23:34
Helena says:
I understand that you recognise these pictures! 🙂 I even wonder if it is not you who is the photographer of the picture with us in front of the Saab? Fun picture I think! Yes, I remember that you wanted to learn Finnish! I think it inspired me to think that Finnish is a cool language. However, a little too complicated for me to manage to learn it without really needing it ... 😉 And yes, you have travelled a lot since! 🙂
26 July 2017 - 7:30
Johanna in Skåne says:
Yes, I think I took the Saab picture and the picture from Roskilde. ?
26 July 2017 - 16:44
Maria's Memoirs says:
But oh how fun to read about old trips, and see old photos! Do not even know where the pictures from my very first trips are, which is a bit sad... But maybe I would still also get together a kind of summary of the trips I have made, maybe as an "anniversary post" in connection with my 30th birthday, haha!
26 July 2017 - 5:35
Helena says:
An anniversary post sounds like a fun idea! Maybe someone else in the family, or friends, who have photos...?
26 July 2017 - 7:31
Elisabeth says:
Something about travelling the world and getting new impressions!
26 July 2017 - 22:46