Originally Posted by GetSetJetSet

Great location, nice rooms and super helpful and nice staff. For restaurants, Smak is supposedly amazing (fully booked while we were there sadly). Emma's Drommekjokken was pretty good for traditional food.

Originally Posted by MissJ

How many days do you suggest there? It's going to be completely dark so we don't want to run out of things to do. Did you see the aurora every night?


And to keep the thread on topic as well..

Just booked a trip up to Pittsburgh. Haven't been there in a few years. Also decided to throw a stopover in Copenhagen into the trip that includes Tromso. I've been many times, just had a couple of favorite spots I wanted to drop in on while I'm in the area.

Originally Posted by etch5895

Been: Harbin for the Snow and Ice festival, Hong Kong
Going: Uzbekistan/Kazakhstan, Bali, Brunei, Washington DC (work), Medellin, Fiji/New Caledonia, Denver/San Antonio/El Paso/ORD or MCI
Planning: Kathmandu, either Da Nang or Phuket, Jeju and/or Yeosu, maybe Qingdao for the beer festival

Originally Posted by GetSetJetSet

Completed already: Started the year in Koh Samui, continued to Bangkok, Johannesburg, Accra, Sao Tome, Cape Town, Walvis Bay, Swakopmund, Sossusvlei, Windhoek, New York, Palm Beach, Montreal, New Orleans. Currently back in NY.

Upcoming BOOKED travel: San Francisco, Palm Beach x2, Stockholm, Budapest, Rome, Naples, Positano, Santa Maria di Castellebate, Acciarolli, Rome (again), Algiers, Madrid, Los Angeles, Madrid (again), Moscow, Helsinki, New York, Singapore, Hong Kong, Mexico City, Paris, St. Tropez, Nice, London, Moscow (again), Thessaloniki, Crete, Ios, Santorini, Paros, Naxos, Koufanisia, back to NY, Tulum, Hong Kong, Helsinki (again), Munich, Kuwait City, Bahrain, Baku, Muscat, Abu Dhabi, back to NY, Chicago, Columbus (Ohio), Bombay, Varkala, Kovalam, London (again), Paris (again), Helsinki (again), back to NY.

LIKELY to be booked: Trying to book an AY YYZ-HEL-SIN, HKG-HEL-YYZ which will need to be bookended by NYC-YYZ-NYC flights to fill in some gaps. That will get me to Paris via Helsinki in June, and the HEL-SIN portion will connect with the already booked CX award SIN-HKG that connects to an already booked AA ticket HKG to MEX via DFW. Have to book a return to NYC from MEX in June, a return from Greece to Paris in Aug. The back end of that AY ticket would bring me HKG-HEL in Sept. and a connection to Munich will need to be booked as well to get to a wedding/Oktoberfest and then pick up the Middle East portion, then the final HEL-JFK segment of the AY ticket will bring me home from Paris after India in early Dec. Also looking to book a OW RTW departing Dec. 26th that would get me to Vietnam for New Years before continuing on elsewhere.

Originally Posted by ginmqi

Nice! So much traveling! You guys near/in retirement (no age discriminiation intended) or just able to fit lot of travel in with work schedule?

I'd love to travel more but work is quite busy and not able to take much time off.

Currently planned trip: April to Vietnam for 1 week to attend wedding. Then possibly China to visit my family/hometown later this year.

Originally Posted by GetSetJetSet

I'm in my 30's, VERY flexible. Doubt I'd tolerate that much flying at retirement age, even in F/J haha. Where in Vietnam are you headed?

Originally Posted by ginmqi

Will be mostly in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) 4/19 to 4/28. The wedding couple is hosting a 3 day tour to go up to Da Nang in the middle of the week. Then we'll spend Fri night at Ho Chi Minh City and then probably fly back out of SGN to TPE (maybe MEL?), do a 22hr layover see Taipei for a day/night then back to HNL sunday.

I just signed up for IHG and Hyatt cards, Likely I'll use some pts to book nights at the InterContinental Saigon for the first 4 nights, then last night stay at Park Hyatt Saigon. 3 days in mid week will be in Da Nang with their booked tour company I would imagine

Originally Posted by GetSetJetSet

PH Saigon is great, was there 10 years ago, hope it's still up to par! Enjoy the layover in TPE, very nice city with a great food scene, be sure to go up Taipei 101.

Originally Posted by ginmqi

yeah PH Saigon is supposed to have amazing breakfast so looking forward to that! Definitely will do lot of nice eating in TPE as well! Thanks for the Taipei 101 tip, will do!

I might also book a Hyatt property in Taipei as well. Grand Hyatt looks nice!

Originally Posted by ginmqi

Nice! So much traveling! You guys near/in retirement (no age discriminiation intended) or just able to fit lot of travel in with work schedule?

Originally Posted by rankourabu

We are in our 30s, and take every opportuinity out of work to travel. Helps both myself and mrs have the same work schedule.
I started working full time 4 years ago, so it significantly cut down on my travels (down to 12-15 weeks a year)

Originally Posted by ginmqi

Nice! So much traveling! You guys near/in retirement (no age discriminiation intended) or just able to fit lot of travel in with work schedule?

I'd love to travel more but work is quite busy and not able to take much time off.

Currently planned trip: April to Vietnam for 1 week to attend wedding. Then possibly China to visit my family/hometown later this year.

Originally Posted by GetSetJetSet

I think it was three night (might have been two?). We spent two full evenings chasing the lights. On the first we saw very little with the naked eye, but it was visible clearly in photos (who cares!). The second night we got a solid 15-20 minutes of good lights with the naked eye. I would still like to go back to somewhere even more remote like Lapland and spend ~2 more nights trying to see it more vividly with the naked eye. Tromso is a great town. There are a decent amount of things to do, but it's pleasant just to walk around, have some good meals and drinks at the world's northernmost brewery as well.

Originally Posted by MissJ

Nice. thanks! We are doing three nights. We saw the lights some last year in Iceland and I thought it was pretty cool even at maybe a 3 out of 10 in terms of intensity. Hoping for more this trip.