ABOUT

PACK THE SUITCASES

Hello

My name is Caroline but you’ll also see my other half Chris in most of my posts. We’re a 30-something couple based in the North West of England who work full time but try to go on holiday every 3 months. Or as much as we can stretch 32.5 days of annual leave to.

This blogging malarkey began after our honeymoon in May 2016. Basically, I needed a project to fill the void left by 3 years of wedding planning being over, otherwise I was just going to repeatedly redecorate our entire house for the rest of time.

So I bought a fancy camera, got into photography and wrote some blog posts about our honeymoon. One of these first ever blog posts went a bit viral (it was about Reykjavik if you’re interested – it’s not even a very good post). I must have loved all the online abuse that came with it, because the rest, as they say, is history. I’ve been blogging ever since.

Me and Chris have been together since January 2011 and travel has always played a huge part in our relationship. We’ve racked up over 20 countries together now and have always enjoyed boring friends and family with our travel tales. I still find it baffling that strangers on the internet apparently also quite like hearing about them…

What kind of holidays/travel do I write about here?

European city breaks are the ‘bread and butter’ of our travel, as well as local UK breaks. But we’re lucky enough to have friends in Japan so really specialise in that too.

  • I don’t do all-inclusives, package holidays, packing light, super luxury, or roughing it. We never drive abroad and try to avoid it here in the UK too. I’m allergic to backpacks and any kind of ‘outdoorsy’ stuff (apart from walking and horse riding). I also don’t see the point of splurging all your spends on a swanky hotel when you’re only going to sleep there. As long as it has a decent shower and a well-placed plug socket for hair straighteners, I’m happy.
  • I do do spending far too much on new outfits for the trip (but I always manage to pack the suitcase successfully – see what I did there? This is what it’s come to…).We usually stay in apartments or mid-range hotels when we’re away. I love cramming in loads of off-the-beaten-track exploring, culture, museums/galleries, ALL THE FOOD, local beer/gin and day trips on trains. Love a good coastal train journey with a nice village at the end of it. Also gin.

Say hello

You can get in touch with me by email or at various online places listed below:

Have a little stalk of Pack The Suitcases around the web

Some sites I’ve been featured/interviewed on:

Countries/cities visited

Obvs we’ve been to other places on holidays with friends, but this is our joint list and where you’ll find stuff I’ve blogged about.

  1. England – We live here (unfortunately) so have seen a lot of it. I’ve lived all over the place in the North West, but our ‘home’ cities are Liverpool and Manchester. We love Kirkby Lonsdale and Shrewsbury for weekends away.
  2. Scotland – Dumfries & Galloway area – Kirkcudbright and around it (x2), Edinburgh (x3), North Berwick (x2)
  3. Isle of Man – all over the island! Note: it’s not part of the UK!
  4. Germany – Munich (x2), Berlin, Landsberg am Lech
  5. Bulgaria – Sofia
  6. Portugal – Madeira (x3), Lisbon, Porto, Vila Nova De Gaia, Guimaraes
  7. Austria – Salzburg, Vienna
  8. France – Paris
  9. Belgium – Bruges
  10. Spain – Gran Canaria
  11. Italy – Rome
  12. Vatican City – And what?
  13. Denmark – Copenhagen (x2)
  14. Sweden – Stockholm (x2), Gothenburg, Malmo (x2)
  15. Norway – Bergen
  16. Iceland – Reykjavik
  17. Japan – Tokyo (x2), Kyoto, Matsumoto, Kanazawa, Itoigawa, Naoshima, Himeji, Kobe, Nara, Takamatsu, and generally all over Japan
  18. Malta – Valletta, Mdina, Gozo, Golden Bay, Sliema
  19. Slovenia – Ljubljana
  20. Croatia – Zagreb

Pack The Suitcases

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