Tips: Traveling with Girlfriends

This week I was talking to a friend of mine and decided to look at the photos from our trip to Europe in 2013 once again. It's so good to remember that, I never get tired of it. :)
If you've never traveled alone with a friend, I highly recommend you do it! It doesn't have to be a long, distant, or expensive trip. But experiencing an adventure with a friend is a unique and extremely fun experience.
I decided to share some cool things we experienced, as well as small tips on what worked very well in our itinerary.

 

Cute sign in Barcelona

Tips for Traveling with Friends

PREPARATIONS

Ligia, my friend, was on an exchange program in Berlin, and that was the incentive I needed to pack my bags and go meet her there. I bought my Brazil - Germany ticket 4 months in advance, which guaranteed a good price.
With my ticket in hand, we decided which cities we would like to visit together. We chose to visit few cities and spend more time in each to get to know the details. Once the destinations were decided – Amsterdam, Barcelona, and London – we started looking for the cheapest tickets for internal flights.
Sometimes you can find very cheap flights between European countries. We bought ours on EasyJet and it was totally worth it (250 euros for all flights!).
Another cool thing we did was use Airbnb. We found a room in London that was adorable and super economical.
Preparing the trip together was already a very cool experience.

 

In Amsterdam inside the fountain

 

DURING

Since our motto was to spend little, some choices were essential.
On the first day in each city, we went to the supermarket. Besides being absolutely fun to discover different products, it's much cheaper than having lunch and dinner at a restaurant every day. They had a variety of ready-made meals and cool snacks to take in our bags. It was a super saving.
In addition, we each took only one carry-on bag. This helped in two ways: it made the ticket prices cheaper and prevented the impulse to buy a lot of stuff. We only bought what was truly eternal love :)
Even with some restrictions, our trip was perfect! We managed to enjoy the simple and good things about each place. We rode bikes through the cute streets of Amsterdam, went to the children's science museum, spoke Spanish in our own way, appreciated the landscapes and culture of each country, lay on the grass, smiled at the sun, were moved to see the palace in London, had ice cream, went to a club, took photos with wax figures, climbed the biggest mountain in Barcelona wearing flip-flops, met cool people, and laughed a lot at everything that was even slightly funny.

The two of us at the London Tower

One thing is for sure: some situations will only happen when you travel with friends. In ours, there were many good things:
- We talked until our mouths were dry and remembered the good times we had together.
- We went into pharmacies and discovered different cosmetics. Every new pharmacy was a huge and inexplicable joy.
- We looked at every item in decor stores and ended up buying simple (but cool) things like napkins and birthday candles.
- We went into many clothing stores and one always evaluated whether the other really needed that item or not.
- We tried to guess what destiny holds for each of us in the coming years.

 

Take a look at this photo! Ligia and I even sat on the floor to look at every detail of the products in the Berlin pharmacy.

 

AFTER

I wrote down what we did each day in a notebook, and it's funny to reread it. On July 10, 2013, I was showing Ligia the music video for "Show das Poderosas" on YouTube. We laughed a lot about that today.

Almost 3 years have passed since the trip, and it's still great to remember those days. Now we dream of the next one :)
I hope you liked the tips and that this post encourages you to organize a trip with your friend.
See you next week!