Road Trip Made Easy

With all modern comfort of using GPS navigation gadgets, knowing the way to go while driving your car can be fun and getting lost can be avoided. But making a road trip is not always about driving the car to your destination. People wants to have the most of their trip by enjoying the scenery, stopping at their interest spots, and even making a big detour to explore the regions.

Sure, those Tomtom or Garmin are very handy on-road, but good trips usually involved good planning, especially when you want to be on a safe budget as well as safe driving. Google Map is definetely one of the best and free solution for planning the way. Just google the locations, and that's about it. The best thing is that it would give a street view, when it's available. With it, you can roughly know how do those important intersections look like and figured that you should turn right before it's too late!

google if you want to go to Barcelona for example

street view on Google map

Google Map is great, but my favorite is Via Michellin, because it shows you the rough cost of your trip. With it, you can know how much petrol you would spend, how much toll and road tax you need to pay. And the most favorable feature is its 'scenic roads' map. How nice that you know you're gonna see scenery 98 km long along your trip for example. The ability to choose between "Recommended, Quickest, Shortest, Sightseeing, and Economical" makes it my absolute winner!

Via Michellin with options "Recommended, Quickest, Shortest, Sightseeing, and Economical"

Now your route is printed, the fuel tank is full, the picnic box is prepared, you are ready to go! But do check the weather and the local road information updates, especially on winter if you want to go through mountain pass, because probably the road is closed and you'd need to take a detour.

Happy road tripping! Drive safe and make your plan flexible! Cause sometime it's still good to get lost and find unexpected gems out of nowhere!

Slovenia: The Most Scenic Highways

.. Ever! If you happen to know anyone who went to Slovenia or at least passing its highway, ask them and they can confirm this.

OK I haven't been to Switzerland or anywhere else that I can compare to, but it's definetely one of the world's most beautiful. Driving on its highways on a clear blue sky or on time of sunrise would make you feel that you're being served by montage of landscapes, from small towns with churches on the hills, farms, vine yards, green hills, forests, to mountains with Julian Alps on the background.

Shall we let the pictures speak for themselves...






When driving East, for example from Ljubljana to Maribor, we always.. I repeat.. ALWAYS make a stop in Trojane for some Trojane Krofi. This huge doughnout-like bread is pure heaven. Yes they do sell krofi anywhere, but they have nothing to compete the original renown Trojane Krofi! I do suggest to have a breakfast in Trojane. It's on top of one of the hill where a tunnel goes through. Just a few hundred meters out from Autobahn.

People came all the way for a piece (or dozens) of these Trojane Krofi

Of course, the scenery doesn't stop on the highways. If you got out from it and go to its country roads, you'd probably find more beautiful landscapes. I suggest to do a detour to smaller and less travelled roads to explore more of Slovenian landscapes. Wild animals such as foxs, deers, and other forest creatures are not an uncommon sight, so keep your eyes open!

Bambi!

Happy traveling and have a nice holiday!

Rent Motorbike! Enjoying Most of Bali on A Budget

Love Bali? Visited it regularly? Bored with the same things in crowded Kuta? Well, Kuta is good for one thing, to find a motorbike rental bargain!! Yes, this I can highly recommend to each of you that travel to Bali with your partner. If you travel with children then forget it, it's not that safe and it's not for them.

I had checked several young couples (from many backgrounds) who did this, and they were mostly recommend the same thing! It's somewhat adventurous and absolutely romantic. Bali has wonderful landscape, and imagine that you can stop anywhere to enjoy the view and take a picture.

typical Bali rural road

But please be aware that you need to be able to drive safe, since not so many other drivers, especially trucks, that do so. Also prepare for the bad weather since Bali is often rain (anytime of the year). More information here.

Happy travel! Rrrooommm rrooommmmm...