My name is Mackenzie, and I have lived in Canada for 12 years. I moved to Latvia, Europe with my close family. I didn’t like it at first at all as I moved away from my childhood friends and my aunts and uncles. The one thing that I was looking forward to when moving to Europe, was the fact that I get to travel to places I might have never been able to before. My family understood that too and we've traveled the most we could in the four years we have been here. From the countries I have seen so far, shared below are my top five favourite ones. I have only seen 7% of the world, but that is 21 countries (Not including trips continuously back to countries). I would consider myself experienced in traveling for my age. Hopefully, you will have some traveling suggestions in mind after this.
My fifth favourite traveling destination is Slovakia. We did a car trip there because it is so close to Latvia, and we may as well try a new way of traveling rather than always flying. It was an amazing and gorgeous trip. I travelled through Lithuania throughout the evening and stayed a night there, and then we travelled across Poland where we stopped and visited a salt mine. The time in the car flew by with the giant mountains and my book to keep me occupied. We went skiing there for two days and after, I concluded that I dislike skiing. We took a nice walk around town in the snow. It snowed quite a bit, and I got soaked and cold, but there was this cool medieval restaurant halfway down the skiing field which had good food and my favourite, hot chocolate! My father had a childhood friend living in Slovakia, and so we had some English-speaking locals showing us the best places to go in Slovakia!
My fourth favourite is Austria. We drove quite a bit and stayed out in Obertauern viewing the beautiful sights and mountains. Again, I was reading and viewing occasionally. It was also cool because Obertauern is close to Hallstatt, which is rumored to be the inspiration of the city, Arendelle, in the film, Frozen. It does truly look similar, and it felt like I was in a fairytale, but when there you need to be respectful of the locals as they don’t quite like noise. We then went around again for a drive and stayed in Vienna in which my parents planned a surprise to go to a huge amusement park called Prater! It was a LOT of fun; in the end we had dinner at 12:00 in the morning because we didn’t eat before we went and didn’t leave until late.
My third favourite location is Norway. I seem to have a pattern as the last few are like this trip too. I landed in Oslo, the capital of Norway, but then drove five hours out of town by car to get to our Airbnb. It was the cutest little cottage, and it was unbelievably homey. The most memorable thing was the cottage and an ice glacier I saw. Me and my father did a lot of hiking, admiring the views and lots, and lots of driving. The ice glacier was about three houses away from my Airbnb and unfortunately the glacier had melted a lot, so you were unable to see most of it. Only the tail.
My second favourite place to visit is Italy. I have gone back there four times! It is a place I am thinking of living when I grow older. I have had some of the best experiences there. You can do so many new things in Italy which you might not be able to do in Canada. I would definitely suggest seeing Venice. It a great place to see because everyone travels there by boat, - boat police, ambulances, taxis, and boat garbage trucks too. If you go around the Carnevale di Venezia, you will see some of the best costumes and are able to buy your own masquerade mask to wear. Go and visit Rome and Pompeii to see all the remains of ancient civilizations and visit the smallest country in the world, Vatican City, for the museums and history. You can also go off to the seaside and see Cinque Terre as it is the inspiration for the Disney movie, Luca. Get a boat ride and if you are lucky, you can see some dolphins too. I can’t suggest enough to see Lake Como. It is gorgeous from every angle, even the producer of Star Wars thought that too as Lake Como was the setting for Anakin’s and Padma’s wedding scene in Attack of the Clones. There is so much more to see in Italy like Milan and Pisa, so I am always going to suggest visiting Italy.
My number one favourite place is Crete, Greece because I get to see and experience new things, but also it was relaxing to be there. We took a boat ride and went snorkeling. It wasn’t my family's cup of tea, but if I didn’t have thalassophobia, I would have definitely fully enjoyed the experience. We swam with fish and saw some pretty big seaweed. We also just drove around and did some hiking, and we tried to swim in a cave too but unfortunately it was quite unsafe, so we never got the chance to.
For me personally, I have found a pattern that I really enjoy places with lots of mountains and or water, which is some of the main components listed in these countries. These at least for me are great countries and I hope you get a chance to visit them too.
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