Our past is our past, there’s no sense in dwelling on what’s gone wrong there, whether we caused it directly or if it was inflicted upon us. We should never ignore the incidents in our lives that brought us to where we stand today, we need to recognize them and appreciate them, for the positive or the negative, but we can’t spend our present hung up on them, lest we jeapordise our future.

Things have gone against us all in the past, some worse than others, but the future is a blank canvass for every single person who is reading this, me included. Regardless of the episodes behind us, we have endless possibilities awaiting us now – but we have to part with our past to grab them, we have to put the past away and move forward.

The future is awash with new opportunities, new chances to dilute our past and create something better, something worth working for, something to be proud of. But we can only achieve those things if we cut ourselves free of the negative things in our past, accept them and move forward.

Feeling sorry for ourselves, regretting mistakes, playing the victim will not allow us to fulfill our potential, we’ll never reach our dreams if we play to that. Positivity breeds positivity, so f*ck the victim complex, f*ck regret, shame and unhappiness – understand that tomorrow is a new day, start producing a past you can be proud of, and start immediately.

I know I’ve certainly made more than my fair share of mistakes, and although I’ll never forget them, I know I can put the past away and look forward to all the awesome things that I’ve still yet to achieve, the amazing sights I’ve yet to see, the inspiring people I’ve yet to meet. It’s all in front of me and I can’t wait to go out and experience it all. I hope you can experience it with me.

Motivational Monday: Put the Past Away is a post from: onestep4ward.com

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This post is just as much a thanks as a recap of what I’ve been up to.  Margus, a friend of Harri, our awesome couchsurfer buddy, and Harri took me and my 2 pals out for a picnic in Helsinki, fed us, gave us booze, chatted with us, they were already going above and beyond.

That evening Margus invited us to his office where we all had another sauna together, he gave us more booze, we enjoyed sunset on the balcony and had another great time. As we left he said that while we were in Lapland, we should go and visit his father, he’d be happy to have us. So we exchanged numbers, called his dad, and organized to meet him.

Margus’s dad was nothing short of a legend. He lives on the Swedish-Finnish border so we drove the 150km from Rovaniemi at lunch time. We arrived around 2pm on a Friday, when we came to greet us at the door. His house was a wooden cabin, perched aside a beautiful river, with Sweden on the other side. He had built the house himself, including the awesome sauna. He took us downstairs to ‘our’ rooms. We each had a room to our self, and I managed to sleep in the master bedroom, complete with a double waterbed and wifi! This place was paradise.

Our accommodation

We moved back upstairs were Mr Pasula was waiting to greet us with 3 glasses of home brewed Simil, a traditional Finnish alcohol that normally should be fermented for a day, but Mr Pasula lets it go for 3 for a little extra kick. After our delicious drinks, a quick chat, we said he had designed a programme for us! Unreal.

First up, after hearing we had never been to Sweded, we jumped in the car and headed over the bridge to visit Sweden. We saw a quaint little Swedish town, took some snacks and headed back to the house in Finland. He fed us immediately with some delicious traditional fare and then took us down to the river side.

He had constructed a floating sauna which was designed to sit on the lake, right now the lake was frozen so it was sitting on the bank. We chopped up some firewood and got the sauna burning.

In the meantime, Mr Pasula taught had cut a whole in the ice and taught us how to ice fish. Before too long the sauna was ready, but we were under strict conditions on how to use it! We had to get our sweat on then leap into the frozen lake, then back in the sauna, then frozen lake again. We duly obliged, omg it was cold.

With all the excitement about the freezing cold water, we had forgotten to really do any ice fishing, but we didn’t wanna destroy our only clean clothes so back on the ice we went for a spot of naked ice-fishing, the boxers came on for the purpose of this photograph!

After a great dinner with Mr Pasula and an awesome nights sleep on the waterbed, we jumped back in our rental car and headed 700km south to Tampere, it’s Saturday today, FA Cup Final and Liverpool are playing, time to finish that cheap Russian vodka! Happy travels!

Naked Ice Fishing and The Generosity of Finns is a post from: onestep4ward.com

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Sooooo excited!

If crossing the Arctic Circle isn’t cool enough for backpacker visiting Finland then this should see you over the line. In a town called Rovaniemi, 14 hours north of Helsinki, you’ll make it to Lapland and for any of the ill-informed, Lapland is the home of St Nicholas himself, and all his weird, little elf dudes too.

You can shove your shark diving, bungee jumping, sky diving and lifestyle design – this is the pinnacle of traveling! On my second day in Lapland, it was Christmas day all over again. I hardly slept the night before, our awesome cottage was 20km from Santa’s village so after breakfast we made our way there.

Santa’s village is literally built ON the Arctic Circle border, in fact his grotto actually dissects the circle, pretty cool huh? The village is 8km from Rovaniemi, you can take a bus but we had our sexy rental so off we went.

It’s May but because we’re so North they whole place was still covered in snow, giving off the exact vibe I was hoping for. Snow covered trees, snow covered wooden cabins, it certainly looked the business.

After being force fed a zillion gift shops, trinkets, bag patches (I bought one, whatever) I made it to Santa’s official post office. This is where all the letters addressed to “Santa, Lapland” or “Santa Claus, Finland” make it. He receives millions per year, and they’re all filed away country by country. You can organize Santa to send people Christmas cards here too ($10 a pop).

Then comes the moment of a lifetime, Santa’s grotto. Santa works 365 days a year, 24 hours a day apparently but he is only available to visit between 10am and 5pm. When you walk into his grotto, it feels like a cross between a dark Tim Burton movie and a sweet factory, it’s dark, with deep, menacing music pumping and smoke billowing out from oversized cogs. Things light up sporadically, you can see elves on screens running around, with things being produced in Santa’s factory.

Through narrow corridors, you make it to a huge pendulum swinging laboriously. Beside it is a sign saying “The earth’s rotational speed regulator” followed by an explanation at its working.  Basically, this is how Santa makes it to everyone’s house in one night, magical.

You carry on until you read a huge wooden door, a spritely elf pops out and greets  you, walks you in and introduces you to Santa himself. Santa is about 6’4, huge hands, warm face and a long beard. We were three grown men (26,28 and 30 years old) and you’ve never seen such a sheepish, nervous entry by three confident dudes before. All of us hanging back, not knowing where to look or where to sit, it was hilarious. Walking around so cocky not 3 minutes before and now confronted by Santa, it was like being 7 years old again!

Santa though was prepared, he kindly and warmly invited us in. He speaks about 10 languages and when I told him I was from Northern Ireland, he even knew the area I lived (pretty spooky actually!). You sit down with the bigman, have a chat, and after a few minutes you get a photo snapped, shake hands, give him a hug and wander off.

The photo costs an extortionate 25 Euro ($33) so of course we planned not to buy it. Our resolve lasted all of about 30 seconds, and the pic is the one you see at the top of this post. Worth every cent!

Outside you can take a ride on the Reindeer sled, drink hot chocolate, have a snow ball fight. Christmas tunes are piped through the entire village all year round. I can certainly say I felt infinitely more Christmassy here in May than in Bangkok at Christmas! If I was a kid I would have lost my mind, in fact I’m a fully-fledged adult and I pretty much lost my mind so if you get a chance to pay a visit to the ‘real’ Santa, don’t pass it up, it’s something almost magical. Happy travels!

Visiting the ‘Real’ Santa Claus in Lapland, Finland is a post from: onestep4ward.com

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I made it to Helsinki, partied for Vappu there (you can search for that in my Finland section) and had big plans to head north to Lapland. Helsinki was a beautiful city, awesome infrastructure, gorgeous women, cool guys but my love for it took a hit when I was quoted a 500 Euro ($650) return train ticket to Rovaniemi, a stop 14 hours in the north, where the Arctic Circle border is. Ouch. So, my friends and I butted heads, there was only one thing for it – Finnish road trip!

We rented a car for 5 days and made a beeline for Lapland, about 700km to the north. The Northern lights are strongest in January and February, it was already May so we knew our chances were slim, either way we were heading towards the Arctic Circle which is a pretty cool thing in itself.

A $60 parking fine, $200 speeding ticket and 8 hours later we made it to Rovaniemi, a town 8km from the Arctic Circle border. Hostels in finland normally cost $30 per night in a dorm, so for three of us that was gonna be a pricey $90 per night, we figured that if we have to pay that much then perhaps we can go the extra yard and get something really special, which we duly did.

A Finnish friend of mine managed to hook us up with our own 3 bedroom cabin, on a lake, with a boat, complete with fully stocked kitchen, heated floors and our own private sauna all for the same price as a hostel! Did someone say flashpacker?

I dunno how much group nudity with your mates is acceptable but I’m pretty sure we pushed those boundaries, spending every available minute jumping in frozen lakes and running back to the warmth of the sauna hoping we haven’t done any damage to our extremities (note: we had’nt!)

I hit up the tourist information and apparently the Northern Lights were well and truly gone by now, heartbroken! (Ok, trip to Iceland in December is now confirmed!). We took solace in the fact that we crossed the article circle and we’re living in luxury in our cottage, not to mention the fact we still had 3 litres of dirty cheap Russian vodka in our backpacks. 2 days passed in a very enjoyable heartbeat.

The artic circle, and Rovaniemi, do have a lot of things to keep you occupied though. Snow mobiles, reindeer and husky sledding, camp fires, hiking, ice-fishing so you can easily burn a few days, and a lot of cash. There’s one more extra special thing that Rovaniemi has too… the real Santa Claus! This is where he’s from, so I spent day two going to have a word with the big man himself… read about it tomorrow! Happy travels!

Where is the Arctic Circle?

In Finland, it’s found 14 hours north of Helsinki. The major town near it is called Rovaniemi.

Can I see the Northern Lights in Finland?

Yes you can, but you have to be there between December and March ideally.

Crossing the Arctic Circle, Private Saunas, and Chasing Northern Lights in Finland is a post from: onestep4ward.com

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I cast my mind back to 2007 — I’d just finished a temporary job and had saved some money away, which was already burning a hole in my bank account. Itching to see more of the world, I took my American friend up on an invite to come for a long visit. Having lived all of my life in an old seaside town in England, there was quite the culture shock once I landed in Washington! So here are my top ten things I missed from home, based on my experiences in Washington and Houston.

Fish and Chips please

High Streets

One of my first thoughts was — what happened to the handy high street? Parking in the town centre and wandering around on a glorious sunny day was something I always enjoyed in England. In Washington, I found myself driving from parking lot to the neighbouring strip mall, so I was very dependent being driven around, and I certainly missed the small family-run shops, as most of those in Washington are franchises and chain stores.

Public Transport

Yes, it’s something so many of us complain about in the UK. The bus is running late or the train has been cancelled. However, when there’s no regular services, someone who can’t drive soon starts to feel rather isolated. I often wondered how the elderly did their shopping or visited their friends. I missed being able to hop on a coach to anywhere or take a theatre break in London by rail, if the mood took me. Although I have to say I do like how there are buses that pick the kids up for school, it must really help out the working American parents!

Pubs

Pubs are substituted for bars in America, and with the drinking age being 21, they’re really not the sort of place you can take the entire family. I’m a big fan of the old-fashioned pub, where you can take your Gran and little brother for a good meal with a family-friendly atmosphere and beer garden, and this sort of thing could only be found in a restaurant.

Butchers and Bakers

Maybe my home town was spoilt: with four butchers and two bakers, I’d always assumed they would be a common feature. Bakers with their aromatic fresh bread and tasty pastries — I found myself missing the traditional sausage roll or Cornish pasty. In America, I found these made-to-order snacks and cuts of meat harder to come by. What some Americans say about British food being tasteless is nothing more than a myth. With freshly-butchered meat, British meals can be very tasty indeed!

British cuisine

So leading on from my previous point, the great and famous — roast beef dinner, made perfect with the accompaniment of Yorkshire puddings. Rather than the traditional joint of beef that brings back nostalgic memories of my mum and dad cooking on a Sunday, Americans tend to go for steaks and burgers instead. Considering America is home to so many expats from all over the world, I found the full English breakfast surprisingly difficult to come by. These were not the only British dishes that were sadly absent, but they were two that I missed the most.

NHS

This one was bound to pop up. The weather, public transport and NHS are probably one of the top gripes British people complain about. We can’t fix the weather but the NHS is practically a free service and saves so many lives for low-income families. I know recently it has been compared to the ‘Obama care’ and verbally abused by American politicians, but I hold firm that the NHS is one of the country’s defining elements, and therefore is just as integral as the London Underground and as much a part of Britain’s identity as the Queen.

Beverages

I actually found non-alcoholic or non-soda beverages to be quite lacking. I missed the wide array of thirst-quenching squash flavors, and I don’t feel as guilty giving this to a young child compared to cola. Tea was something else I missed. Yes, Americans do have iced tea, but sometimes all I want is a nice cup of builder’s tea with milk and sugar.

Licensing Laws

This can be quite a big cultural shock to young Britons. Currently the UK law says you must be 18 to drink, so you could be drinking for a couple of years and then find you have to go a very long time being sober, since US drinking laws state you need to be 21. Chocolate I’m just going to say this — I love British chocolate. The smell of a Hersey bar just turns me away. Please Kraft, don’t destroy my love!

Roundabouts

I can’t say how much I now appreciate these wonderful marvels. The frequency of traffic lights at every junction really frustrated me. The traffic backs up and you’re waiting for what feels like forever to move, just to travel a few blocks and then meet that devil red light again. Roundabouts keep the traffic flowing and there should be more of them in America!

So, there’s my list of what I missed from my homeland and have taken for granted. I’m sure you have your own list of things that you long for. It’s worth bearing in mind, though, that I could easily make a list just as long for things I miss from America… Mmmm Corndogs…

Things You Might Miss From Your British Home is a post from: onestep4ward.com

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Alas, all is not lost when it comes to cash though, check out my tips on how to travel in Finland for cheap!

COMPANY:

Don’t come here alone folks. If you come alone, it’s gonna cost you a bomb, there’s no way around it. So if you don’t have at least one other person to travel to Finland with you, put it on the backburner – come back when you have a friend or two to join you.

Traveling with friends in Finland

ACCOMMODATION:

A dorm bed in a hostel costs around $30 per night, and there aren’t too many available. A budget hotel costs around $70 per room per night. So if there are 3 or 4 of you, you can crash in one room, easy.

Better yet, use couchsurfing. Finnish people are great, they’re really sociable and outgoing and not only will you save $30 a night by couchsurfing, you’ll get some real local experiences too.

FOOD:

There are two ways to eat for cheap in Finland. Eat kebab and pizza lunch time specials for $6 (Finland has a lot of immigrants, and it’s standard practice to have discounted lunch menus like that) or buy your groceries in a S Market branch, of which there are loads. Bread, ham and cheese will only cost you $3 or so.

TRANSPORT:

In Helsinki, I asked for a return ticket to Lapand on the train.  It’s around 13 hours away, the lady behind the counter quoted me…. Wait for it…. 257 Euro ($340) each way, $680 return!! WTF?! For a return bus ticket, the fee is $300 return.

However, if you’re with 1, 2 or 3 friends renting a car is a much better option. For 5 days, a car will cost about $300 ($60 each) + petrol. Roadtripping is awesome, it gives you a lot of freedom and is much, much cheaper than the crazy public transport here.

BOOZE:

Lay off the beers, and try not to buy alcohol in bars, and certainly not in clubs! Bring hard liquor from whatever country you happen to be in before (Russia, Estonia etc), it’ll be 30% of the price that you’ll have to pay in Finland.

Ok guys, Finland is always gonna hit ur wallet hard but if you’re smart, you don’t have to break the bank entirely. You can squeeze buy on around $70 a day, if you’re really careful. Happy travels!

5 Tips on How to Travel in Finland For Cheap is a post from: onestep4ward.com

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I actually left Russia one day early in order to reach Finland for the 30^th April, because I had heard about Vappu, a national holiday in Finland on May Day Eve and May Day.

Partying in the park

Vappu is a festival where anyone who has ever graduated from high school in Finland (which, considering Scandinavia is brilliant at everything, that means pretty much everyone attends the party), dons a white cap, hits the park, eats delicious food at a picnic and proceeds to get blind drunk. Naturally I couldn’t miss out on that!

I arrived in Helsinki and hooked up with a couchsurfing buddy who let me and my two friends crash at his place, complete with private sauna, for 2 nights. He met us at the subway stop armed with 2 cases of beers and a hearty Finnish handshake, and so the mayhem commenced.

We had (illegally) imported 6 litres of cheap Russian vodka to Finland, we gave a big bottle to our new couchsurfing friend, threw two in our backpacks and headed to the park around 2pm.

The sun was shining, people were chilling all over the park, music was blasting and it was another one of those moments of realization when you just think “life is bloody awesome”. So I sat down and soaked it up,

Being pretty much the only foreigners in the whole park, before long we had met some cool friends, people were plying us with their local booze. Everyone in Iceland can speak almost perfect English, and as the afternoon turned to evening we were having a great time, in a group that was growing by the minute.

Spiderman was running around the park like a (drunk) lunatic, doing forward rolls, nailing a beer, then sprinting off somewhere else. Little Bo Beep was looking very cute until she fell down the hill after a little too much sparkling wine. A giant panda was making out with a giant reindeer, it was a perfect storm of happy madness.

My 2 friends and I, along with our awesome couchsurfing pal, our new found park friends were merrily drinking together, shooting the sh*t, with big grins on our face for the rest of the evening all relishing our new friendships and appreciating life. Before we knew it was 1am and time to head back. What a day, what a festival, what a country. And we repeated it all again the next day! Happy travels.

Partying for Vappu in Helsinki is a post from: onestep4ward.com

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Partying is part and parcel of the travel scene, and long may it continue but we pay theprice for that cheap booze with the inevitable hangover. It’s the ying to the partying yang. And bloody hell there’s no worse ying than one in a hostel dorm room.

When I’m hangin all I want is some chilled air-con, some dirty fast food and a movie with my gf/friends, what I certainly don’t want is this:

1)   A room full of other people who clearly don’t feel nearly as bad as me. Piss off youngsters, I’m dying here.

2)   An ipod blaring Lady Gagy at 1000 decibels, plugged into some shitty speakers making it sound even worse than it already is.

3)   Listening to two travelers trying to ‘out cheap’ each other “oh you paid $10 for that bus journey, lol, I only paid $9, but then I’ve traveled so much before, I know where to find the deals”. Shut your face mate, if I hadn’t lost my flipflops last night, I’d be hurling one at your face right now.

Suffering is bad enough, suffering in public is hell. That’s it, I’m literally never drinking again. Or at least until the next promotion night. Oh no, here we go again.

Tuesday’s Travel Rant: Hangovers in Dorms is a post from: onestep4ward.com

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It’s almost a spoiled thing to say but, sometimes, choosing a destination to go on holiday can be a bit of a drama. Today, with all the low-cost airlines at your disposal, almost all destinations around the world are within reach and affordable. Right now I’m sitting in my Rome apartment thinking about how going to Rome for the first time came about. I was told to watch the film Roma (1972) by Federico Fellini and the whole culture, scenery and charm shown in the film made me want to go to the Eternal City at once. However this is not the first time that I’ve been inspired to travel to some place.

The novel The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith gives a beautiful view of southern Italy, being set in a small town on the southern Italian coast, portraying the great life of beach, sailing, beautiful white narrow streets and excellent food. The novel is also set in places like Sanremo, Naples and Rome during the 1950s, an irresistible inspiration for wanting to go to Italy. The Amalfi Coast, Naples and the southern coast of Italy is an incredible destination so if you’ve never been there, read this novel and make sure your bags are packed by the time you’ve finished it because you’ll be on the first flight there.

Films are a great source of inspiration for travellers. For instance, there is no bigger or better advert to travel to South America than by watching the film Motorcycle Diaries (2004), the film starring Gael García Bernal as a young Che Guevara, travelling around South America on a motorbike with his friend. The film goes from Argentina to Chile, from Bolivia to Peru and finishes in Ecuador. All the landscapes that you can see in the film, from the Argentinian planes, to the Chilean desert and the Bolivian and Peruvian jungle and towns, make it irresistible for travellers to watch the film and not want to get a plane straight there.

In terms of European and North American travel, the ‘Good Thief’s Guide’ series by Chris Ewan are an excellent source of travelling inspiration. Ewan has published four books so far, The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam, Paris, Las Vegas and Venice, with the Berlin one due to be released in 2013. The books tell the story of the writer-come-thief Charlie Howard and his adventures in these cities. Leaving the plot aside, the books always give a great description of the cities where the story is taking place and also mention a lot of local landmarks, so if you visit the city in question, you’ll immediately remember the names of places from the books.

Another film which may have inspired many people to travel to South East Asia and their beaches is Danny Boyle’s The Beach (2000). Once again, leaving the plot aside, the film shows the urban landscape of Bangkok and what some beaches on the coast are like, many times likened to paradise on Earth. Nowadays, many tourists from Anglo-Saxon countries travel to Thailand to party on these beaches, parties such as the Full Moon Party but there are still many where you can still relax and get away from annoying drunken tourists. Also, the famous British BBC programme Top Gear did a special programme on travelling in Vietnam from Ho Chi Minh City to Halong Bay, south to north along the coast, and the views are simply stunning, possibly Vietnam’s greatest ever tourist advert. If you’re interested in knowing more about southeast Asia, watch Saibadee Luang Prabang (2008), Laos’ first film released after it was taken over by its communist government.

Impulsive choices can be bad but can also give you a rush of adrenaline, and none bigger than booking a trip somewhere thanks to recently-received inspiration from a book, a film or a TV programme. However, you can start by watching some Federico Fellini films, which will definitely make you want to rent apartments in Rome and get on the first plane to the Eternal City.

Inspiration to travel is a post from: onestep4ward.com

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It’s tempting to buy every cool little trinket I come across, every awesome indigenous painting I see, something with every foreign script but if I was do that that before long my backpack would weigh a ton, I’d be lumbering around like a lunatic and the stuff would be owning me.

I like to be free when I’m young, free to move, free to make open ended decisions, free to live how I wanna live, and maintaining this lifestyle allows me to do that. I get my compulsions to buy all that cool stuff by sticking to my long established 3 habits for each country I visit:

1) Sewing flags on my bag: I have a flag for every country I’ve visited on my daybag, it’s running out of space to be honest but it’s pretty cool. Although after this trip I’ll need to have squeezed almost 100 on there, that’s gonna be quite a task.

It’s a great talking point for when I’m in a new hostel, people are intrigued about all the places I’ve been and it brings back great memories from times on the road. I know it’s a bit crass but whatever, I love it!

My day pack

2) Collecting travel bills: I started doing this years ago, before I even traveled. Trying to get my hands on any foreign currency I could but now I’m country hopping all the time I’ve always got no end of foreign cash so I keep the lowest denomination each time.

I was in Zimbabwe a year or two ago just after hyperinflation and I got my hands on a 100 trillion note – it’s probably my favourite out of all my travel money. I don’t care what condition they’re in, it’s just nice to look at back at them.

Note in Zimbabwe

3) Eating Subway in every country! This might not go down well with the travel purists, but I’m a subway addict and after you’ve been roughing it in Western China for 3 weeks or busing it through Ethiopia, the sight of some western food, and the promise of a foot long meatball makes me wanna weap tears of joy!

Eating subway in Tanzania!

I reckon I’ve probably eaten it in 15 countries or so by now. I know I know, I should hang my head in shame! Considering how bad I could be with collecting tourist memorabilia I come across literally every day, I’m not doing to bad! Do you guys collect anything? Fridge magnets from countries? Posters?

Quirky Travel Habits I Have is a post from: onestep4ward.com

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