If you are coming to Stavanger in the middle of the tourist season (from April/May to August/September) it is quite easy to check out most of the attractions here – like Kjerag, Preikestolen and even Trolltunga (located in the Hardanger area) But if you come earlier in the season or later it has been tricky to get to some of these places by public transportation. But now there is a new tour operator in town: Outdoorlife Norway! You can get them to take you to e.g. Preikestolen in the middle of winter on snowshoes or hike to various other places in the area. I hope this will make it easier for tourists that visits Stavanger in the future. Note that it is tricky to get to Kjerag in the winter as the road into Lysebotn is normally closed for the winter and it is only opened again in early to mid May!

Regards
Gard
http://www.gardkarlsen.com – trip reports and pictures

Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) frequent flyer program EuroBonus will be launched in a version 2.0  in April 2014. There has been rumors about what will be new in the program but recently the secret was revealed. First of all: there will be a new Diamond level! The Pandion “level” will not be removed but it is still only by invitation only.  Read all about the new features on http://www.sas.no/en/eurobonus/new-eurobonus/

Regards
Gard
http://gardkarlsen.com – trip reports and pictures

I enjoy having a drink with a view and in some cities there are many bars to choose from. I have been to Bangkok a few times and I was blown away by the view from Vertigo on the Banyan tree building (you can read one of my Bangkok trip reports on my homepage). The local paper here in Stavanger had an article the other day about new places in Bangkok that might be worth checking out. Here is the list:

 Up & above: Seems to be both a bar and restaurant and it is located at hotel Okura near Ploen Chit skytrain station. Located on the 24th floor.

L’Appart: French restaurant located in Sofitel hotel near Nana. The restaurant is located on 32nd floor and according to the article it is decorated as a French apartment and there is also a balcony where you can enjoy food and drinks.

Park Society & Hi So: another new place located at a Sofitel hotel. This time it is the hotel located near the Lumpini stop on the subway. Park Society is the restaurant part of this concept and it is located on 29th floor. Hi So is the bar and it is located on the roof.

Zense: this place is located on top of the CentralWorld chopping complex in the middle of Bangkok. It is “only” on the 17th floor but it can offer restaurants, bars, indoor and outdoor seat etc.

Speakeasy: this bar is located on top of the trendy hotel Muse. It seems to be located on level 24 and 25 and the hotel is on Langsuan Road. The bar also seems to have a cigar lounge called Blind pig.

Red Sky and Fifty five: Red sky is the bar part and Fifty five is the restaurant. It is located on top of Centara hotel at the Central World complex and the view is of course great from 55th floor.

Vertigo and Moon bar: I guess the original roof top bar in Bangkok. From 61st floor you get an amazing view of Bangkok. Located on the Banyan tree building on Sathorn Road.

Sirocco, Distil and Breeze: Sirocco sky bar is located on the top of Lebua hotel on Silom road. You get a very nice view of Bangkok from the bar on 63rd floor. Breeze is a restaurant on 52nd floor that offers great view of the river.

So if you are going to Bangkok – now you have a few places to check out if you want a drink with a view

Regards
Gard
http://gardkarlsen.com – trip reports and pictures

This summer you can pay to get access to the SAS business lounges in Stockholm (Arlanda), Copenhagen (Kastrup) and Oslo. In the period from May 16th to September 30th you can pay 219 Kroner (about 36 USD) per person to get access to these lounges but you need to have a ticket on SAS, Widerøe or Blue1. So if you have a long wait it might be worth it – you do get access to some snack and drinks at least

I have gone to Kuala Lumpur (or KL as it is also called) for a number of years now and I normally stay at Traders hotel in KLCC. Over the years I have seen new buildings pop up around the area and one of the latest edition is tower 3 or menara 3 right next to the Petronas Twin Towers. When I was visiting a client in the Twin Towers in June 2012 I looked down on Menara 3 (which is 57 floors by the way) and it seems like there were tables and chairs setup there and I decided to check it out. When I went there the same evening I discovered that you enter this place by going to the main entrance of menara 3 (facing towards Mandarin Oriental hotel) and there is a lift up from there. I was a bit surprised by the lift…high ceiling, lots of buttons as it seems to have the potential to stop on every floor and it felt a bit slow. Well, it only takes 60 seconds to the top so I guess you can’t really complain

The first night we came after sunset and we were thrilled to see that you can get a table both inside in the bar (which has glass walls and a great view) and on tables outside. When seated outside you can of course enjoy the KL heat while enjoying the great view. The restaurant and the cigar lounge was not open at this stage so this is just a review of the bar itself – the restaurant is due to open in July 2012. But back to our visit – we went there with some friend and we were a group of four. As an avid traveler I have been fortunate enough to visit a few places around the world and for some reason I love rooftop bars with a view. On this night it was easy to see that the staff was a bit inexperienced and it is no wonder as they had only been open for a week. One example is that the waitress managed to serve the wrong drinks to all of us. The tapas/snack that we had was OK but I think the staff needs to know a bit more about the food…as a trick question I asked the one waitress what kind of cheese we had on the cheese platter and she had no idea. I have to admit that I didn’t really expect her to know it either so it was a bit mean of me to ask a question like that. When we ordered the panna cotta I think they totally forgot about it so in the end we had to ask for it a couple of times but it was worth waiting for: the panna cotta was very good and the same goes for the tiramisu and dark chocolate that came on the dessert platter!

We also went there a couple of days later when they had a soft opening for the sunset happy hour. We got there about 6 PM so this time the sun was still up and we sat outside again. From the outside you get an amazing view of the sun setting in KL and at the same time you are also so close to the Petronas Twin Towers that it almost feels unreal. Once again we tried some of the snack and also tried some of their cocktails and the drinks were very good. I think this will be a great place once the staff gets a bit more experience. The location is great and from the 57^th floor you get an amazing view of more or less the whole city and if you get there on a nice day you will experience a great view to the sunset in KL. I’m already planning to go back to Marini’s on 57 to check out the restaurant and the cigar lounge when I return to KL in September J Thanks to Ginny Lotto for the invitation to the soft opening and for introducing us to some new and exciting cocktails. This place is going to be one of THE places to go in KL. Check out the webpage or their facebook page.

Regards
Gard
gardkarlsen.com – trip reports and pictures

Hi everyone and happy new year!

Nikki and I went to Lisbon in May 2011 and I have finally posted my trip report on  my homepage. As you will see it includes photos, links, videos etc. I have also made this interactive google map: http://gardkarlsen.com/Lisbon_Google_map.htm . It shows were some of the attractions are located and also the restaurants that we went to – you can click on the markers to get more info. I hope that this trip report can be of use to others traveling to Lisbon – get in touch if you have any questions or comments

Regards
Gard
http://gardkarlsen.com – trip reports and pictures

I love the iPhone as a travel gadget – there are lots of very useful tools (and quite a number of rubbish tools as well) that you can download as apps. AOLTravel has looked into that and here is their list of the 11 best travel apps. One of the apps on the list this year is Gowalla , the app that allows you to check in at places when you travel, write something about them and build a sort of virtual passport as you go along. I think it is a fun app and you can see my profile on http://gowalla.com/users/gardkarlsen . I think Google MyMaps is probably the best travel tool on the iPhone but note that accessing the internet and using apps that require data traffic can be very, very expensive indeed (I experienced this in 5 minutes in Shanghai). The solution can be to buy a new sim card when you travel as that is normally not that expensive. What are your favorite travel apps?

It is that time of the year again. Good old TripAdvisor has published the list of the best destinations – the Travelers’ Award 2011. But let’s not beat around the bush – the winner this year is Cape Town in South Africa. I have had the pleasure of visiting this city a few times and it is a beautiful city indeed. It can offer spectacular mountains, amazing views from the top, beautiful beaches, excellent wine districts close by and great restaurants at affordable prices. So if you have a chance to visit Cape Town don’t hesitate – it is recommended. Here is a Cape Town trip report with photos, links and maps that I made after our last trip there. This list continues with places like Sydney, Machu Piccu, Paris, Rio, New York City, Rome, London, Barcelona and Hong Kong – many of the usual suspects in other words. Click on the links on the various cities to read my trip reports. I also had the pleasure of visiting Sydney twice last year but that was more or less “all work and no play” so I don’t have the same feelings for that town as I have to Cape Town. Well, click on the TripAdvisor logo on top to get to the Travelers’ Award 2011.

Good news people – according to Norwegian newspapers, Avinor will introduce free wi-fi on Norwegian airports very soon. The rumor says that the free wi-fi will be available already in May/June 2011 on the larger airports in Norway.  I was just at Geneva airport and I was happy and surprised to see that they had a free wi-fi network and hopefully the setup will be as easy on the Norwegian airports as well. But I guess time will tell

Another airline will start operating on the London-Stavanger route. This time it is British Midland (BMI)that opens a new route from Heathrow to Stavanger airport at Sola and according to their press release you can get an economy ticket from 120£ for a return ticket. Flights started on April 1st 2011 and it looks like it will be daily flights. BMI is also a member of the StarAlliance.

At the moment there are also routes from Stavanger to London being served by SAS (to Heathrow) and Norwegian (Gatwick). At least this is making it even simpler for Londoners to come over to see our fjords (e.g. the Pulpit rock) and it makes it even simpler for Stavanger people to go shopping in London . You can find some information about British Midland’s flights to Norway on this page.