The Travelling Holts

Kawasaki, Yokohama and Odaiba

After our stay in Tokyo is was time to head out west to Yokohama to visit our good friend Yoshi. It turns out that Yokohama is the second biggest city in Japan which surprised me as I always thought that title belonged to Osaka but alas. Based on population size Yokohama is bigger but I…

Tokyo: Our Tourist Edition

During our time in Japan, we spent plenty of time visiting the tourist spots of Tokyo but but more as a tour guide to our friends and family rather than a tourist. We loved this because when life in Japan became more ‘normal’ seeing the magic of this crazy country through their eyes made it…

Makuhari Revisited

For those of you who have followed The Travelling Holts’ journey from the beginning, you will know that this blog started eight years ago when we decided to move to Japan. It has grown so much since then, currently leading us to Sweden. However, how we left Japan never sat well with us. We always…

Hotell Södra Berget: Sundsvall

When we found out that we would be travelling to Sundsvall for a regional conference we decided to use it to our advantage and book a spa trip at the Hotel Södra Berget. We booked the Sparadise package during our stay which included two nights in a standard double room with breakfast, late night access…

Norwegian Spa Hotel Getaway

This summer we were supposed to return to Japan but unfortunately the Covid curse prevented us from going. Even though we were gutted, we decided to make the best of it. We took our time moving house with the help of some amazing people and then took a few days away of Gävle to unwind…

Yasuragi, Stockholm

Since leaving nearly two years ago now, I know I have left a little bit of my heart in Japan and with the COVID restrictions, we still haven’t been able to return. So what to do whilst we are waiting for Japan to open its borders to tourists? We decided to go to the next…

The Glass Resort: Finland

One thing has been on my bucket list for a long time; I have dreamed of seeing the Northern Lights for many years and when we moved to Sweden, we knew we were a little bit closer to achieving that dream. There are so many amazing places to see them in Scandinavia and just weeks…

Höstlov in Stockholm

It finally happened! Sweden opened its borders with the UK and our parents were allowed to visit. My parents came for the first four nights of our Höstlov break followed by Rob’s parents for the last four nights. Due to limited time we decided that meeting in Stockholm would be easier when we would be…

2 Days in Stockholm

When we first moved to Sweden, we thought our first stop would be Stockholm but due to the Corona curse, that was postponed twice. The first time we thought we had Covid, the second time we did! Now nearly 12 months into our Swedish adventure, we finally made it. A mere 90min direct train from…

8 Amazing Side Trips from Tokyo

When we lived in Japan, we used to get a lot of visitors. Some used to visit for long periods of time, around two or three weeks. This would give us time to see the more popular sites further a field like Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, Himeji, etc… which are highly recommended if you have the…