When I first started this blog, way back when in 2013, I had just handed my notice in at work and was preparing for the biggest move of our lives to Japan. I wanted a way to document our journey and there was born… The Travelling Holts.

That was nearly 7 years ago and it seems so surreal to know that now, that chapter of our lives has come to an end. We have now left Japan to move to Sweden for a new chapter of the Holt adventures.

We loved our time in Japan and we have left behind some very treasured friends but we felt it was our time to move on. Life was financially comfortable and safe but it was becoming increasingly difficult and exhausting to live long term in a country where we were just not picking up the language. So we decided it was our time.

We treated ourselves to some bargain business class flights with Qatar airways on our final journey leaving Japan. A 21 hour journey was never more comfortable or easy especially during a global pandemic. It was what we needed to feel safe during this unprecedented time and the extra luggage limit certainly helped. It is not often I say this about extravagent luxuries but it was definitely money well spent on this occasion.

So what now? We have moved to a small town called Gävle, about 90mins north of Stockholm after a quick 3 week stop in the UK, two of which were spent in quarantine. For all those asking we were extremely good citizens and stuck to the quarantine rules and it was a good job too because the police actually came twice to check on Rob about half way through our 14 days.

Even though Gävle isn’t quite as famous or exciting as Tokyo, we hope to continue adding to The Travelling Holts to document our travels around Sweden and eventually Europe if the Covid situation dissipates. We have already had some fun exploring our new home.

So it’s time to say a final, “Sayonara” to Japan and a fond, “Hej Hej” to Sweden. It was and will always be a special place in our hearts.

またね!
SPx