Sledding Through Swedish Lapland Itinerary

We had a wonderful trip to Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, Bergen, and the fjords in Norway, with seamless connections, well-chosen hotels, and informative and fun tours and activities. Zicasso’s travel company did excellent work developing our itinerary and then following our trip to ensure it all proceeded smoothly.

We’ve never had a travel agency remain in such close contact during a trip. Our travel agent was an absolute pleasure to work with. She quickly responded to our emails and texts, and went through many iterations of our itinerary, honing it based on her extensive knowledge of the region and ensuring our complete satisfaction with it.

Zicasso's travel specialist sent us to one of the most incredible places on the planet in northern Sweden. I recommend her to all!

Zicasso's travel specialist knows the Nordics inside and out. This is my second tour in the Nordics where I worked with her and the experience was superb, from the planning to actually experiencing the rich itinerary she designed. Her network of professionals in the different cities (Helsinki, Tallinn, Stockholm, Copenhagen) is part of her superpower. They are all very knowledgeable and, most of all, very friendly, while at the same time very aware of the high quality of client service she provides.

Her ultimate superpower is her empathy, which requires good listening skills. The two trips I took with her were different in terms of pace and types of activities. In both trips, she truly captured the experience that we desired and envisioned. Soon, I'll be arranging our third trip with her, for real!!!

Attention to the details is the difference!

I have a friend who swears he can use ChatGPT to plan the ideal vacation. He does a search, gets a planned itinerary, spends hours making reservations, and inevitably a “detail” gets missed; something goes wrong. Maybe it’s flight issues (he once booked a semi-private flight and the plane landed in an area of the airport with no access to the rental cars. Oops!), maybe it’s that there’s loud construction next to the hotel he’s booked, etc.

With Zicasso’s travel specialist, there’s none of that. I reached out to her to plan a trip to Sweden (including the hotel made of ice) and let her know our dates, our budget, and what my wife and I wanted to do. A couple of Zoom calls later (including one with a specialist who was intimately familiar with the hotel made of ice), she had a perfect itinerary planned for us (including planning a tricky (for me) overnight train in a sleeper car traveling from Kiruna to Stockholm). All arrangements and reservations were made. I had to do practically nothing.

And I cannot emphasize “perfect” enough. We did so many active adventures, but we had necessary “downtime” to relax. In other words, we never felt rushed, but felt we did all that we wanted to do.

But it’s not just the ease of working with the travel company; it’s those “details.” For instance, her and the team made the recommendation to book a regular (i.e., warm) room at the hotel made of ice for the same night as our one-night stay in an ice room, just in case we found the ice room too cold. So when, in the middle of the night, my wife decided to bail on the ice room (note: she just couldn’t sleep; I found the room delightful), she had a room to retire to. Other guests we spoke to were quite envious of our arrangement/foresight (when I checked ChatGPT, it never made that recommendation).

Another example is that she recommended not snowshoeing in Stockholm in mid-March (due to the likelihood of slushy conditions). In contrast, ChatGPT did not caution against such a snowshoeing experience. She instead offered us a walking tour of Stockholm with a private guide. Note that she was spot-on; the temperature in Stockholm was 50 degrees (Fahrenheit), with not a flake of snow to be seen!

Also, she was there to answer questions about tipping practices, where to get food for our train ride, etc.

And no looking for taxis! We got off the plane in Kiruna, grabbed our luggage, and a driver with our name on a board whisked us away. Same thing going from the ice hotel near Kiruna to the Kiruna train station. Our taxi was waiting right at the entrance at the appointed time.

In Stockholm, she got us early check-in privileges (11am) at a gorgeous hotel right on the water and just a short walk from the old town.

Finally, the travel company’s app kept track of all our travel and activities, and pinged us with various reminders about flight departures and gates, etc.

So, sure, give AI a go if you want (and enjoy all the hassles of and time spent planning), but for true hassle-free travel abroad, I highly recommend this travel specialist and the tour operator.

The trip planned by Zicasso's travel company was generally good. The walking tour in Copenhagen was about 50% a repeat of the food tour. The hotels were good. The rental car was good and pick-up was close to our hotel. It appeared we could have dropped off the car in Gothenburg, close to our hotel, rather than driving back to the airport. There was a hotel payment issue in Gränna, but it was resolved before we checked out.

We had a wonderful trip to Sweden and Norway. Zicasso’s travel company's strongest contributions to our trip were the guides they provided and the hotels they chose for us. The guides were excellent and shared not just their knowledge of the cities and locales we visited, but also exuded enthusiasm for their countries. Our time with them was a highlight.

After a couple of conversations with the travel specialist, we landed on first-rate hotels with excellent locations that we thoroughly enjoyed. She also chose a worthwhile tour outside of Stockholm, as well as a great cruise in Oslo. The transfers all worked perfectly. She came through on the most important aspects of the trip. Significantly, she was available every minute during our trip. She responded right away to every question and concern we raised. We felt well taken care of.

I have a few suggestions for the travel specialist going forward. During the planning, she made me feel quite anxious. It began with her rushing me to make a decision because a tour was going to sell out. I felt very pressured, only for it to turn out that it was not a tour we were interested in because it would have spent too much time traveling for our short trip. The planning was a lot of work.

There were also a couple of snafus, such as the limo company calling me in the middle of the night a couple of weeks before our trip because they had the wrong date, and our missing a boat trip in Stockholm because she gave us the wrong location. She also told us that we did not need dinner reservations ahead of time. Fortunately, we did not listen to her because we would not have been able to go to the restaurants we wanted if we had not made reservations in advance.

She was very dedicated to doing her best to design a good trip for us. We enjoyed meeting her on Zoom. We are grateful to the travel company for helping to create a very special experience for our family.