Scandinavia Tours & Vacations

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.

Zicasso’s travel partner was great to work with. They understood what we were looking for and put together a great itinerary.

The hotels were fantastic and our resort in Ivalo, Finland, was fantastic. We would definitely recommend our hotel in Helsinki, our hotel in Tallinn, and our resort in Ivalo, Finland.

Zicasso’s travel specialist was exceptionally easy to work with. She was always ready in the planning stages with answers to any questions we had. She sent an informative and detailed itinerary. The entire trip went very smoothly and it was everything we had hoped for. One of the highlights was our last day in Helsinki, when she joined us for a walking and "tasting" tour of the city. We learned so much and we truly enjoyed her company.

The trip was superb. From the planning stage to the execution of plans, it surpassed our expectations. Zicasso’s travel specialist gave us a great holiday which encapsulated all we'd asked for and which ran seamlessly. We loved it.

We thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Scandinavia. It was everything we’d hoped for and more!

The hotels were all well located and the star of the trip was our boutique lodge in Alta, Norway. The attentive staff, the food… everything was exceptional! They worked non-stop trying to make our stay the best it could be. As a primary motivation for the trip was to see the Northern Lights, the ease of this in this unique setting was wonderful. We only had to step outside of our cabin to check whether the lights were active or not. No hours-long excursion to escape light pollution was necessary as it is in other destinations.

The excursions we did partake in—the fjord cruise, the husky safari, and a tour of the igloo hotel—were also well run and very enjoyable. Zicasso’s travel specialist hit it out of the park!

This was our second trip with Zicasso’s travel specialist and, like the first trip, it was amazing. She found us a new boutique lodge in the middle of a forest above the Arctic Circle for what was originally planned as a Northern Lights viewing experience. The lights did not disappoint (brilliant on each of our first three nights), but they turned out to be just the icing on the cake.

The daytime activities for each of our four days were fantastic: fjord cruise, Sami experience, meeting with a reindeer rancher and learning about the Sami history and culture (including a reindeer sled ride), Alaskan husky dogsled experience, and snowmobiling to a plateau that felt like the North Pole. Plus snowshoe hiking through the woods at the lodge.

Our boutique lodge above the Arctic Circle was an amazing place. Our cabin, with its own sauna, hot tub, and aurora dome in the woods, was perfect. And our chef (yes, a real French chef in the wilderness above the Arctic Circle) made every meal memorable (the reindeer carpaccio, reindeer bourguignon, and reindeer confit were outstanding).

What a fantastic trip. And thanks to the travel specialist, all we had to do was show up, no planning and few decisions to be made.