“I love the … east, west, north and the south of you”

Cole Porter in “All of you”

I love the winter and therefore the North, that’s why I called my blog way-up-north. But there may be other nice directions as well, as for example south, east or west. Today I’ll invite you to accompany me on two journeys. Virtually and right now! We’ll travel round 57000 kilometres in total, but don’t be afraid, it won’t take long.

Let’s start with the longer journey:

Longitudinal journey – ca. 40000 km

Let’s start in Skelleftehamn, where I live. We enter our magic flying carpet and just head south. Already 44 km later we leave Sweden, cross the Baltic Sea and enter Finland. We traverse the Baltic Sea again, next countries are Latvia, Lithuania and the Kaliningrad Oblast, with is part of Russia. Remember? We fly south, not east! Next countries are Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Greece. Skelleftehamn is quite an eastern place, countries like Denmark, Germany or even the Czech Republic are more in the west.

Time to undress the jacket, we’re crossing the Mediterranean Sea. Soon Africa is within sight and we fly over Libya, Chad, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where we cross the equator. Next countries are Angola, Namibia, Botswana and South Africa, where we leave the African continent at a nice sandy beach.

Time for the jacket again, we’re continuing the journey south. I hope, you love water, because it takes us almost 4000 km flight until we reach the next continent: Antarctica. I hope you brought your warmest jacket, the flying carpet has no heating. 2250 km later: The South Pole!

Antarctica is one of my dream destinations and I would love to travel to this place. But this is probably the most expensive of my travel dreams and I’m not sure if the dream will come true some day.

The flying carpet doesn’t stop, it just continues straight ahead. It flew south on the longitude 21°15′ E, now it heads north on 158°45′ W bringing us back on the other side of the Earth. We are still over Antarctica and fly another 1300 km until we are over the sea again. I really hope, you love water, you will see a lot of now. We reach the equator again without traversing a single island! Later we fly cross Hawaii between the Islands Kaua’i and O’ahu, but still only water under our flying carpet.

It takes us almost 15000 kilometers from Antarctica until we finally reached land again: Mitrofania Island, part of the Aleuten, part of Alaska, part of the USA. Our flying carpet doesn’t stop – we just traverse Alaska heading north until we reach the Beaufort Sea. Now we’re over open sea again, probably partly frozen and we reach the North Pole.

That was the only mainlands on the other side of the earth: Antarctica and Alaska, that’s all! Now the flying carpet has its original heading again: south on longitude 21°15′ E. To my big delight we’re traversing Svalbard.

Svalbard is another of my dream destinations but there are a lot of polar bears around. You should (a) know how to avoid them and (b) be able to use a weapon. I neither know (a) or can (b), so it’s probably a more future destination for me.

We leave Svalbard continuing our flight south. Soon mainland is in sight and we enter Norway, Finland and finally Sweden. After a while we see a minor town at the seaside and a green painted house surrounded by grass that is in the urgent need of being cut.

We’re home again in Skelleftehamn. Time to take a short break until we’ll start the other journey. You’re invited to follow, it’s shorter than the first:

Latitudinal journey – ca. 17000 km

I throw a coin, will we head east or west? The coin says: “East!”. OK, let’s enter our magic flying carpet again and start.

After 1500 meters we reach the Baltic Sea and after that Finland. I hope you can read cyrillic, the next country is Russia and it’s huge! It will take us round 7000 kilometers flight just traversing Russia. The last parts of Russia that we cross are the Sakha Republic (also known as Yakutia) and Chukotka Autonomous Okrug.

Yakutia is another dream destination. As a fan of cold weather I must travel to Oymyakon, probably the coldest inhabited place on earth, one day. But I’ll be disappointed if I won’t experience at least -55 °C, -60 °C.

The flying carpet continues and soon we’re over the North American Continent, first Alaska, USA, then Canada. In Canada we hardly see any people, just some Inuit, since we’re in the Canadian Arctic that has a much extremer climate than Sweden. The last part of Canada we traverse before the Arctic Ocean is Baffin Island.

I’ve never been in Canada and I definitely want to travel there, both in Autumn and in Winter. There are many places that are interesting to me, amongst others Nunavut and Labrador, but some towns as well.

The next mainland: Greenland.

Greenland, another dream destination, probably in wintertime.

The next mainland: Iceland.

Iceland, yet another dream destination, too, in all seasons! I need a sponsor!

The next land is better known to me: Norway. Always extremely beautiful and not too far from my home. But the flying carpet flies on,  crossing the Norwegian-Swedish border, flying over the fjäll, the forests of the inland, the town Skellefteå and finally lands gently on the grass of my backyard. Home again!

Thank you for following me on theses journeys. It was fun, wasn’t it? What were your dream destinations on these trips? I’m looking forward to your comments!