Our mini break to Copenhagen last month was so nice and very needed after a busy few months. We really enjoyed ourselves, and spent some time relaxing and visiting all the amazing sites. We have already shared our top places to visit in Copenhagen with you, so today we thought we would share our top tips for taking a mini break in Copenhagen.
Denmark is a pretty expensive country, so any ways to help save a little money whilst not missing out on any of the experiences was our number 1 priority. So a few of our tips will help keep the costs down on your mini break to Copenhagen, other tips are more practical and some more personal. We hope you find them all useful if you decide to visit Copenhagen, whether for a mini break or a longer holiday.
1. Get yourself a Copenhagen Card
Before we take a break I do a fair amount of planning, and when I started adding up the cost of entry to the few attractions we knew we definitely wanted to see, it quickly became apparent that the Copenhagen Card was really good value for money and totally worth purchasing (that was without adding the cost of daily travel cards!). The card comes in 4 duration depending on how long you plan to stay – 24, 48, 72 and 120 hours and ranges from €48-€110 (£38-£87) per person.
This really is our number 1 tip if you are going for a few days and plan to try and see a number of the attractions or use the transport at all. The Copenhagen Card allows you free travel on the metro, bus and train (including shuttles to and from the airport) and free entrance to almost every attraction in Copenhagen City and a number further outside the city (you’ll find a full list on the website).
Extra Tip: Don’t add the start time to your card until you need to, no one checked our card on the train or metro at the start of our trip and we didn’t use it for an attraction entry until 4pm, so managed to get an extra half a day out of the card as it works on exact hours.
2. Pick up your free map at the airport
We had a printed map and the one that came with the Copenhagen Card (which was rubbish!) before we travelled, but at the airport there are free ones that cover the entire city in detail on one side and the travel lines for the train and metro on the other. They are by far the best map and they are great because they are free!! The travel system is pretty simple once you work out which direction you are going in, and there really aren’t that many stops to worry about in the city.
3. Travel light and wear sensible shoes
Although the transport system is really good, most attractions are actually within walking distance of each other if you are within the city, or a short walk from the metro/train themselves, plus many are situated within pedestrianised areas. So if you plan to make the most of your trip in the city and see lots of the attractions, the likelihood is you will be doing a fair amount of walking, and many streets are cobbled, so not great for heels! Keep your day bag light too as if your walking for hours you don’t want to be carting a heavy bag everywhere, plus a number of attractions don’t allow you to take bags in and you will have to store them in a locker.
4. Explore the little streets further away from the main roads
There are a few main shopping areas, and big high streets, but you will quickly notice most of these are full of high end designer stores or typical high street stores (tiptop, H&M, Mango, etc) and if your like me these aren’t really the types of stores I want to look at when I am in another country, I want to see the stores that champion their culture. Luckily you will find tones of Danish home design stores (although most of those were also out of my budget, but still beautiful to look at) on almost every street. But to see more of their small independent stores all you need to do is take a walk a few streets back from the high street, we came across second hand stores, vintage stores, handmade clothing stores, independent jewellery designers, antique interiors and even a camera shop for Jon, there is so much choice if you can find the right streets and the prices are far more reasonable.
5. Shop at the Supermarket for drinks and snacks
Buying bottled drinks and snacks can be very expensive in Copenhagen City, even from places like the 7 Eleven, but we eventually stumbled upon a Netto by the Botanical Gardens which turned out to be considerably cheaper. So our tip would be to look for a local proper supermarket and use that for any soft drinks, bottled water or snacks. The average price for a 1.5 litre of Sprite or Coca-Cola in a 7 Eleven was 39DKK, about £3.90 but in the Netto it was 18DKK, around £1.80 a significant difference. Water wasn’t much cheaper.
6. Visit Tivoli Gardens in the Evening
The lights make the place look even more amazing! We visited one evening when it was set for Halloween and all the lighting on the rides and stalls made the place look so pretty and a little more fun and exciting. Plus riding the Star Flyer at night means you get the most amazing view of the entire city when it is all lit up by street lights, it is beautiful (sadly you can’t take your camera on it).
We hope you have a great time when visiting Copenhagen
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