What spring and summer of 2022 has in store for me

Hi there guys, I'd like to share with you some of my travel plans for the rest of this year. I'm so glad that things are returning to normal after putting some of my travels on hold for two years. So before the pandemic hit, I was making about 12 trips a year - yes on average once a month and visiting about 12 to 15 countries a year. My last pre-pandemic trip was to Northern Greece in February 2020, then when the pandemic hit and the lockdowns happened, I still managed some travel in the summer of 2020 and visited a total of five countries that summer: Estonia, Germany, France, Italy and San Marino. Then we endured another long lockdown during the winter of 2020-2021, but in the summer of 2021, I managed to get away to Portugal and Ukraine - the latter was for work and I was so lucky to have been able to visit Kyiv before the war as it had been a wonderful city I had always wanted to visit. I will return to Ukraine once the war is over I promised myself. Then woah, things quickly moved back to pre-pandemic normality this year: I ushered in the new year in Tampere, central Finland when the temperature was -17 degrees. Then I went skiing in the Pyrenees in France this February and I have just returned from Puglia in Southern Italy. With the lifting of traveling restrictions in Europe (no quarantine required, no forms, no testing, no one checking tons of paperwork, few people even bothering with masks anymore), yeah it feels like pre-pandemic times which is quite a shock to see what is happening in Shanghai right now - I can only roll my eyes as the Chinese communist government is completely insane and fucked up, but then again, tell me something that I don't know already. Will this total clusterfuck  situation finally prompt regime change in China? I digress. 

So coming up, I am going to Inverness in Scotland to take part in a 'pilot' - allow me to explain, before a TV network like Netflix or the BBC commissions a whole TV series, they will do a 'dry run'. So this is usually a test episode which is not for broadcast, it will be revealed internally by experts and senior management to see if it is commercially viable, it if works or not and what changes need to be made. So for example, I once saw how a 10 minute Welsh short film get commissioned into a full series but there were quite a lot of differences between the original short film and the actual series - possibly because they had to shoot the short film on a shoestring budget whilst they had a proper budget for the TV series but also because those changes were made after the experts reviewed the short film and made some recommendations about how to improve it. Obviously, I've signed an NDA so I am not allowed to tell you anything about this pilot but I will be shooting in the Inverness area in Scotland for four days in April and May. Then I will literally be coming back to London, getting one night's sleep in my own bed before flying out to Valencia in Spain for a conference where I will be meeting some of my clients there and of course, everything in the conference will be in Spanish which is going to be good training for me as I will be off to Panama on the 20th May for a total of 11 days there for a conference, but I am also extending my stay there to do a bit of sightseeing as it will be my first time in Panama. Whilst I'm very excited about going to Panama, I'm not looking forward to the tropical heat there. It hit 23 degrees in London today and I'm already complaining it is too hot - it is currently a steaming 33 degrees in Panama as I write this but nonetheless, it will be my first long haul trip since going to South America in 2019 - ironically I'm heading back to Latin America this time.

What's happening from June is a little fuzzy at this stage but given my recent promotion at work and the new responsibilities I have taken on, there will be a lot more traveling. These are some of the cities which I may be visiting but this is by no means set in stone: Lima (Peru), Kampala (Uganda), Kigali (Rwanda) and Nairobi (Kenya) are the ones which are more certain. Then these may happen a bit later in the year: Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town (South Africa), Cotonou (Benin), Dakar (Senegal), Lome (Togo), Bujumbura (Burndi) and Abidjan (Cote d'Ivoire) - there are a few more but I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch. Yes there's definitely a strong Africa and Latin America focus to my client base and that is just a function of me being the only person in the company who speaks French and Spanish fluently. Given that much of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan is still closed to outsiders because of their Zero-Covid stance, it is totally pointless for me to try to do any kind of business develop in that part of the world anyway and I can't see that changing any time soon. Furthermore, I would consider making a trip to Singapore later on this year as I've not returned to Singapore since 2018 so it would be a good four years since I have set foot in Singapore but to be honest, even though it was possible to return since the opening of the Vaccinated Travel Lanes last year, I haven't rushed back for a variety of reasons but the key reason is that I'm simply not that close to my family at all and I have chosen to prioritize other commitments. In fact, I try really hard to avoid talking to my parents to avoid conflict and keep the peace (trust me, conflict is inevitable if I actually try to speak to them) but that means my relationship with my parents is non-existent and thus I feel no compulsion to rush back to Singapore to see them, even if I have not seen them in four years. 

There's quite a lot of tension that I have to bear when I return to Singapore and my parents are just the tip of the iceberg. For instance, I feel very strongly that the way my two sisters work 80 to 90 hours a week is truly insane, I really want to tell them to quit their jobs and find an alternative to that kind of lifestyle but of course, they wouldn't listen to me. They both just accept that this is the way the majority of their friends work and they have no alternative. And I'm like, hello? Can you see how few hours a week I work compared to you? It's not like I'm some part timer - I'm holding a very senior position within investment banking yet my productivity is not related to the number of hours I put in at the office; instead my company relies on my creativity, ingenuity, my problem solving skills and my bright ideas. After all, I am a business development strategist, I'm not some production line worker having to make objects with my hands. I use my brains to make a living, not my hands. I am not going to come up with better strategies and ideas if I spend 11 hours a day in the office staring at my computer screen. No instead I become more creative and productive when I am relaxed, happy and fresh - that means I am not being plain lazy when I get eight hours of sleep a night, go train gymnastics four times a week and have loads of fun holidays in beautiful places. I need to do all that in order to be productive and hence my employers are very happy with the way I have a good work life balance. Going to Singapore and seeing my sisters struggling so much under an insane workload is just painful to witness but it is even more frustrating when they just plain refuse to acknowledge that there's anything wrong with the insane number of hours they work in Singapore. I can't help them or make them change if they refuse to take the first step and want to get out of that awful situation in the first place. 

So that's what the next couple of months look like - there's going to be a lot of adventure and fun in traveling to places like Latin America and Africa. Currently, my running total stands at 72 countries (after I visited Ukraine last year) and when I land in Panama that will go up to 73; with a bit of luck, I hope to hit 80 soon with some more international travel for work. Getting to explore Africa is one of the most exciting parts of this new adventure - when I go to somewhere like Kampala or Kigali, I will extend my stay there for a few days so I will have some time to do some sightseeing. On my trip to Valencia, there will be someone picking me up at the airport to drive me to my hotel - I tried telling the travel agent, it's okay, I speak Spanish fluently, I've been to Spain many times, I can use public transport and she was like no no no dear, this is a business trip and those are the perks. Just enjoy it and stay away from public transport. I am in my element - I am in a job that allows me to travel the world and use my languages; oh and did I mention that I'm being paid rather handsomely for doing a job I enjoy. Life is strange, I wouldn't have been where I am if I didn't lose my old job because of the pandemic and if it wasn't for Covid, who knows, I might have been still stuck at my old job not achieving as much. This pandemic forced me to shift gears and prove myself all over again in my mid-40s and thankfully, things have worked out really well and I am optimistic. The world may be a crazy place now but at least I know I can always focus on earning more money to take care of myself and the people I love and I do not take that for granted: 2022 will be much better than 2020 and 2021. Well that is it from me for now, please feel free to leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.