My new travel goals for (the rest of) this year

Hi there guys, some of my recent posts have been so serious and I thought I'd do a fun one for a change. This has been inspired by a Canadian friend who has just circumnavigated the globe - he flew West from Vancouver to Asia, travelled to the Middle East, central Asia then to Europe before back to Canada across the Atlantic ocean on this around the world voyage. Actually hHe doesn't even earn that much money but manages to make these epic trips by using budget airlines and staying in youth hostels. I have been to 73 countries so far and he is fast catching up with me as he has reached 63 after this trip. I did book a long weekend away for my birthday to go to Austria, Italy and Slovenia - that's right, I will pass through four countries on my last day as I start my day in Slovenia, pop over to Italy, then go to the airport in Austria before flying back to the UK. But the fact is I've been to all of these countries before and I was last in Italy this January. So in this post today, I am going to talk about some of my new travel goals for the rest of this year given that I have already given up my full time job to go freelance and that means more time for me to do the things I enjoy like traveling! 

1. Go to country 74 - but where? 

I have literally been to every country in Europe except Moldova, Serbia, Cyprus and Belarus. Given the war in Ukraine, I cannot go to Belarus but it should be fairly easy to go to Serbia or Cyprus. However, I am hoping that I might finally make it back to Asia later on this year with work and if so, I might just take the opportunity to go to somewhere like Cambodia and/or Laos, given that I have never ever visited either countries and I am indeed very keen to visit them. Work might also take me to Chile this year and whilst I can fly direct from London to Santiago, I might deliberately route myself via a city like Bogota or Quito just so I can simply visit another country on the way. It's not like I'm not traveling  much - just in 2023 alone, I have already been to Italy, Norway and Spain in the first three months of the year and I'm traveling again in April, but I keep going back to countries that I've visited before. Take Austria for example, I've counted: this will be my seventh trip to Austria but I'm going to a different part of Austria this time. Often with my favourite countries like Spain or France, I can keep going back again and again but visit a different part each time. The last time I went to a new country was in 2021 - that was to Ukraine for a shoot (and it was before the war) and now, I am itching to grow that list this year. 

2. Go visit a friend

When I go on holidays with my husband, our interactions with the locals are limited and dependent on me setting up something like getting to know an AirBNB host or even random encounters like striking up a conversation with people we meet at somewhere like an airport. I do enjoy trips where I go catch up with a friend I've not seen in a while. So I obviously I have old friends in Singapore but I also have friends in the USA, Canada, France, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Malaysia, Australia, Finland, Peru, El Salvador, Ecuador,  the UAE, Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany, Estonia, Hong Kong, Argentina, Senegal Czech Republic and Mexico. It would be nice to visit some of these friends in these countries as it is such a different experience when you have a local showing you the sights as opposed to relying on Google for that kind of information about what to see and do there. Besides, going to visit a friend would give the trip a whole new dimension and I should start messaging a few of my friends to see if they're free later this year. 

3. Go traveling with a friend

Instead of visiting a friend, perhaps I can get a friend to come on holiday with me - it's usually just my husband and I going on holiday together, but we have actually done trips before in the past with friends and family. This introduces a brand new dimension to the trip of course. It's not something I have done a lot of because I like to be in control of all elements of the trip, I pick everything from the flights to the destinations down to where we stay, where we eat etc. Sometimes a friend is willing to come with me if say they don't speak the local language - thus they would be quite happy for me to take the lead and let me take care of them on a trip like that. I think it can work with the right friend(s), why not?

4. Go on a longer trip. 

So far my trips this year have been relatively short, between 3 to 6 days, the last time I was away for much longer was back in November when I was in the UAE for two weeks. That was a work trip which I had extended and so I would do the same if I do make it to Chile later this year. But I have already been to Chile before back in 2019, though I did only stay in the Santiago capital region; thus I could explore other parts of the country or include another country on that trip. 

5. Revisit a city that I truly love

There are a small number of cities in the world that I truly love and I would love to revisit them - oh I would not be bored and say, meh I've already been there before as these cities are truly awesome. There is a long list of cities that I can revisit: Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Istanbul, New York, Kuala Lumpur, San Francisco Vienna, Hong Kong and Bangkok. I can add more cities to the list and I'd gladly revisit any of these awesome cities sometime this year. 

6. Find a brand new experience, maybe learn something new. 

I came across an ad for a cruise recently and I thought, the closest I have ever come to it was traveling on an overnight ferry from Helsinki to St Petersburg years ago but I've not actually done a proper cruise before as I thought that might be boring. But at the very least, it inspired me to think about what kind of new experiences I could seek when on holiday. So normally, when I go on my winter holidays, I would go skiing in the mountains but this January, I went mountain climbing instead in Norway - I still got to experience a lot of cold, snowy weather but instead of skiing, I was doing something quite different. So I could try to do a holiday that revolves around a new activity for me like horse riding or swimming with the dolphins or even learning something new like surfing. So if you can think of other new experiences, let me know please. 

7. Go somewhere remote with the aim of losing weight!

I remember that after I went mountain climbing in Stavanger in Norway, I went to an all you can eat buffet as I felt that I deserved a treat and if I couldn't do that after mountain climbing, well I might never go to a buffet ever again! To be fair, I neither gained nor lost any weight on that trip - I suppose the mountain climbing and the buffet cancelled each other out. I have toyed with the idea of going somewhere quite remote, away from the temptations of nice restaurants and fast food where I could do some kind of activity like trekking or climbing, only to be faced with a strict diet at the end of each day - it would thus be a health retreat type of holiday with the explicit goal of losing even more weight. I've lost 10% of my body weight in the first three months of this year already and I want to keep on losing even more. People often gain weight on holidays: they spend time stuck in places like airport and train stations where they end up getting fast food instead of salads; even when they do have time for a good meal, they want to try all the best local delicacies that may not be healthy. Well, perhaps I can try to create a very active holiday later this year that would help me lose even more weight! 

8. Have an epic train journey. 

I tend to travel by plane most of the time, the next most common way I travel is by bus and also I may get a rental car as well. But I don't use trains that much which is a shame as I do enjoy train journeys. In Europe, there are countries like Spain, Germany and Italy with awesome train networks. I have done some overnight train journeys over the years in places like the UK, Scotland, Vietnam, China, Spain and Portugal. But most of my train journeys are fairly short, like under a few hours just to get from A to B and I'd love to do one of those epic train journeys where you just stare out of the window for hours as the train travels through some amazing landscapes. So I have seen loads of Youtube videos about train journeys like that and I have always thought, yeah I should do that one day and maybe I will this year. Okay so that's it from me, what about you? What are your plans for traveling in 2023? Whilst there is a cost of living crisis and inflation, just cast your minds back a year or two to the pandemic when going abroad simply wasn't possible or was at best rather troublesome. Safe travels: leave a comment below, let me know your thoughts and many thanks for reading.