Our 2015 Travel New Year’s Resolutions

Last year our New Year’s resolution was simply to travel more. Well, 2014 brought us through 30 countries during 12 very full months of travel, so I’d say we accomplished that.

But now that we’ve decided to continue traveling for longer than originally anticipated, we thought it might be a nice idea to jot down a few travel-related resolutions to try to follow in 2015. People often break their New Year’s resolutions, but when posted publicly, it is said that you have a greater chance to stick to them. So without further ado here’s our travel resolutions for 2015… 

Focus on the Destinations that Get Us Excited

During our 2014 travels we learned a lot about what we like and what we’re a bit more indifferent to. We spent nearly half the year in Europe, which entailed touring one cathedral to the next and one beautiful historic city center after another. Those churches were nice, but then we’d go hiking in the Alps and be in absolute awe.

The museums and architecture would start to blur together. But the amazing adventures and outdoor activities is what continue to shine in our memories. Paragliding over volcanic lakes, scuba diving the Belize Barrier Reef, rafting through the Czech countryside, sledding down an active volcano, mountain biking through the incredible landscape of Cappadocia Turkey, swimming with wild sea lions in Peru, trekking with camels through the Sahara Desert – that’s all what get’s us going.

We also found we tend to enjoy smaller and medium-sized cities to the larger ones. Another common theme was affordability, as cheaper destinations can be less stressful of having to constantly keep tabs on our budget. And we also really enjoyed exploring the beer cultures of Belgium, Germany, and Czech. It may sound weird to some, but it genuinely made me ever so happy to try all these famed and fabled beers right from the source. And what a fun time!

So in 2015 we’re going to shy away from the big cities and cultural hubs and instead seek out adventure. …unless, of course, there’s good beer. In that case, count us in!

Tick Off an Ultimate Bucket List Destination

New Zealand, Antarctica, and Namibia are currently our ultimate dream destinations. The problem is that these places are all also very expensive and/or out-of-the way places to travel to. But these are truly the places we dream of. This is what gets us excited to continue traveling. While visiting all three would absolutely break the bank, we must splurge and pursue at least one.

So in 2015 we vouch to visit New Zealand, Antarctica or Namibia. The lingering question is: which one? Of the three, where would you most want to go?

Slow Down

We tend to travel fast and hard which we find has its advantages. It’s exciting, you get to see & experience a lot more, and it can sometimes make sense financially. Jumping from city to city every day or two really is quite the adventure and is very sustainable for a two-week trip. Heck, it’s even manageable for a few months. But after keeping up such a ferocious pace for a year, we really need to slow it down.

We always have a never-ending “to-do” list that just seems to grow and grow. I also work remotely on projects while we travel and using a few hours on a long bus ride to compete some work is simply just not going to cut it anymore. And there are always subsequent travel arrangements that need to be researched and booked. We have a horrible habit of never leaving ourselves enough time to get it all done.

So in 2015, we’re going to try to book twice as long as we think we’d want in all locations that aren’t cost-prohibitive to do so. Hopefully this will give us all that extra time we’ve been craving to get everything done. Plus I think it’ll add to a more relaxing and enjoyable pace of travel.

Be More Confident with Spanish

Cleotilda and Cesar: our Guatemalan host family

Over the past year we’ve spent 137 days living in Spanish speaking countries. That’s more than four months (1/3) of the year! We even spent a week in Guatemala studying at a Spanish school to nail down our basics. So you’d think we’d have a pretty good grasp on the language by now? Wrong.

We still struggle but we improve each day. And I find that when I do attempt to speak Spanish, although I’m likely butchering this romantic language, its often received well and native speakers can make out what I say. I’m hesitant to attempt conversations in my poor Spanish but whenever I do, it seems to go well. They appreciate it, it makes me feel good and accomplished.

So in 2015 we vouch to put get more conversational, even if it is with poor grammar and at a first-grade level.

Travel with Friends

One last pint with friends the night before we left the States

We meet some really awesome and interesting people while on the road. The problem is that they’re in our lives one day and gone the next. We really miss having day-to-day friends in our lives. When we visited our hometowns for a few weeks in November, it was so refreshing to momentarily have our friends back in our lives again. But we don’t necessarily need to travel home to have that. They can come to us! So we need to get better about trying to convince our friends to take a vacation they won’t forget and come roaming around the world with us for a week or two.

So if you’re one of our personal friends reading this, start making plans. (And actually we’d love to connect with any of our readers.) So this is your informal invitation to come for a visit. Our loose and always changing agenda is here in Southern South America for the next few months, SE Asia around the summer time and potentially Europe in late Fall. If you’ve ever wanted to go to anywhere near these areas, just pick a place and we’ll gladly meet you there in 2015!

Blog More Often, Better, and Shorter

Okay, I fully admit it; over the past few months I’ve neglected our poor little travel blog a bit. I remember the good ol’ days of Central America when even though I was backlogged; I was still posting about our awesome adventures every few days.

Then Europe came and went and I still have an enormous buildup of incredible experiences and posts I’ve penned in my head that I never got a chance to write about. And I think we’ve gotten pretty good at cracking deals and developing some really fresh travel ideas and recommendations yet I never get a chance to reveal them. There’s a whole series of helpful and informative posts I want to write. But there’s never any time. You can see from our “Slow Down” resolution that we’re always on the go and working on something. And once that’s all done, then I try to blog.

But in 2015, that’s all going to change. I enjoy blogging and need to make time for it. I want to try to post something on this site at least every week. One problem is that I tend to write posts that are lengthy. Some may say I ramble but I call it being thorough. Either way, perhaps being more concise will help this cause to blog more. So on that note, I’ll end this article now. 😉

Cheers to 2015!

So Happy New Year to you! Please check back in throughout the year to see if we’re following any of these resolutions and hold us accountable if we’re not! Meanwhile, do you have any travel resolutions for 2015? Whatever they may be, best of luck in accomplishing them and we wish you a 2015 full of travel adventures of your own!

Happy New Years!
-John & Heather