Well friends, we hope you enjoyed the breaking news presented by Sheila in “2020 Vision”. We are Colorado bound, but also incredibly grateful for the amazing year we had, both in gallivanting through the American West & Canada, as well as our European walkabout. Before the sun officially sets on 2019 and this decade, we thought we’d bring you through the year with some fun numbers, memories, and other outtakes. Enjoy!
James: We had a lot of fun making some infographics walking you through the numbers on our adventures. We spent a lot of time flying — though both of us have tried to minimize our carbon footprint, it’s still a work in progress. Hopefully one day we’ll be able to cross the Atlantic like Greta Thunberg!
Sheila: Yes, at least most of our planned travel for 2020 will not involve airplanes. Next step is finding a solar powered sailboat to get us to Hawaii! In the meantime, here we are reflecting on the adventures of 2019. If you remember, we started off with an “appetizer trip” through Utah and Arizona back in April. We tested out the waters of long travel days and traveling as a pair. When nothing blew up, we launched into the main event — a four month trip through Europe. Of course, you’ll also remember this meant that both of us quit our jobs and left our lives in Boston, where I had been living for 4+ years and James for 13. It’s the kind of pivot/change/extreme decision that makes for the best stories and most crucial life learning moments. And we’ve had a few. We’ve extracted some of the major details/numbers of the trip and are sharing them below!
- Countries visited: US, Italy, Austria, Slovenia, Switzerland, Spain, France, England, Canada
- Pancakes consumed? That’s the ultimate question, really. But it’s an ongoing count!
James: We loved staying with our hosts and writing about them, and we have some fun metrics on our posts below. Sheila, which post was your favorite one to write?
Sheila: Yikes, that’s a tough one. I feel like I was in such a different head space for each one and, because of that, I feel a certain kind of way each time I review it. I loved doing our Interviews because they felt light-hearted, fun, and always made me realize how much we have accomplished. Traveling Through Grief was a post I really built up to and definitely feels the closest to my heart, whereas I wrote Saving For Travel & Making It Fun in a single push. Some posts made me laugh, others felt cathartic, still others made me more curious to dig deeper and explore an idea further. Does that answer your question? Haha maybe not, but that’s the nature of writing and writing from the heart, ya can’t pick just one. What are you’re thoughts on this? Do you have a stand-out post?
James: It’s funny. We’ve definitely had emotional highs and lows over the course of writing on this blog, there’s no doubt about that — I look at something like “She Said Yes”, and even though it’s only a few words there’s so much to celebrate and look back fondly on there … so I know what you mean, picking one and only one is an impossible task. I definitely can say that “Traveling & Relationships” took me the longest amount of time to write, as I started mentally composing the post while we were in our second week in Slovenia and finally finished it nearly 2 months later!
Let’s walk through some blog highlights with you …
James: breaking it down below for you with some links!
- Most popular post: Traveling Through Grief, followed by Traveling & Relationships
- First blog post on our site: Every Start is a New Beginning
- Most popular recipe: Simple Sourdough
- Most common “accidental” google result: “adventure tattoos” (in reference to Sheila skinning her elbow during our trip to Utah), though there were some other incredible gems, like “how to pronounce heat wave” and “saving money is hard”.
Sheila: And we aren’t slowing down once 2020 hits — full steam ahead! We already have a few posts planned and will surely cover our road trip out west, AND we’d love to hear from YOU! If there is something you are interested in learning more about, please leave it in the comments below. We’re taking a little hiatus from Instagram and Facebook for the first month of the year but we’ll still be posting here, so be sure to subscribe! 💌
James: Many thanks to Sheila for a year filled with incredible moments, laughs, miles walked, ran, sweated through, recipes made, and so much more. Thank you for filling my life with joy.
Sheila: Thank YOU James & huge thanks to all of our readers — can’t wait to see what the next trip around the ☀️ has in store!
