If you’ve read our other year-in-review posts (best experiences, worst experiences, top hotels), we’ve mentioned that 2019 was by far our most active year. We visited 31 countries and more than a hundred cities, traveled on countless different transportation methods, and overall had an unforgettable (but exhausting) year. We started the year in the US, and technically also finished it in the US, although it happened to be on the small island of Saipan, halfway across the world! So, to finish our series of Year in Review posts, here is our full recap of how 2019 went and what we did!
Work, Prep, and Departure (January-March)
We welcomed 2019 with friends and family in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We spent the entire month staying at Jessica’s parents house, unwinding from our previous 6 months in Southeast Asia and Australia, and preparing for our upcoming year of travel. In January, I also served my annual commitment to the Air Force Reserves, where I worked as a space acquisitions officer. Throughout the month, we also worked hard at developing and launching our course, The Art of the Pitch, in which we teach others how to secure collaborations and paid partnerships on content creation campaigns for brands.
Once February came around, we said goodbye to family and continued our travels, which took us to Mexico. We visited Guadalajara, Ixtapa, and Mexico City that month, immersing ourselves in rich Mexican culture. My mom was also able to visit us in Ixtapa, so it was great being able to catch up and spend time with family while traveling. The month ended with a trip to Miami, where we boarded Royal Caribbean’s newly amplified Navigator of the Seas cruise ship for a 9-night sail, which took us to Haiti, Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao.
Slow Travel in Playa del Carmen (March-May)
The next leg of our 2019 journey was back in Mexico, where we settled into Playa Del Carmen near Cancun after spending a week with Jess’s parents and working with the Iberostar Paraiso Maya. We enrolled the kids in school for 6 weeks, which gave them the opportunity to learn from people other than us, as well as more time to practice their Spanish. This also gave Jess and I time during the day to work on our blog, podcast and Instagram, plan travels, send proposals to brands, and spend time together. While we did set up a home base in Playa del Carmen, we also took the opportunity to explore the local area, which is filled with fun adventures, beaches, cenotes, and other family-friendly activities. Some of our favorites include a weekend trip to Isla Holbox (where there’s hardly any cars), as well as a week in Ambergris Caye, Belize.
Adventures in South America (May-June)
We kicked off the month of May with another cruise aboard Navigator of the Seas. This time, instead of highlighting the ship and its new features, we had the pleasure of working to create content for the launch of Royal Caribbean’s renovated private island, Perfect Day at Coco Cay. This ended up being one of our favorite experiences of the year!
After the cruise, we flew to Buenos Aires, Argentina, which was the first stop of our adventure through a few countries in South America. Buenos Aires was a modern city which reminded us of a smaller version of New York City, and while we do love exploring cities from time to time, we were much more excited to keep flying south to the Patagonia region of the continent. We landed in El Calafate, Argentina, and spent about a week venturing through the town and marveling at the Perito Moreno Glacier. We also drove up to El Chalten, which is even smaller than El Calafate, but contains some truly incredible mountains and lakes! From there, we hopped on a bus and crossed the border into the Chilean part of Patagonia, where we had a truly unforgettable experience visiting the Torres del Paine National Park. The mountain range is an absolute wonder to behold, and I can still vividly remember being up early to watch the sun rise on the shores of Lake Pehoe.
Our last destination in South America for this trip was Peru. We’ve always been fascinated by Machu Picchu, so it was wonderful to spend about 10 days in the Sacred Valley of the Incas. We stumbled upon a big cultural festival in Ollantaytambo, learned about Peruvian culture during our homestay in the village of Huilloc, and learned how fabric is dyed using all-natural materials in Chinchero. In all, we absolutely loved our time in South America, but by mid-June, we were ready to return to the US!
US and Costa Rica (June – August)
Our three weeks back in the US in June simply flew by. We flew in to Reno to work with the Travel Nevada Tourism board and experience the Lake Tahoe Loop on a road trip. It was our first time working with a tourism board, and was a fast-paced but undeniable fun way to explore a destination! From Reno, we returned to Colorado Springs for the first time since we left on our full-time travels in June 2018. We loved being able to reconnect with friends, but the majority of our time was spent preparing our house for a turnover in tenants. Earlier in the year we decided to continue renting out our house, but our current tenants were moving away, so we spent about a week getting the house move-in-ready.
From Colorado Springs, we ventured to sunny San Antonio, Texas for another tourism board campaign! San Antonio completely surprised us with its rich Latino heritage, delicious food, and variety of activities both on and off the Riverwalk. We loved it enough to even put it on our short list of places we would consider settling down in!
After several months of fast travel across South America and the US, we were ready for another period of slow travel. Costa Rica has always been a destination we’ve wanted to visit, so it was a no-brainer to settle in there for a few weeks. We rented an Airbnb apartment in Tamarindo, and used it as our home base to explore the beaches and jungles of this beautiful country! We met some truly phenomenal expats and travelers along the way, and stayed at some of the nicest resorts of the year for us (The Springs Resort and La Paz Peace Lodge).
Fast Travel Across Europe (September – November)
By the time our adventures in Costa Rica were up in late August, we were ready to turn up the pace of our travels again, but I’m not sure we were quite ready for the pace we actually ended up moving at! These 3 months were our busiest time of the year, and I’m a little nervous writing this because you might think we are absolutely crazy traveling like this with 2 young kids. But, oh well, here goes!
We flew from Costa Rica to Seattle, and from there sailed on a week-long Alaska Cruise. We then flew from Seattle to Dublin Ireland, where we worked with the Spaceships UK motorhome rental company on a road trip across the Irish countryside. Then, we flew from Dublin to Lisbon, Portugal, and spent the next week or so making our way to Sevilla and Barcelona. From Barcelona, we flew to Edinburgh, then took a train down to London. From London, we flew to Berlin, then started a long stretch of train travel, which took us to Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Munich, Paris, Belgium, and the Netherlands. We then flew from Brussels to Turin, Italy, took a train to Florence, and weathered the rain there for about 3 weeks while also exploring the Tuscan countryside. Finally, at the end of November we took a train from Florence to Rome. To say that by this point we were tired would be an understatement, but we were still ready to close out the year with perhaps our biggest adventure yet: spending 23 nights straight on a cruise ship!
Cruising and Closing Out the Year (November – December)
We have always been intrigued with the concept of a repositioning cruise, which typically happens at the end of a cruise ship’s season. In this case, the European cruising season was ending, so our ship, Jewel of the Seas, was making its way from Rome, past Greece, across the Suez Canal in Egypt, stopping in Jordan and Oman, and ending in Dubai. These cruises are a great way to experience multiple countries at a time, along with some more unique ports, like the one in Aqaba, Jordan. Unsurprisingly, we absolutely loved our 23 nights of cruising. We appreciated the fact that we could unpack our bags, and not have to worry about finding a place to stay, food to eat, where to travel, etc. We honestly could have stayed on a cruise much, much longer.
We disembarked in mid-December in Dubai, and spent the next few days exploring this awe-inspiringly modern and futuristic city. From Dubai, we flew to Seoul, South Korea, where we rented an Airbnb apartment in the historic Bukchon village. We celebrated Christmas there, then flew to Saipan for my best friend’s wedding, where we then closed out the decade at a beach party with friends.
Last Words for 2019
As we started the year, we had no idea that we would end up visiting so many places! I knew we were starting in Albuquerque and ending in Saipan because of the wedding, but everything in between became this schedule that gradually filled itself in as opportunities presented themselves. There were times where we had nothing booked for the next day, and times where we cancelled plans because something came up. Our year, in a nutshell, was unnervingly chaotic, but we embraced that chaos and channeled it to create incredible memories as a family. I don’t think we will ever be able to replicate the pace that we traveled at this year, so I will always look back at 2019 as the year in which our travels took us to grand and unforgettable destinations.
