To those who enjoy review trips and travel content, I want to provide a quick update, and it’s good news (and it’s intended to be on a happy note)…
My past many years of travel have been boring(ish)
As I’ve already written about, I recently lost my mom to ovarian cancer, after a battle of over six years, which has been quite the emotional roller coaster. As I explained, my mom had been diagnosed with cancer in 2019, and she outlived any expectation we had for how long she’d be around (which means we constantly lived as if her passing would be imminent — because it seemed like it would be).
With that in mind, that situation made any sort of travel really complicated over that time period, especially given that I’m also married and have two kids now, which kind of take up a lot of time:
- I planned very little travel in advance, since I never knew how things would evolve, so most of the travel that I did plan was last minute
- When I did have a “hall pass” to leave home, I often just preferred to travel to visit my mom and spend quality with her, rather than adventuring off to somewhere
- Reviewing airlines and hotels is also my job, so a vast majority of my travel in recent years has been “pure” review trips, where I basically fly nonstop, with little time on the ground (flying premium cabins might sound fun, but it really isn’t that glam, I promise)
I have no regrets about maximizing quality time with my mom, and putting travel on the back burner. However, I really missed actually planning travel in advance, and for that matter, visiting places I’ve long wanted to go to and spending time on the ground, whether it’s in Greenland or Kyrgyzstan.
How my approach to travel will change going forward
With the above out of the way, I’d like to share that I’m looking forward to increasing the amount that I travel, and also that I plan to adjust the types of trips I take, and how I plan them. Of course it’s not going to be anything like back in the day when I lived in hotels full time, was single, and didn’t have kids. But still, I feel a lot more comfortable with planning travel in advance, and also taking more interesting trips.
As I start to plot out the travel I’d like to take, here’s what I’m thinking:
- I’m going to be doing a lot of travel with my dad; I’ve always enjoyed traveling with him, but in recent years I prioritized travel with my mom, so now my dad will get more attention again (and I apologize in advance, but he gets giddy about Emirates first class, and hasn’t flown it in 11 years, so I think I owe him…)
- I’m still going to do a fair number of “pure” review trips, since ultimately I like to stay on top of airline products, these trips are efficient, and they get me a lot of review content without being away from home long
- I’m so excited to once again have more destination focused trips (beyond just beach vacations), which I just hadn’t made a priority in recent years, so it’s time to start plotting trips to the Canadian Arctic, the Faroe Islands, Georgia (the country, not the state), Greenland, Kyrgyzstan, the United Island Hopper (a destination, as far as I’m concerned!), etc.
So anyway, stay tuned. I’m sitting here currently planning both a destination trip and a review trip, and it sure is a nice change of pace. I think at least one person will be beyond overjoyed by the airline I’m finally going to be reviewing again…
Bottom line
I finally feel like I can once again plan travel in advance, and actually take some slightly longer trips to destinations I’d actually like to visit. In recent years, my travel has been so heavily focused on pure review trips, in order to be away from home for as little time as possible, and instead spend time with my mom.
While I’ll continue to take plenty of those, I’ll also start planning more travel way in advance, plus have more destination focused travel. Oh, and my dad is coming along for much of the ride, so I’m sure he’ll be happy about that. Stay tuned, because I’m just finalizing planning for my first of these trips, and will share those details shortly…
Thanks to everyone for reading, and for the patience with the lack of travel in recent months… I’ll try to make up for it!
