Travelling Minion in 2019

Wow, I’m a little ashamed to be writing this in the middle of January. I was so on the ball last year, that I feel the need to start this off with an apology! While I did get to travel a good amount in 2019, I was very suspect in posting about it. As can be evidenced by the fact I’m still writing about Hawaii in May!

I’m not entirely sure why, all I can say is that life got really busy for me in 2019. And the free time I would normally spend to blog, I spent resting and procrastinating. Though the blog has always been in the back of my mind, and even though its a late start, I do hope to recommit to blogging in 2020 as there is so much to talk about!

With that, lets look back at 2019 (the trips I’ve blogged about, and those I WILL blog about!)

Montreal

My first trip in 2019 happened in February. I was looking for a short trip to tack onto a long weekend. After looking at a few possible destinations and enticing Gimpy with a winter trip, we ended up booking a short trip to Montreal, Canada. I have to imagine that heading to Montreal during a Canadian winter isn’t at the top of many people’s list, but it does mean we were able to get our hands on some relatively affordable tickets across the country. There is also the added benefit of visiting a friend that moved to Montreal for school.

Montreal has a very wide variety of eateries and we spent a good amount of our time seeking out and trying many of them. Interspersed between meals (and snacks) we found some time to explore the waterfront and the area around Mont Royal! In addition we visited a great little Jazz club to get a taste of the Jazz culture that’s a part of the city. On one of our last days, we hopped on a train to Ottawa, our Nation’s capital to explore the parliament and we also got try our hand at skating on a lake! How Canadian! All in all, it was a short and enjoyable trip to start off 2019! You can find the blog series here.

Hawaii

In May, a group of us visited Hawaii, namely the island of Oahu. For me, it was my first time to Hawaii and I was excited to try all the things my friends had raved about for years. As I think back to it, there are so many cool things that our group got to experience. Skydiving with Antetokounmpo, Shark diving with Cactoose, Lebron and FunkyCat, eating our way through the entire island, visiting Diamond Head, and satisfying the history geek in me through visiting Pearl Harbour. These are just a few of the memories that jump out at me when thinking back to our Hawaii trip. You can read about it here (Still in progress! More on that later).

Ucluelet

In June, our family embarked on a long weekend road trip to Ucluelet. It was such a cool trip because it was reminiscent of road trips that our family took when my sister and I were young. We’d all pile into my dad’s RV and we’d drive to all manner of places across North America. So there was a bit of nostalgia that also accompanied us on this trip. We stayed at our parents timeshare. We didn’t do a whole lot while we were out there, we spent the mornings exploring the coast and the different nature trails, and ate out once or twice at different restaurants along the way. The focus of the trip was family and being able to travel together again after a while was really just good for the Soul. I haven’t blogged about this yet, and I’m not sure I will, but we’ll see.

South East Asia

South East Asia was a very spur of the moment trip for me. I only had a week (10 days) to fly over to the other side of the world and see whatever I could as quickly as I could. Normally, for such a big part of the world, I’d dedicate more time to it (Like in previous trips.). However, my intention was to simply sample, and get a taste of the area so I’d be better informed when I went back. I also had the ulterior motive of flying certain flight segments in an effort to achieve airline status (which I did!). Nonetheless, the time I did spend was awesome. In the span of 10 days, I was able to visit Krabi, the Phi Phi Islands, explore Bangkok, and spend some time in Kuala Lumpur before heading home. The blog for this one is incoming!

Panama

My final trip of 2019 saw Funkycat, Gimpy, The Sister and I take a trip to Panama. This was the result of a cheap flight deal and my needing to burn an old Marriot 7-Night stay certificate. To be honest I didn’t know what to expect for Panama and I think that helped. Because there wasn’t any burning “must dos”, we went with the flow most days and found it to be very enjoyable. We explored some amazing tropical islands, visited the engineering marvel that is the Panama Canal, tried some delicious local dishes and made some new friends along the way! We even had an interesting run in with local law enforcement! (I’ll for sure be blogging about this one!)

2020

As I look back at 2019, at the start of it I didn’t have any concrete travel plans for the year. And yet, I realize I actually hopped around quite a bit. Looking back, I also recognize that I’d become quite complacent when it came to this blog. I’d like to use “busyness” and moving as an excuse. But we make time for the things that are important to us, and this blog is important to me. So I am committing to catching up on my 2019 trips, while also not letting laziness get a hold of me for 2020 with regards to Travelling Minions.

Looking forward to 2020, I have two things on my list that I am excited for.

Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan

In February, I’ll be heading down under again! My friend, Physio, is getting married! And I’m honoured to be invited to attend his wedding. When I started looking into the viability of travelling that way again, what started as a straight flight in and out of Australia turned into a bit of an “epic” trip that will see me spend a week in Singapore, two weeks in New Zealand, and a few days in Taiwan. I’ll also get a chance to fly the United Island Hopper, which is a bit of a geeky aviation bucket list item for me. As February nears, I’ll spend some time writing about the evolution of this trip and what I am looking forward to!

Trans Siberian/Mongolian Railway

For the second trip, I originally planned to do a points redemption and try to make it to the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Japan. For those that know, I’m a bit of an Olympic junkie and being able to attend both winter and summer games would be a dream! But as I started to look into it, some things happened that shifted my thinking. Sadly, over the course of the year, I attended a few memorial services for parents of friends. This made me realize how little time we have with those we love.

With this in mind, I scraped my Olympic plans and started talking to my dad about travelling together. We always talked about doing a father son camping trip. But it never came to fruition. With him getting older, and me not being as outdoorsy we instead looked into other alternatives. We eventually got excited about the idea of taking the Trans Siberian (Mongolian) railway from Beijing to Moscow. So I’ll be looking to do this sometime in the fall of 2020.

Beyond that, I’m confident that there will be “little” trips between them. Since the desire to travel slowing down anytime soon. 2020 is looking to be a good year for travel!