As we all know by now, I’m a terrible planner. The format I thought of for these posts last year worked well though, so I’ll continue that tradition. This post will be filled with commitments to myself rather than trying to set things in stone.  I’ll try to create a few solid goals year, to see how that works out.

Up the Travel Blog Game

First things first. Last year, I wanted to “up the travel blog game” and I almost quit. This year I’ll try it again. This year I have a list of things I would like to change, but also a few commitment I’d like to make to myself. So here goes:

• Update the lay-out & logo of my site
• Make money from one or two affiliate programs

Most of all I would like to make the commitment to myself that I’ll work on blog posts before the date comes to publish them. Even though most of the trips happened in the past, I’m racing to finish the posts about them on Sunday morning. I would potentially be able to do a lot of pre-work so that I don’t have to rush all the time.

Photo Albums

Linked to that, is my desire to create photo albums of all my trips. I would like to commit to creating photo albums of all my trips in 2019. In addition I would like to create one or two photo albums of past trips, so that I can get rid of loose photos. It’s time to clear up my “travel closet” in the living room.

Get Fit

Last year I kept this section quite vague. I wanted to build up my stamina in order to enjoy long hikes. I’m well underway with this commitment to myself. I’ll do one better for the upcoming year.

• I would like to complete a 5km run
• I’m assuming I’ll be able to meet this goal soon, so I would also like to target the TCS marathon run in Amsterdam of 8km which takes place in October
• I would like to do twelve hikes this year of around 20 kilometres. This could be more or less, but less than 15km does not count

Apart from that I’ll continue to focus on exercise. I’ll try to walk a lot and I’ll try to eat healthy.

New Channel?

I’m contemplating starting a new channel. One that isn’t related to travel, but another one of my major loves. Books. I’ll continue thinking about this, because before I start I’d like to determine what I would like to achieve with it. I’ll announce the new channel here, in case anyone’s interested, but no promises that it’s actually on the way.

Sabbatical

I have a 3-month sabbatical planned this year from April to June. I don’t have a solid plan for it yet though. I still have to figure that out, so I’ll leave things in the air for a while longer and I’ll write a post about it when the time comes.

Travel 2019

Those are all my commitments to myself when it comes to travel related matters in 2020. This section is the most erratic one most of the time, but I love talking about different destinations so much I’ll write about potential destinations anyways.

This year my travel can be categorised into different sections.

I’ll probably be making three trips with my boyfriend. The first is already booked, Jordan. The second will probably be somewhere warm in Europe. I wouldn’t mind a trip to Italy (I’ve never been to the south of the country), or Greece (which I always love to visit), or Malta (a new to me country). At the end of the year, we would like to go on a longer trip. I don’t know where we’ll be going then.

I have travel plans with friends & family. I’ll certainly be travelling to Bilbao & San Sebastian with the friend I travelled to St. Petersburg with. I would like to visit either Lisbon or Porto with my mum. Who knows, maybe more trips will planned later on in the year.

I will also be travelling solo next year. As I said, I’ll have a sabbatical of three months. I won’t be making trips non-stop, because I’ll also be spending time at home but I’d like to use some of the time for trips. I have to watch my spending a bit, because sabbaticals aren’t cheap and I haven’t been saving for it. Destinations I might visit are Argentina (to take Spanish classes), Indonesia (to get my PADI Advanced), Turkey (because it looks gorgeous), Georgia (because it’s been on my list forever and I’d still like to go), somewhere in Eastern Europe (Ukraine, Romania, Moldava). Romania is highest on the list as Jessica from Corners of the World is planning a fun-looking group tour here but I might decide to travel solo instead. As I said, I’ll write a post about the plans for my sabbatical later on.

What are your travel plans for 2020?