2009 Travels and Beyond

At the end of every year I make a list of the places I went. I do this to remind myself of how blessed I am to travel. I also do it to push myself to travel more! I have kept my goal of leaving the country once a year for the past six years. However, I do want to go further, to places that are more out of my comfort zone. I want to travel to more places on my own, instead of relying on work. I want to travel enough so that when I am at the yoga studio I volunteer at, I don't feel jealous every time some classmate tells me about their three weeks in some exotic land. (That might be impossible.)

Here are the places I went in 2009 (*places are places I went to more than once):

Vancouver, Canada 

Seattle, Washington 

Austin, Texas 

San Francisco, CA 

Union City, New Jersey* 

Hoboken, New Jersey* 

Playa del Carmen, Mexico 

Boston, Massachusetts* 

Washington D.C.* 

Arlington, Virginia 

Los Angeles, California

I also wanted to do at least one exercise on Gwen Bell's Best of 2009 Blog Challenge. Day One's challenge was your Best Trip of 2009. This is a hard one. There is a tie because the trips were great for different reasons. 

Mexico was amazing because I had to stay off of the internet and just relax. I did not think I was someone who struggled with that but by the end, I was dying to check my email. Lauren did all of the planning and because she is meticulous, I knew it would all work out. And it did! Playa del Carmen is really beautiful but that does without saying. There will be more Mexico in my future.

I went to SXSW, an interactive festival based in Austin, years ago because a film I worked on premiered there. That trip was well ... kind of miserable for a variety of complex reasons. It tainted my feeling on SXSW and Austin in general. We knew we needed to do some more filming in Austin so Beth, Jolene and I decided to make it into a mini vacation (since we were going to have to come out of pocket a bit ourselves). This was the trip I decided to reclaim Austin and the fun festival that I knew SXSW could be. During the five days in Austin, I had so many moments of kindness from people from my friend getting us tickets to the secret Kanye West concert to the great couple who let us stay in their gorgeous house for free. I had made a resolution for 2009 to see more live music and I saw tons during SXSW. I am officially hooked. 

To get myself inspired, below are some places that I want to go to someday. Here's hoping for 2010:

Italy (Venice, Florence, Rome)

Scotland

Costa Rica

The French Riviera

New Zealand

Senegal, Benin, Ivory Coast, Egypt (So many places in Africa)

Thailand

Brazil (Really, most places in South America.)

Barcelona, Spain

Iceland

Comments

[Camille in Slovenia]

Thanks for the update. I was wondering how and where you were!