In keeping with a Cuban tradition, right after midnight, I tossed a bucket of water out the front door of the house. This, and other absurd New Years’ traditions is highlighted by Jennifer Lubrani’s (@meningioma) guest post on Stephen Roll’s (@travelojos)excellent blog Travelojos. So, after some much needed time off over the holidays, I just want to review what I’ve written about recently, trips I’ve made in 2009, and where I hope to go in 2010.
2009 Travel
1. Spain and Morocco – Paris for a couple of days (IAD-CDG), enjoying some of the sights I’d missed previously. Then, flew on to Casablanca, and train to Marrakesch and Tangiers. From Tangiers, I flew on to Madrid and spent some time with my family before returning home.
2. Mexico City – 3 days over USA’s Labour Day weekend, seeing Tenochititlan, Teotichuacan, Tlatelolco, and the other hard-to-pronounce Aztec words beginning with the letter T. Like Tequila.
Two international trips and numerous domestic trips is in keeping with my quota of approximately 2-3 major trips a year (Hey, having a day job makes insane travel challenging…). 2010 is shaping up to be a great year though…
2010 Travel
More than a few factors will determine how much travel I’m able to do in 2010. Right now, I have a big trip planned to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Phillipines. This is probably the most ambitious trip I’ve undertaken since Europe ‘06. Thanks to the nice folks at Star Alliance, I will be flying all-business class Singapore Airlines (Airline nerds: Routing BWI-CLT-LAX-SIN/SIN-BKK-LAX-CLT-BWI), and undertaking a fairly unhealthy schedule of eating hawker food and travelling on an unhealthy schedule.
Also, thanks to promotions, I have an award ticket to Europe on American Airlines, which I hope to use to travel to Western Europe sometime later this year.
What I’ve written about
Continuing a meme started by Katie at Tripbase, I was tagged to do a post on my Top 3 Travel Secrets by Steph at 20something travel. She was tapped by Shannon at A Little Adrift and Gray, who writes Solo Friendly.
In Travel Planning, I wrote about travel in Israel and Palestine, how to see Argentina by car, and if you love trains (like me), how to become a Eurail master. Some other stuff you might have missed in this category:
In travel stories, the main focus was the Grand Tour along with the follow up posts. One of my New Years’ resolutions is to finish up that series with the Italy post, probably in the next week or so.
Doing a monthly wrap-up is a lot easier, and keeps things clearer, so I’m going to start doing that.
Finally
I just wanted to quickly let folks know about other bloggers I’ve met and interacted with, that I think write very well and deserve a read:
20something travel – Already mentioned this earlier, but Steph has a great site, and tons of great content. She’s getting ready for a RTW trip, which should provide tons of awesome information.
Travels of Adam – Adam is a graphic designer in Boston ramping up for a RTW trip as well. He started blogging right around the time I did, and he’s gotten some great content up as well.
Go With the EBB – The curiously named blog of a Singapore expat on a Fullbright scholarship writing about and researching Singaporean cuisine.
Where is Hawkins – Nick’s writing is phenomenal. Travel with an attitude. And his most recent trip to Singapore falls right in with my current obsession with the mini-nation on culinary steroids.
A Traveller’s Library – A really neat take on travel writing, Vera focuses on the literature of travel. Great book reviews and a great twitter follow.
Go Backpacking – Another fellow Washingtonian, Dave is a great writer who has such a vast array of past travels, he makes a great resource.
Travelojos – Steven’s blog focuses solely on Latin American travel, and I really praise him for specialising. I think in a group of people that loves to travel, it’s very easy to be too broad.
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Another resolution of mine was to be more active on Twitter and other social networking sites. You can follow me on twitter at @8hourlayover.
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Thanks for reading, and I wish everyone a happy new year filled with new places.
-Dan
Bucket image courtesy of Er.We
Thanks for the mention and kind words. I think we missed the Cuban New Year’s Eve tradition you observed. We’ll need to add that to the list.
Your trip to Asia looks very exciting.
Oh man, I’m so excited about this year!
And I didn’t realize you were doing such an extensive trip around Southeast Asia. When are you planning on being there?