Adventure

I went to South America because of my sister. She went to South America because of a bottle of mezcal.

Wait. Let me back up. At 22 years old, I took my first long-term solo trip around Europe. That led to years of solo travel and living abroad, including a year travelling through Asia. In that year, I’d met another backpacker who became my boyfriend. When we broke up, I felt totally lost; we had made all of these grand plans together, and suddenly I was stuck in a Winnipeg winter trying to save my pennies as a bartender. I had no idea what to do next.

“You should go to South America, you’d love it,” my big sister Zalie said to me the night I got dumped, as if it was the natural next step. And just like that, a seed was planted, a fire lit. Within five months of that conversation, she was dropping me off at the airport to fly to Belize, where I’d start a nine-month journey through Central and South America.

People often ask me where I got the confidence, the bravery, or the idea to travel the world on my own.

“Easy,” I say to them. “I simply followed in my sister’s footsteps.”

I almost never do these kinds of review posts – I’m always so impressed with bloggers who manage to do monthly round-ups. I often think how great it would be to do the same, and that it would keep me motivated and probably make me post more, but then I remember how lazy I am and laugh. It seems like every blogger has already done a review of their 2016, and I don’t even know who reads these kinds of things, but hey, I just had a fantastic breakfast at Falafel House (fellow Winnipeggers, you know what I’m talking about… I always get the corned beef hash and a glass of chocolate milk), two cups of coffee, and nobody else is home, so I thought I’d use these couple of hours to do something semi-productive. Usually I’d just be binge-watching Forensic Files, so I’m going to count this as a win.

I originally thought about organising this post by the trips I’ve taken this year, but my life is more than just my travels, and this blog is slowly encompassing more than travelling, so I’ve decided to organise it month by month.

Without further ado, here’s my year in review. No, I did not mean to rhyme that.

I’ve always dreamed of planning a surprise trip for someone. I can’t imagine anything more fun than secretly booking a holiday, planning the flights, hotels, and activities all while the other person has zero clue what’s going on or where we’re going. I’ve always thought that the absolute coolest thing I could do for someone is to say, “I have our weekend planned. Pack a small bag, and bring your passport. Meet me at Heathrow at 5pm this Friday”… all mysterious like I’m James Bond or something (how James Bond always looks so stylish when he travels on a whim, I will never know. Does he take a travel-sized iron with him? Get dry cleaning at the hotel? I’m rambling, I’ll move on).

On the flip side, if someone ever did this for me… oh my. I would take that person straight to the chapel and marry them, because, as mentioned before, it is THE ABSOLUTE COOLEST THING. A spontaneous holiday? Not knowing where you’re going until you get to the airport?! For me, someone who loves spontaneity and adventure, I can’t imagine something more fun.

And then, as if they could read my thoughts, along came Surprise Trips. Because Surprise Trips does exactly that.

Found in the Himalayas between China and India, Bhutan is a deeply Buddhist country. As I’ve written about before, there is no limit to how many tourists enter per year, as some people may believe; however, each tourist is required to pay a daily fee, part of the “High Value, Low Impact” policy of the country. And as I’ve written about before, Bhutan is worth every penny of that daily fee.

For starters, there’s the backdrop: the snowcapped mountains rising in the distance, the sweeping forests of green, the emerald rivers that run throughout. There’s the culture: the dance festivals, the archery competitions, the spicy, delicious food. There are the people, so welcoming, helpful, and enthusiastic about sharing Bhutan. And then there’s the architecture, the ornate monasteries, nunneries, and dzongs (similar to fortresses), each one beautiful and unique. The most famous of these? Taktsang Palphug, commonly known in English as Tiger’s Nest Monastery.

If you’ve read this blog for a little while, you may know that I used to travel a lot – I visited every continent except Antarctica at least once in the last four years, including long stints of backpacking around Asia and Central/South America. When I moved to London about two years ago, I didn’t really plan to slow down… and for the first year, I didn’t, not at all. Last year, despite having a job and a full-time master’s degree, I visited fourteen countries on three continents.

This year, however, was probably the slowest year of travel for me in the past decade. I don’t even really know how it happened, but with work and the final stages of the degree taking over, plus an undying love of London, I realised I had to – and wanted to – focus on a few more things in life. That doesn’t mean I didn’t go away; this year I’ve visited Spain, Denmark, Ireland, Canada, and the USA, as well as lots of fun trips around the UK.

But I was a fool to think this wanderlust wouldn’t get the better of me eventually.

If you would have asked me a few years ago if I expected to visit Botswana any time soon, I probably would have said no. It’s not that I didn’t want to go, it’s just that the country wasn’t even on my radar. I probably couldn’t have even picked it out on a map (African geography wasn’t my strong suit until I became obsessed with online quizzes a few years ago).

And then something changed.