Where to Travel in 2018 According to NY Times, Frommer’s, Lonely Planet, Fodor’s, AFAR, and Me

Many people get excited about the end of the year because of the holidays, the time off, the food, and seeing family and friends. Don’t get me wrong, all of that is awesome (duh), but another tradition I get excited about around this time is seeing the next year’s “where to travel” lists, the pinnacle, of course, being the NY Times’ “52 Places to Go in 2018.” Yes, I was one of the 9,000 people to apply for the job of visiting and writing about each of the 52 places over the upcoming year. I didn’t get it.

2017 Travel Year in Review

How do you measure, measure a year? 2017 was the year I spent time in 13 different countries and 11 different states. I traveled to Europe three times. I set foot on my fifth continent. I revisited London, Indianapolis, Ireland, and Portugal. I reunited with friends from college in Prague and Dublin and old coworkers in London, Chicago, and Dubrovnik. I traveled for 10 days in Cape Town with someone I met in Mandalay and for 12 days in Croatia with someone I met in Dublin. A twelfth of my year was spent dog-sitting, both in Chicago and Jersey City. I added Shenandoah National Park to my list of U.S. National Parks.

Hotel Review | Holiday Inn Resort, Jekyll Island, Georgia

When I returned from India, someone I hadn’t seen in a while said, “Welcome back from vacation!” Though I know he meant, “Welcome back,” part of me wanted to say, “Vacation?!?!?!?! That wasn’t a vacation!!!!!” I loved India, but volunteering there had taken a lot out of me, and I certainly didn’t feel like I’d been on a beach with a drink in my hand. In Croatia this month, I was working on my laptop in a caffe for a few hours almost every day. Even when I’m not volunteering or working, I’m trying to experience and photograph as much as possible or I’m exhausted from catching a bus or train every two days. A few days after working my booty off in Croatia, I arrived at the Holiday Inn Resort in Jekyll Island, Georgia. For the first time in years, I felt like I was truly on vacation.

Nevada, Arizona, Utah | “Going West” – My First Travel Video

Back in the day, when I also wanted to be a professional pole vaulter, I wanted to be a film producer and director. But just as I’ve never cleared the bar in pole vaulting, I’ve never released any of my videos other than for high school projects, like when we produced a version of Huckleberry Finn with the actors kayaking in my backyard. This April, I went to a travel video workshop with Kristen of Border Free Travels at the New York Travel Festival and promised myself I would start doing travel videos.

Arizona & Utah | 3 Canyons in 3 Days

Coming back from a trip is always tough for me. Myanmar – where I’d been for four weeks, and my first adventure since quitting my job to travel – was especially difficult, but there is something to say for coming back to America. This time when I came back, I didn’t settle into my old routine, because, well, I don’t have a routine anymore. A week after I returned, I went off to the Southwest with my family to explore more of America – which is already great, for the record.

Los Angeles, CA | A Sunset in Santa Monica

Three days on the West Coast in December and my only personal plans were to see three sunsets. The first was in Venice Beach, the second was in Manhattan Beach, and the third was in Santa Monica. I’d been enjoying the peace, quiet, and crossword puzzles of my time alone there, but I was excited when I found out a friend was also randomly in Santa Monica that night. This was a friend I hadn’t seen in years, who I used to work with at a seafood restaurant in the summers when I was in college. We made arrangements to meet up later that night and I sat on the beach to catch one last sunset, which I watched while listening to Savage Garden’s Santa Monica (a seriously wonderful song) about 5 times in a row.

Austin, TX | Boots, Walkin’, & More

If you read my first post about Austin, Texas {Something to Taco-bout}, you might think that the only thing my cousins, sister, and I did there was eat. We certainly ate A LOT for one weekend, but we did so much more than just stuff our faces.

Austin, TX | Something to Taco-bout

Earlier this year, I was lucky enough to go on a trip with my lady frousins for the second MLK weekend in a row. Last year, we visited Charleston, South Carolina to eat our faces off and to have the be-Yeezus scared out of us by ghosts in a jail. This year, the crew headed to Austin, Texas to eat just as much, but with zero ghost encounters on the agenda. Here’s what we were able to fit in our bellies:

Los Angeles, CA | A Sunset in Manhattan Beach

I live in Manhattan. And for the most part, I love this Manhattan. But sometimes it’s hard. Like when it’s February. And rainy. And the 6 train is late every. single. day. And the wind is so wild that you think your air conditioner might fall right out of your 5th-floor-walkup living room window. And you have to keep that air conditioner in the window all year round because (1) you can’t control the raging temperature of your heaters and (2) you have no room to put the air conditioner if you take it out of the window because your apartment is the size of three office cubicles.

Los Angeles, CA | A Sunset in Venice Beach

December in New York usually stinks weather-wise, so when I had the opportunity to head to Los Angeles that month, I jumped on it. By the time my trip came around, it wasn’t that cold in New York, but I was still happy to be heading west for a few days. With all my dreams of being an actress/singer/gameshow host (without working toward these dreams AT ALL), you’d think I’d have been to LA at some point, but I’d only previously been to LAX for a few hours before flying to Hawaii.

Charleston, SC | Martha Lou’s Kitchen

As my cousins and I have been texting back and forth all week about where we want need to eat on our trip to Austin this upcoming MLK weekend, I realized I am a little delayed in writing about our food adventures from our last cousin’s trip in the lovely town of Charleston, South Carolina.

While we had amazing meals at some of the most well-known restaurants in town – Husk, Hominy Grill, Pearlz Oyster Bar, to name a few – there was one place that stood out most to me. That one place enters my thoughts weekly, an entire year later. That one place is Martha Lou’s.

2015 Resolution. Check.

It seems that I make resolutions on a weekly basis. Because I am ridiculously hard on myself (as even my Fluent City French teacher pointed out during my third class), I’m always picking things out that I should do better and things I should stop doing. “Always be a work in progress” has been a quote on my Facebook profile since college. But last year for my *official* 2015 resolution, I chose something that wouldn’t make me feel bad about myself and wouldn’t make me question my past mistakes. The resolution, the goal, was to explore 15 new places during the year of ’15.

Chicago, IL | An ExBEERience in Chicago

Not only was I lucky enough to participate in a food tour when I was in Chicago last month, I also had the opportunity to do a beer tour, which is something I’d never done before while traveling. I am definitely a beer girl over any other type of alcohol (read about my Struggle with Port Wine), but I also am now in my 30s and (very) unable to drink as much as I did in my college glory days, so I was curious how the day would go.

Chicago, IL | The (Deep) Dish on Chicago Food Planet

Last weekend was my first time ever in Chicago, visiting my friend Kristyn who moved there about a month ago. I’d wanted to go several times before, including last fall, when my cousin Em ran the marathon. With my luck, of course the marathon was the same weekend as a wedding I was in. Neither party would reschedule, so I chose the wedding. Since it took me so long to get to Chicago, I knew I had to make the most of it when I finally arrived.

Charleston, SC | A Ghost Tour of the Old Charleston Jail {or} “Jailhouse Shock”

I was thrilled that a few of my frousins wanted to go to Charleston with me over MLK weekend and, even better, that they agreed to partake in a ghost tour while there. We had a number of choices, but decided on a Bulldog Tour of the Charleston Jail – which happened to be at night, and happened to be a situation where we’d basically be trapped inside with the spirits. Good thing I didn’t think about this too much beforehand, or I may not have gone.