In the past, I've started the New Year with at least the first six months booked solid. For once, this isn't the case - I'm excited at the novelty of the flexibility in my future. I've got nothing officially scheduled past March. This is great!
Even with the travel plans that I do have in my pipeline, they're different from the past. My income became much more passive in 2014, and because of this, I now have greater freedom to travel in the way that I want to.
So many of my plans for this year came about from hanging out with blogger buds, throwing out ideas, and saying, “Are you serious? I'm serious. Are you serious?! I'm still serious!”
###Get Off the Beaten Path More
My travel has become pretty mainstream. There's nothing wrong with that - you, as readers, want to read about about popular destinations more than anywhere else. There's a reason why my posts on London and New York always go crazy. Conversely, my posts about more obscure places rarely do well unless something exceptional happened there.
But I was putting together a list of my favorite off-the-beaten-path spots - like the Faroe Islands, Shetland, and Macedonia - and realized that it's been a year and a half since I've been to anywhere remotely off the beaten path (excluding Brunei, where I had a great time but I don't consider to be an inspiring travel destination). This year? I'm going to go beyond, whether it means visiting seldom-visited-and-blogged-about destinations or visiting less-popular parts of popular destinations.
###Recapture My Adventurous Spirit
I used to be game for anything and possibly a little too adventurous (jumping into a boxing ring in Thailand is still the worst thing I ever did), but things have really mellowed out in recent years. You guys are aware of that; you have commented on it from time to time. This is not who I want to be. But I know the reasons behind my mellowing, and this year they will not be factors.
I want to zip-line and volcano board and whitewater raft. I want to hike and push myself. I want to camp and hitchhike. I want to travel to weird places. I want to say yes to crazy things again. And I fully intend on doing so this year.
###Costa Rica
I fly into Costa Rica at the end of January and don't plan on spending a ton of time there - maybe 10 days? - before heading to my next destination.
At this time, I think I'm going to visit Arenal for hot springs, Monteverde for the cloud forest, and Sámara for some beach time.
