2022 might have been declared the year of “revenge travel” by the media, but 2023 was the year when travel really returned for me.
In fact, I’d venture to say it was the busiest travel year I’ve had in a long time. From local and regional adventures in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, to an 18-hour-flight across the globe in a return to Asia, a part of the world I’ve loved since I lived there in 2010, it was busy.
I’m not exaggerating when I say I have a “vacation spreadsheet” to plan my time off from my day job (!), so here’s a wee recap of where exactly I went in 2023…
January: The Catskills
The year began with our first visit to the Catskills, a popular mountain getaway just two (or so) hours from New York City. It was also our first time travelling (other than to visit family) with Winston, our puppy, and we stayed at the luxurious, dog-friendly Eastwind Hotel Oliverea Valley, where breakfast baskets were delivered to our room, there were Scandi-style saunas to warm up in after hiking in the snow, and the peace and quiet made you feel like you were in another world, not just a few hours away from the bustle of the city.
March: Cape May and Scotland
We kicked off March with another dog-friendly weekend away, this time to Cape May, the seaside town at the southern tip of New Jersey that we love to visit in the off-season. There wasn’t the snow storm of our 2022 visit, but there were gale warnings, although that didn’t stop us enjoying long beach walks (Winston thoroughly enjoyed his first experience of sand!) and hearty breakfasts at the local Beach Plum Farm.
I also headed home to Scotland for a week in March to visit family, which in Lewis mostly consisted of eating lots of food and lying on my parents’ couch watching The Chase (a British quiz show), and in Edinburgh saw me visit Edinburgh Castle for the first time – I don’t know why I waited so long! Of course, you can walk up to the Castle from the Royal Mile, and see it from most of the city, but there’s so much to explore inside the castle walls that it’s really worth booking a ticket to visit properly.
April: NYC and Seattle
In April, one of my oldest friends came to visit for a long weekend and we had a blast, as the Americans say. We covered all the usual NYC tourist spots – Central Park, Summit One Vanderbilt, Grand Central Station, Times Square, DUMBO, Chinatown, the Staten Island Ferry – and laughed pretty much non-stop every step of the way. April also saw us head to Seattle briefly to visit family, which coincided with Washington’s cherry blossom season, which was beautiful even in the rain.
May: New Orleans
My parents came to visit us in May, and I joined them for a four-day visit to New Orleans. We thought the weather would be spring-like in early May, but it was actually around 30 degrees Celsius every day – I had forgotten quite how hot and humid the Crescent City can be!
We spent a lot of time just wandering around the brightly-coloured streets of the French Quarter, and the wide mansion-lined streets of the Garden District, but we also went on a swamp tour, took a boat across the Mississippi, and did an (eventful!) bike tour through the Marginy and Bywater neighbourhoods. And of course, we ate lots of good Creole, Cajun and southern food – and even snagged a last-minute table at the legendary Dooky Chase restaurant in the Treme.
July: NYC, Princeton, and Seattle
In July, it was my brother’s turn to visit us, and we combined plenty of fun in NYC with a day trip to Princeton and Washington’s Crossing in New Jersey, and a week in Seattle (albeit a week that began with a three-day flight delay at Newark Airport…!). We hiked the lower reaches of Mount Rainier, took the ferry to Bainbridge Island (my brother is big Grey’s Anatomy fan) and (as usual) ate a lot of excellent food.
(The trip to Seattle also marked our first flight with Winston, and while I was incredibly nervous about whether he’d be allowed on the plane and how he’d react and about a hundred other things, the process went incredibly smoothly, the airport and airline staff showered him with attention, and he slept at our feet the entire way. Success!)
August: Scotland
We rounded off the summer in Scotland, and managed to fit a lot into a week away: a dancing-filled wedding in Inverness, relaxing and sea swimming and eating all the food (for me) and golfing (for Mr. Stories My Suitcase Could Tell) in Lewis and Harris; afternoon tea at the Balmoral and dinner at The Lookout on Calton Hill in Edinburgh; and an afternoon by the sea in North Berwick. To my amazement, the sun shone almost every single day we were there – a miracle!
September: San Diego
I celebrated another friend’s wedding in San Diego in California in September, which also marked my first solo travel trip in years. Before I left, I’d been a bit apprehensive, feeling out of practice at travelling alone, but in the end, I loved slowly exploring with my camera on my own timeline. The 6-hour flight and complete change in atmosphere and landscape in southern California reminded me of just how vast the USA really is, and how much I still have to see here.
October: Kingston and Aruba
October saw two very kinds of travel adventures: a day trip and a new country!
In early October we made the most of the lovely autumn weather to drive up to Kingston, New York, where we had briefly stopped off at on our way back from the Catskills at the beginning of the year.
I love how refreshing even a day trip can be; it felt like we’d really made the most of our weekend as we enjoyed a late breakfast at a local cafe, browsed the vintage shops and second-hand bookstores, and stopped for a glass of wine in the afternoon after we’d strolled the picturesque streets. (Kingston was actually the first capital of New York, and was burned by the British Army during the revolutionary war, so there’s plenty of history in these streets, too!)
We rounded off the month (and began the next one) in Aruba, thanks to a work trip that my husband’s company hosted. While there was plenty of lounging by the pool with cocktails (I wasn’t complaining!), we also went on a jeep safari through the dessert, a snorkelling boat trip along the coast, and spent a morning in the colourful capital of Oranjestad.
(And I can’t forget to mention one of the highlights of the month – the incredible launch of The Isle of Harris Distillers Hearach whisky in Manhattan!)
November: Aruba and NYC
We actually didn’t return from Aruba until 2nd November, but the rest of the month was filled with little local NYC adventures, like catch-ups with friends in the Greenpoint neighbourhood of Brooklyn, and seeing the giant inflatable turkey outside Macy’s just before Thanksgiving, which left me feeling very festive!
December: Taiwan
December felt like even more of a whirlwind than usual, because in addition to preparing for Christmas, attending parties, seeing friends, finishing up last minute projects at work, and managing our slow-moving bathroom renovation, we were also preparing to fly to Taiwan on Christmas Eve!
With the time difference, we missed Christmas completely, leaving JFK Airport at about midnight on the 24th and landing in Taipei at around 7am on the 26th. From the moment we landed (or rather, once the coffee kicked in!) we were on the go, as we couldn’t check in to our hotel until 3pm that day.
It was an incredible way to round of the year (and start a new one), filled with what felt like proper adventures in a new (to me) destination, and also a good dose of nostalgia for our time living across the strait in China in 2010-11. There’s a thrill and a sense of creative energy that I get from being somewhere new and completely different to my day-to-day life that I love, and Taiwan had it all. More stories from Taiwan to come, of course, just as soon as I go through those thousands of photos…!
Well, what a year of travel!
Like every year, 2023 was full of ups and downs and sideways turns, but when it came to travel, it was certainly a year of highs (barring the one low of that three-day-flight delay!). I spent time in seven US states, four countries, and 10 cities, all squeezed into weekends, public holidays, and the 20-odd days off that come with my day job.
But most importantly of all, the travel also brought me time with friends and family, and while I enjoy a good solo adventure as much as the next person, nothing quite beats adventures with loved ones by your side. So here’s to another year of adventures and suitcase stories in 2024!
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