On 2024 new year's eve I did a travel recap of all the places I went during the year. I don't know why I've never done it before, it's such a great way to remind myself of my travels. Here's my 2025 travel recap on 2026 New year's Day. Happy new year everyone!!
April - Pula, Croatia
I was originally supposed to go to Istanbul, then there were the protests and we ended up cancelling at the last minute. With our mind set on going away, I had to find an alternative. I had never heard of Pula in Croatia before, and it turned out to be a nice surprise. The city is very old, and we managed to book a lovely apartment opposite the iconic 2000 year old amphitheater. On one of the days, we went to a nature park on an island called Brijuni Island which frankly speaking was a little underwhelming. Our other day trip to the lovely seaside town of Rovinj was much nicer. The unfinished draft of Rovinj has been sitting in my editor for many months. I hope it will make an appearance in 2026.
April - Ljubljana and Lake Bled, Slovenia
Ok, I know two holidays in a month sounds very extravagant, there's a good reason for that. The Pula trip was due to an earlier cancelled trip in March, and Slovenia was on the way to the Hive Creators day in Graz in Austria in early May. There isn't a direct flight to Graz for me. I have to either travel 4 hours to London to catch a flight to Graz, or fly from my local airport to Innsbruck or Salzburg and catch a train to Graz. Either way I had to do transfers. In the end, I decided to fly to Slovenia instead 😄!!!
Sound kinda crazy? But it makes perfect sense. Slovenia to Graz is about 3 hours by public transport, and there are direct flights from my local airport to Slovenia's capital Ljubljana. I've never been to Slovenia before, and I've always wanted to go to Bled. I spent 36 hours in Ljubljana and a few days in Bled, which I have yet to post.
May - Graz, Austria
This was my only Hive meet up this year, and I had a great time catching up with old friends and meeting new ones. I hadn't been to Austria since my younger days, and this is a perfect opportunity to add another pin to my Worldmappin map. I must rustle up a travel post sometime.
June - Bilbao, Spain
I don't normally go away in the summer, and I knew I wouldn't be going to HiveFest in Malaysia in November, it was a pity as Asia is my neck of the woods. In June I got my travel bug again and took a short trip to Bilbao in Spain, a city famed for its gastronomy, amongst other things. The food did not disappoint! I just realised I haven't written a single travel post about Bilbao, I'm really getting so behind with everything.
December - Antarctica
In my 2024 travel recap, I hinted at doing a big trip in 2025
If you follow my blog, you've probably realised by now that I went to Antarctica in December, and yes, I can't stop raving about it. So much so, that I've been working very hard to journal my trip. I did my first post a few days after I arrived in Antarctica, I was bursting to share with everyone. After I came home, I did a day by day summary to set up the framework for the rest of the posts. This was followed by days 1 to 4 and days 4 to 6 of my trip. There should be two more posts for the rest of the trip, plus maybe another one about the ship (if you're not already bored of it by then 😊)
2026 travels
Next year I have two planned trips so far. The first will be the Hive Creators day at Alicante in Spain in May. We had so much fun this year.
In September I've booked a cruise to Greenland. I'm going with my sister and she likes to book her holidays ages in advance. I want to go to Greenland because it sounds like a very unique place, quite remote and untouched, and I'd like to go before orange face gets his dirty paws on it. The cruise will finish in New York. The last time I was in the big apple was ages ago, I can't even remember exactly when, maybe 15 - 20 years ago?
Other than that, I have no other plans. I'd like to do Asia, Taiwan and Japan and maybe Singapore as well. It will be three years since I've been back. I'll have to see how things go later on in the year.
What about you? Did you go anywhere interesting this year, either locally or internationally? And what's on your bucket list for next year? No matter what your plans are, I wish you happy travels wherever you go in 2026 and don't forget to pin on @worldmappin to share with everyone on Hive!!
You can check out all my travel posts on the Worldmappin here or click below
