2019 ended up taking me around the world when really I had intended it to be domestic (and within the contiguous 48 only). What happened? Opportunities I couldn’t pass up arose and YOLO. But really, I’m here on this earth to experience life and not merely work my way through it. So, let’s do a quick summer post of where my travels took me this past year.

In trying to stick with my plan of staying state-side (and maybe some wayward planning – and really good flight prices), I started with my adventures visiting both coasts and some cities in the middle (in the span of 30 days…oops). Let’s see if I can pick one pictures for each city. (The real test.)

• Portland, OR (first time)
• New York City, NY
• Denver, CO (not since college)
• Nashville, TN (first time)

And being a Couchsurfer and hosting so many people, I started to get restless, but still had some domestic trips coming up.

• Las Vegas, NV
• Minneapolis, MN

But then, the friend wanted to go to NYC, which I will almost always say yes to. With such a cheap one-way ($75), I figured I could find a cheap flight back at some point…or pay about the same and end up in Paris. I had PTO to take anyway. So Paris was booked, then it was trying to find a flight back…and in the midst, of watching airfare, the chance to go to Tokyo happened upon me.

• Tokyo, Japan
• New York City, NY
• Paris, France
• Dublin, Ireland
• London, England

If you’ve received a holiday card from me, there were highlights in there I’m sure you saw. I thought this was the end of my holidays for 2019. I had no more PTO (I later learned my math was a little off) left to take and no more money left to spend (technically speaking). All that was left was going up to Minnesota for the holidays, right? Wrong!

• Kailua-Kona, Hawaii

Other than my holidays being spent in Minnesota, that was really my last trip of 2019. What a year it turned out to be. I’m curious to see if 2020 can top it. Throughout my adventures, I caught up with a lot of new and old friends. I met some amazing people. I ate a lot of really good food (4 – 1-star Michelin restaurants (under $50 meals)) and enjoy good drinks. I also saw some pretty cool things.