Our 2014 Travel Year in Photos

We can hardly believe 2014 is already coming to a close. We’ve been reflecting over all the experiences we’ve had this year and travel truly is good for the soul. Travel transforms us. It transports us and allows us to take a break from our daily lives. Travel makes us step outside our comfort zone.

And step outside our comfort zone we did in 61 cities in 18 counties on 4 continents. We had several repeat trips including 3 each to Germany, Austria and France. Here are a few of our other travel related stats:

42, 368 miles flown
129 days spent traveling
48 hotels, 3 apartments, 2 tented safari camps, 1 treehouse, 1 house boat, 1 teepee, and 1 camper van
30 different airports
11 new UNESCO World Heritage sites
6 ski resorts
3 Northern Lights spottings

With all of those miles covered, we snapped thousands of photos to forever remember it and share it with you. So many of those photos never even make it here on the blog and especially the ones we are actually in, so take a look back through our best memories of 2014 with many never-before-seen-photos:

January

We started off 2014 by ringing in the New Year in our favorite European city. It was a true holiday and the first we’d had with no blog related responsibilities in well over a year.

We road-tripped from our home in Italy to Gstaad for a ski holiday. We were blown away by the beauty of this chic Swiss town.

Ljubljana is just over an hour drive and our closest US Embassy. A trip was necessary to have a set of extra pages added to my passport for our first big adventure of 2014…

February

We went on a two-week safari. Our first two nights in the bush were spent in a tree house and not much sleep actually happened. Not only did we hear the movement of big animals, but we somehow missed the part of the briefing that Maasai would come build a fire under our tree house so we could have a hot shower. It takes a bit to get used to the sounds of the bush, but now we look back and laugh at ourselves.

Ngorongoro Crater is like the opening sequence of The Lion King when you magically believe all the African animals live together. There aren’t any giraffes in Ngorongoro Crater, but pretty much any other African animal you can name lives here. We saw four of the Big Five in one day in the crater and got to see lions feast on the Cape buffalo they’d taken down.

We spent four nights in the Serengeti in two different tented camps. Our first was right along the Grumeti River, where some 70 hippos had taken it up as home. Their grunting made us giggle every time and we even caught a hippo out of water on our bush walk.

An elephant had died fairly close to our last camp and we went to bed with the lions calling to their pride to come join the easy meal. Hyenas were also hanging around and they apparently like to steal shoes and things you might leave outside your tent flap.

March

March brought me to Berlin, where I was speaking at ITB. Though I was totally nervous about my talk at one of the world’s largest travel trade shows, I took some time for fun in one of my favorite German cities.

Monaco is a tiny country that packs a big punch. It oozes exclusivity and no more so than getting a rare look at the wine cellar beneath the Hotel de Paris. It’s not open to the public, so we’re grateful for a job that sometimes includes fabulous perks.

April

After a big snowstorm, Alta Badia had the best snow in Europe and we closed out the ski season on a wine ski safari. We could not imagine wine tasting in a more spectacular or unique setting!

The rest of April was not a good month. We were on our way to Cinque Terre. It was nighttime and it was raining. We came out of a tunnel on to a two-lane bridge and there was a car facing us right in the middle of the right lane. With traffic in the left lane, we had no where to go and hit the car nearly head on. Thankfully, Emma was perfectly fine and Tim only had a bloody nose from the airbag. I was taken in an ambulance to the nearest hospital and am still battling with my neck injury months later.

May

After a few weeks of taking it easy after the car accident, a UNESCO World Heritage sites trip around Northern Germany eased us back in to travel. Wismar was our favorite UNESCO old town on our trip and we found the historic brewery that seriously serves the best pretzels we’ve ever had!

We also represented Visit Sweden and Volvo as their adventurers for their In a Volvo campaign. Basically, US customers can buy a Volvo at any Volvo dealership in the US and you get two airline tickets and a few nights hotel stay to travel to Gothenburg to pick up your new Volvo right from the factory. There are several pre-planned itineraries depending on your travel style and we showcased what adventurers can do in and around West Sweden. One of our favorite things was railbiking on an old inspection trolley in Dalsland.

June

While kayaking and camping in Sweden were right in our comfort zone, I pushed myself way out of it all of June. In NYC, I took flying trapeze lessons and learned to do a knee hang. I couldn’t quite master the catch and I’m pretty sure I won’t be running off to join the circus, but just taking that first jump off the platform and swinging out in to no where was way scarier than I thought it would be.

Continuing my dare devil stunts, I also flew in an open cockpit bi-plane and did barrel rolls and loops over Hoover Dam. What a way to take in a totally different view of the dam I’ve seen many, many times.

And I got behind the wheel of the car for the first time since our car accident in April. But not just any car – a NASCAR, which I raced around Daytona International Speedway at the Richard Petty Driving Experience. How’s that for kicking the fear of being in the car right in the butt?

July

Back at home in Europe, it was a cold and rainy summer. Instead of our usual trips to entertain Emma with swimming at the beach, we took to the mountains where the cooler weather was perfect for hiking. My favorite was definitely the Strada delle 52 Gallerie hike, which takes you through old war tunnels cut into the mountain and has some spectacular views.

Speaking of caves, we heard about these controversial radon treatments at the Bad Gastein Healing Caves in Austria. With an aching neck and MRI results that said I have two discs out of place at the base of my neck, I was willing to try anything for some pain relief. One treatment didn’t heal me, but it certainly relaxed me. We also got in a short hike.

We have also never, ever missed the Festa del Redentore festival since we’ve moved to Italy. This year was no exception, though we did something special and splurged on a gondola to be right beneath the fireworks. We were so close, the burnt paper parts were raining down on us. Even better, the Travel Channel reached out to us after spotting this photo on Instagram and requested to use in in a commercial!

August

We were looking forward to August for months because we were heading back to our favorite country, Iceland. Tim and I explored together for a week in a camper van all around the Snæfellsnes Peninsula and West Iceland. The camper van was perfect because we could park just about anywhere and easily escape any light pollution. We were camping the West Fjords when the Northern Lights put on one of the best shows we’ve seen yet.

We also took a little trip to Greenland. The untold part of the story is that there wasn’t room for both of us on the tour boat, so we went out to see the icebergs up close with a local fisherman in a tiny wooden boat. We were constantly splashed with freezing cold water, it was windy, and at one point the fisherman had to bail some water out with a milk jug fashioned in to a pail. But who wouldn’t still be smiling when you’re in GREENLAND?

September

August morphed in to September, and I spent the first 20 days of the month driving Iceland’s Ring Road by myself. When it comes to hiking, it usually takes Tim pushing me to get to the top of anything. I love, but hate hiking. Apparently his text messages were encouragement enough, because I hiked every chance I got in Iceland. To hidden pools, up still-hot volcanoes, for sunsets, and to boiling mud pots.

We had a quick weekend getaway in London and though it was frustrating trying to get to the Tower of London with all the tube closers, it was definitely worth it to see the Tower Poppies.

We wrapped up September on our second trip to France, this time a full week in which we spent the first part house boating in the Camargue. The house boat was such a cool way to travel, but completing my first via ferrata was awesome! We’ll definitely be trying more of these in 2015.

October

Ever have one of those trips where nothing goes as planned and the destination is a bit of a disappointment? That’s how I felt about Crete. Even though most of our planned tours and activities fell through because it was off-season and Crete just failed to wow me, I had a great time hanging out with some of my professional travel blogger and writer friends.

Ah, Greece. I love your islands, but your mainland? Not so much. I’ve checked the Acropolis off my must-see list and added another UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was beautiful and I sat on a rock just staring at the Parthenon for at least an hour, despite the hoards of people. And I did eat delicious food (thanks to friends for introducing me to saganaki!). Beyond that, Athens and I just didn’t click. But I count the trip a success anyways as I was there mainly for the purpose of speaking at TBEX. I even made it in to the Athens news for my two industry talks on social media.

November

This weekend the snow finally came down so ski resorts could properly open. But Stubai in Austria had enough snow for an early November trip. Tim got in a bit of skiing, but high winds shut down the lifts more than once.

November was another month of downs and was incredibly stressful. An invitation to relax at LOISIUM Wine Spa in Austria came at the perfect time. We had some hiking planned too, but the weather turned out to be awful. So we had a very relaxing weekend sleeping in, sitting around in cozy spa robes, and eating delicious food. It was just what the doctor ordered to forget my work woes…at least for a few days.

December

Normally a slow month for us, December turned out to be quite busy. I had a 4-day trip to eat and drink my way through some of Northern Germany’s Christmas Markets. No one in Europe does Christmas better than the Germans, which is where it’s said Santa Claus was invented. I don’t know about that, but I do know that it just doesn’t feel like Christmas without gluhwein, sausages, and holiday lights.

We spent Christmas in Chamonix. It started out with beautiful weather, which was perfect for taking Europe’s highest cable car up to Aiguille du Midi and get a perfect view over the Alps and up to Mont Blanc, Europe’s highest mountain outside of Russia. Our last day was spent sleeping in as the snow came down and then bundling up to play in the 25 centimeters that fell. It was our second true holiday of the year without any blog related responsibilities and it was wonderful.

We’ll wrap up 2014 here at home in Italy this year. I’m not sure what 2015 holds, but whatever it brings will no doubt be an adventure!