We’ve had one incredible year traveling around the world! We visited 5 continents, 27 countries, and over 110 cities (see the full list on our travel page).
Below I’ve broken down the year month-by-month with highlights and lowlights (because travel isn’t all rainbows & butterflies and I want to give you guys a glimpse at the full story). The following is in list form because if I were to go into more detail on each one, this blog post would legitimately be a novel.
Many events on the list are hyperlinked to corresponding blog posts and photos/videos – so don’t forget to click on the topics you are most curious about!
If there’s anything you want to hear more about, leave a comment below to let us know which experiences/locations you would like to see evolve into their own blog posts.
January – Chile, Argentina
January Highlights
- Our first epic sunset at Cerro San Cristobal in Santiago, Chile
- Exploring Valparaiso, Viña del Mar, & partying on the beach with our couchsurfing host
- Trekking Torres del Paine
- Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentina (watch our video of a big glacier chunk collapsing)
January Lowlights
- The men’s bathroom in our first hostel in Santiago (according to Matt)
- Trying to find our first couchsurfing host in Valparaiso (blog here) – but it all worked out and we had a fabulous time!
February – Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil
February Highlights
- Fly fishing in Patagonia (one of Matt’s top highlights of the year)
- All the Parrillas (steakhouses) in Argentina and chocolate in Bariloche
- Kickboxing class in Bahia Blanca at the gym owned by our couchsurfing host
- Pre-Carnival parade celebration in Montevideo (where we ignored our usual caution about street food and ate the best hotdog-things on the way home)
- Matt’s birthday in Punta del Diablo (we spent the day at the beach boogie boarding and the night in the countryside in the middle of local drum line practicing for Carnival illuminated only by the stars)
- Punta del Este stay in the Conrad hotel (thanks to my dad for letting us use his hotel points!)
- The BEST sunset of the trip in La Paloma, Uruguay and one of the most fun sunsets (due to the saxophone guy) in Punta del Este
- Carnaval in Rio de Janiero with our Brazilian, French, and Danish crew
February Lowlights
- Busing all of Argentina (14-hour bus, 23-hour bus, 9-hour bus, 14-hour bus) within a couple weeks – but on the plus side we had some of the most amazing views while busing through Patagonia
- Matt’s iPhone getting pickpocketed in the metro in Buenos Aires(luckily travel insurance eventually covered it)
- Sleeping next to the scariest spider in Cabo Polonio, Uruguay
- Witnessing a guy get jumped and the sh*t kicked out of him by a big group of guys on Ipanema beach very close to us during Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro
March – Brazil, Paraguay
March Highlights
- Renting a car in Rio de Janeiro with our new Danish friends to explore south of the city
- Hang gliding in Rio
- Brazilian Food! Kilo restaurants, steakhouses, acai bowls, caipirinhas, tropical fruit
- Paraty unlimited caipirinhas booze cruise
- Reuniting with an old roommate from Australia in Brazil & teaching my first international yoga class on the beach
- Exploring both sides of Iguazu Falls – Brazil & Argentina! (Watch our video from the Brazil side)
- Visiting my sister in Paraguay and celebrating her birthday with her!
March Lowlights
- Getting denied a Paraguayan visa on arrival and having to walk back across the border to Brazil as it was getting dark without any Brazilian money (we had already exchanged our remaining currency into Paraguayan currency)
- Getting our Paraguayan visa at the Paraguayan consulate in Brazil the following day (so unorganized and time-consuming!)
- Leaving my sister (it was so sad)
- Our cold, damp, and moldy Airbnb in Cusco (but on the plus side, we met awesome people there!)
April – Peru
April Highlights
- Peru exceeding our expectations! (and being super budget friendly with the best buses – we actually enjoyed busing around Peru thanks to Cruz del Sur bus company and no we aren’t sponsored by them)
- Trekking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu
- Exploring Incan archeological sites in and around Cusco
- Having perfect weather for our one-night stay on a floating island on Lake Titicaca
- Dunebuggy/sandboard excursion at sunset in at Huacachina
- Islas Ballestas boat tour in Paracas and visiting the Paracas National Reserve
April Lowlights
- Matt catching too much air and wiping out on his sandboard to receive a face (and whole body) full of sand in Huachachina
- Bad stomachs in Peru…especially for me on the Inca Trail
May – Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica
May Highlights
- Exploring Tayrona National Park (Playa Cristal was our favorite beach)
- Doing lots of yoga up in the rainforest in Minca, Colombia
- Discovering how charming Cartagena is and witnessing an epic sunset
- Sailing from Cartagena, Colombia to the San Blas Islands – one of our highlights of the entire year!
- Spending almost two weeks with Matt’s parents in Costa Rica! Living the life of luxury (thanks, Derek & Maureen!)
- Fishing for roosterfish (Matt’s highlight)
- Whitewater rafting the Rio Savegre in Costa Rica
May Lowlights
- Not catching any fish on the deep-sea fishing day trip in Costa Rica (at least we saw a lot of dolphins)
June – Costa Rica, United States, Portugal, Spain
June Highlights
- Exploring Islas Cies in Spain
- Port tasting in Porto, Portugal
- Reuniting with friends in Spain!! (and Matt’s old teammate in Miami on our layover)
- Teaching my favorite beach yoga class of the year before an awesome surf class
- Liz and Louis’s amazing and super fun wedding! We danced until dawn and I still dream about the lobster from the seven-course dinner.
- My birthday in Spain (thanks Liz for making it so special)
- Improving our surf skills (thanks, Base Surf Camp!)
June Lowlights
- Matt getting seven painful stitches in the bottom of his foot the night before Spain’s big San Juan festival
- Leaving our hard drive with all our photos in our BlaBlaCar (thankfully he shipped it to us!)
July – Spain, Morocco, Ireland
July Highlights
- Running with the bulls in Pamplona (so exhilarating!)
- Experiencing a cold front in Salamanca & Madrid, which are usually scorching in July but were unseasonably mild and pleasant
- Dancing the night away in the coolest club inside the Arts and Sciences museum in Valencia (thanks for hosting us, Brooke!)
- Reuniting with my Spanish host family in Cadiz, Spain
- Our Moroccan adventure (read our blog) and realizing how much more there is to Morocco than the Sahara Desert (which was beautiful too)
- Reuniting with friends in Dublin and drinking lots of Guinness (we prefer the taste in Ireland)
July Lowlights
- The tiny, uncomfortable twin bed we had to share in Salamanca because of an Airbnb booking mishap (mistake on our end)
- The insane heat in Morocco in July! 50 degrees Celcius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) at the hottest
- Matt’s camel collapsing, causing Matt to fall off and get the wind knocked out of him in the Sahara desert
- Metro machine eating our 20 euro bill in Valencia
August – Ireland, Scotland, England, Greece
August Highlights
- The incredible hospitality of Matt’s lovely Irish relatives
- Having a sunny day for our drive around the Dingle Peninsula
- Witnessing a double rainbow in the charming Irish city of Galway
- Awesome couchsurfing hosts in Edinburgh and London
- The Greek island of Zakynthos – we almost didn’t leave!
- Immersing ourselves in authentic Greek culture with our couchsurfing host and his family in Patras
- Staying in the gorgeous Greek town of Nafplio, courtesy of my mom’s childhood friend
- Having the Acropolis virtually to ourselves (thanks to waking up before sunrise)
- Hiking to the stunning monasteries built into cliffs in Meteora
- Greek food (gyros every day!!!)
August Lowlights
- The brutal daily hike up to our Airbnb with our backpacks in Corfu, Greece with a rude host who gave us our only bad (and undeserved) review of the trip! Although we took care of the cutest little rescue kitten there.
September – Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, Germany
September Highlights
- Discovering how blue the water is in Albania and how cheap everything is in Albania
- The picturesque coastal towns in Montenegro (Ulcinj & Kotor) and Croatia (Dubrovnik, Split, Zadar, & Pula)
- Krka waterfalls in Croatia
- Oktoberfest in Munich!!
- Finally purchasing a drone in Frankfurt, Germany (watch our first drone video short)
September Lowlights
- Realizing how expensive and touristy Dubrovnik is (although we can’t fault how absolutely beautiful it is!)
- Having awful weather the day we were supposed to visit Plitvice waterfalls, which resulted in us not visiting them (we just have to go back to Croatia!)
- Getting my emergency passport in Frankfurt – official lowlight of the trip
- Getting denied while trying to board my first flight to India and then getting denied my second visa to India. Having to rearrange all our plans, but at least our couchsurfing host in Frankfurt took us back in and then we were able to visit Amsterdam at the last minute
October – Netherlands, Singapore, United States
October Highlights
- Eating too many delicious stroopwafels in Amsterdam
- Singapore exceeding our expectations and being a beautiful city (watch our drone highlight video)
- Visiting Gardens by the Bay and the Night Safari in Singapore with media passes!
- Reuniting with our amazing family and friends for our unexpected trip home (and getting to attend a winning Husky home game on a beautiful fall day)
- Repacking and lightening our loads to return to southeast Asia!
October Lowlights (when sh*t hit the fan)
- Dropping our external hard drive with all of our travel photos (we still need to recover them but it will cost a thousand dollars, so we’re waiting on that – luckily most are backed up on the cloud)
- Getting detained overnight in Bali and deported back to Singapore (blog post)
- Booking a flight through airports we aren’t allowed to fly through in China (blog post)
- Flying from Singapore to London to Seattle (brutal)
- Losing thousands of dollars due to the above things (we found out they weren’t covered by our travel insurance)
November – Philippines, Malaysia
November Highlights
- Chasing waterfalls in the Philippines (read about our four favorites here)
- Swimming with whale sharks (one of the most exhilarating moments of the trip!) and sea turtles in the Philippines
- Making an awesome group of friends from around the world on Panglao Island
- Island hopping in Port Barton, El Nido, and Coron
- Surfing at Duli Beach in El Nido
- The Philippines became one of our favorite countries in the world with the nicest people!
- Visiting the Batu Caves (so many monkeys!) and taking the Dark Caves tour in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
November Lowlights
- City transportation struggles in Kuala Lumpur (closed trains stations, expensive cabs, Ubers that would cancel after we waited and waited and waited)
- Getting many mosquito bites and fearing I would get malaria since we opted not to take the expensive and questionable malaria meds
December – Thailand
December Highlights
- Full Moon Party madness in Koh Phagnan, Thailand
- Exploring Koh Samui by motorbike (beaches, waterfalls, & temples)
- Private boat tour on Cheow Lan Lake in Khao Sok National Park
- Maya Bay booze cruise with Captian Bob’s
- Koh Rok & Koh Ha boat trip from Ko Lanta
- Thai food! (All the curries!)
December Lowlights
- Matt getting four stitches in his head the night before the Full Moon Party
- Mosquitoes
Thanks for following along with our travels! This year has been a dream come true and we want to thank everyone who has been part of our journey.
