Taking on the ‘Take 12 Trips’ challenge

Posted on 01/05/2017

I love to travel and visit new places. And I love reading other blogs about people who packed in the full time job experiences in life and travel, but sometimes the tales of people who give up their jobs, homes and lives to live out of a rucksack can be hard to relate to.

I work full time and I love working full time but that doesn’t mean I do not want to travel and explore the world. So when I saw Claire from Need Another Holiday came up with the idea of 12 trips in 12 months, I jumped at the chance and in 2016 I managed to complete my first year. Claire wanted to encourage other part-time travellers with full-time jobs to fit in as much travel as they can, so came up with a challenge to ‘Take 12 Trips’.

The idea is to take a trip each month for the next year – it can be an overseas holiday, a weekend near home or even just a day out and I love the concept of the challenge. It makes you think differently about travel and how you can incorporate travel into your everyday life.

2016 was a big success with 12 trips in 12 months including:

December – 3 days in Copenhagen, January – 3 days exploring Berlin, February – 3 days spent in The Cotswolds, March – 5 days in Amsterdam, Netherlands, April – 3 days in Cardiff, Wales, May – 5 days in Marrakech, Morocco, June – 5 days in Mallorca + 6 days in Crete, July – 7 days in Aruba, August – 3 days glamping in Rutland, September – 5 days in Portugal, October – 4 days in Sicily and November – 4 days in Northumbria. And all of this was done with only 26 days annual leave (another post on this very soon!). I loved how much exploring I did this year and that’s why I will be undertaking the challenge again into 2017….

So where are my 12 trips taking me in 2017? I don’t have much planned yet but these are some ideas I have for the first six months!

Paris, Amsterdam, Budapest, Somewhere hot…, Cotswolds, Italian road trip, Iceland, and where else?!