Wandering in 2017: My Travel and Adventure Plans for the Year

January is a great time to start planning the next trip. There’s loads of ‘cool lists’ and ‘must dos’ for travel in 2017 about. So many ideas and inspiration to travel to far off places, or those closer to home. This year, my focus seems to be new experiences and personal challenge. I’ve been thinking about this for a while and thought I’d share my thoughts with you all and introduce plans for what’s coming up next on the blog! 

The beginning of a new year is always a time of reflection for me. A chance for a new start. A time to work out ways of making everything in my life just a little bit better. And my favourite period for planning adventures!

I’ve read a lot of inspirational travellers’ books recently. A theme that comes up time and time again is personal challenge.  How experiences through travel can change a life and influence personal development.

What’s challenging to one person, might be easy for another. Everyone’s different. Maybe a wild-camping adventure in rural Africa is too much for some. But for others that’s the level of adventure they need to feel a sense of challenge and personal development.

Travelling solo through Central and South America is definitely the biggest personal challenge I’ve ever had. If you spoke to me before, I might well have said it wasn’t possible for me. During my trip, I was always slightly amazed and delighted when I successfully arrived in my next location. Once again I hadn’t somehow fallen off the edge of the planet! It can be scary to travel alone, but it’s also exhilarating and gives a sense of independence and achievement like no other.

If 2017 is your year for traveling alone or independently for the first time – good on you! It will be life changing, and one of the best things you will do with your life.

Zip lining Costa Rica personal challenge for wandering feline
There’s lots of personal challenges when travelling. Zip-lining was a terrifying great way to face my fear of heights!

Future Challenges

I feel I need a big new challenge. There are several physically challenging things that immediately sprung to mind as ideas. I’d like to cycle across Canada. Walk from the very top of Scotland to the bottom of England. And I’d love to do a sky dive! However, this year I’m focusing on a new type of challenge.

This year, my focus will be on writing.

I love writing this blog and I love reading and writing stories. It’s something I’ve wanted to do more of for years. But it takes a lot of courage to share anything and I seem to chicken out when it comes to big projects that I start. Well, this year, I’m going to use the courage I had to wander the world on my own and push it into writing. It’s something inspired by the words of another writer, who is also a world adventurer. After their first and most challenging trip, they decided the following year to take on the challenge of writing a book. A different kind of adventure!

So my trips this year may be a little smaller, but the writing will hopefully be bigger and better than ever before.

Travel Plans for 2017

  • Climb Snowden (the highest mountain in Wales)
  • See a puffin (place to visit is still to be decided)
  • Road trip in Scotland
  • Plan a trip to Sri Lanka
  • Visit somewhere to speak Spanish!
  • Visit at least one European City

And finally…

On top of this slightly specific list, I am putting together an entire list of places to see and visit in North West UK. Watch this space!

Travel Books with Personal Challenge

A couple of books I’ve read that have inspired me recently are:

  • Alistair Humphreys: Moods of Future Joys: Around the World by Bike – Part 1
  • Amy Liptrot: The Outrun (more personal development than travel – but made me want to visit the Orkney Islands!)

What travel and personal challenge books do you recommend I read next?

What are your travel plans for 2017?

Leave a comment below

This post is part of the Wanderful Wednesday Link-up!

wanderful-wednesday-image

A blog hop for wanderers from Lauren of Lauren on Location, Van of Snow in Tromso, Isabel of The Sunny Side of This and Marcella of What a Wonderful World.

17 Comments

  1. This is a great list, and one filled with variety šŸ™‚ Excited to follow along with all of your adventures. And, if you choose Chile for a place to speak Spanish, you know where I am šŸ˜‰ Cheers to an adventure filled 2017 for us all! šŸ˜€

    1. Thanks Marcella – so happy to have you following along too šŸ™‚ that direct flight to Santiago that’s just opened is very tempting!! He he! Cheers to 2017 adventures ????

    1. Aww thank you – me too! I will definitely be blogging about it for a while if we get to go šŸ™‚

  2. I’m impressed by your challenges! I did a similar thing with claustrophobia when I went caving. That was a bit of an experience!
    This year I want to challenge myself professionally, we’ll see how that goes! #wanderfulWednesday

    1. Wow – congratulations – that really is a brave thing to do!! I’m not sure I could it!! Good luck with your challenge this year – here’s to 2017 being your year for professional development šŸ™‚

  3. Nice plans! I like you want to visit a place where Spanish is spoken! Hooray for Spanish (nothing to do with it being my mother tongue ;0) I have plans to visit Germany in May. We are having a stopover in Iceland, so, hope to see some puffins (and hope you can see them too). #WanderfulWednesday

    1. Double hooray for Spanish!! It’s the most beautiful language IMO! šŸ˜€ Your plans sound fantastic – Iceland would be a great place to see puffins! I must look into that šŸ™‚

    1. Awesome – thank you! I’ve just popped it on my kindle! Hope you make it to Slovenia one day too šŸ™‚

  4. You’ve still got some great travel goals (yes, puffins!)! And I love the goal of writing more and sharing stories. That’s always my goal too, but I’m finding it harder and harder to do that! My goal is to travel more and learn to be okay traveling solo. I’m still a little bit scared of it, but like you said, I know it’s going to be so exhilarating and give me amazing confidence and sense of independence!

    1. That’s such a great goal!! It can be hard at first, but I really hope you find it as rewarding as I do when you get there. I can’t wait to read all about your adventures too šŸ™‚ Happy 2017 to you!

  5. We’ve just posted our wishlist of 2017 too. I like your challenges, after all, there is always something unknown near us and that could be the best trip! If you haven’t read Spark your Dream you should (an Argentinian family travelling the world)

    1. Totally agree – I love the idea of discovering secret gems closer to home šŸ™‚ Thanks so much for the book recommendation. It sounds perfect – I’ll definitely check it out.

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