My Reflections On 2018

It’s that time of year again! A time to reflect on all we’ve accomplished over the last 12 months and a time to get ready for the year ahead.

We’ve Been Nomadic The Whole Year

At the end of 2017 we became nomadic, not really knowing how it was going to go. We are happy to report that it has gone extremely well. Not once did we have to sleep in our car! Between house sitting jobs, press trips, couch surfing, and staying with friends, we always managed to have somewhere to stay.

There were some stressful times. One time in particular, there were a few weeks between when we were in Atlanta, Georgia and when we were supposed to be in Raleigh, North Carolina. We weren’t sure where we were going to stay. But we kept checking for house sits on Trusted Housesitters and literally days before we were supposed to leave Atlanta we found a house sit in Charlotte, North Carolina that took up almost the exact amount of days we needed filled. So thankfully, everything has always worked out.

We’ve Traveled A Lot

At one point, we may have bitten off more than we could chew. From January to May, we did a crazy round-the-country road trip. We left Florida and made our way west and north eventually making our way to Colorado. Then heading back east and further north, eventually making it all the way to Quebec City, Canada. From there we finally headed back to Miami. In those four months we put about 8,000 miles on our car.

During that major road trip, some of the biggest surprises were Vicksburg, Mississippi and Kansas City, Missouri. We also absolutely fell in love with Iowa; there is so much more to the state than people think, including over 100 wineries! Quebec City was also spectacular. We traveled there for the Women in Travel Summit, our favorite travel blogging conference.

June was Vicky’s birthday month, so that’s always a lot of fun! We traveled to Colombia and Panama and enjoyed great food, beaches, and danced the night away! We had planned to travel to Nicaragua as well on that trip, but unfortunately it wasn’t in the cards and we had to travel back to Miami a few days early. It would have been Vicky’s 35th country, which she wanted to reach before she turned 35 at the end of June. The new plan now is to travel to a 35th country while Vicky is still 35. So we have 6 months to make that happen lol!

July and August were spent house sitting and in September we headed to Harrisburg and Hershey, Pennsylvania where we ate way too much chocolate ( 🙂 ). We also traveled to the Finger Lakes region of New York, where we attended TBEX, another blogging conference. We started making our way south and after making a couple of slight detours because of Hurricane Florence, eventually made it back to Florida. We house sat for some friends in Naples for a few weeks and then in October flew to Arizona.

We really like Arizona and on this trip my bestie Alicia was able to meet us there and we had a wonderful girls weekend in Sedona. We then flew back to Miami just long enough to do laundry and then we were on a plane to Guatemala to visit family and meet our new niece.

Next, we spent a few days in The Florida Keys with some good friends before heading to a house sit in Bradenton, Florida. Unfortunately, while there, Vicky was bitten by a dog while she was out running. It happened the day before Thanksgiving and the day she was supposed to head back home to Miami. After medication, ointments, and lots of ibuprofen, Vicky is now back on her feet without limping.

We spent the final week of November and first few weeks of December taking it easy and enjoying time with family in Miami. And then for our final trip of the year, we traveled to the beautiful island of Providenciales in Turks and Caicos. We’ve never seen such blue water!! It was absolutely gorgeous and we did not want to leave. And for those wondering, Turks and Caicos is a British territory, so it did not count towards our list of countries visited.

We Met So Many Wonderful People

We love when we’re able to meet any of you and this year with all the traveling we did we were able to have many great meet ups. We met people that had been following our blog for years and we met fellow bloggers that were able to show us around their local areas. We talked travel, sipped on coffee, and got to know one another. The connections we made this year with so many of you are what makes traveling so special.

Our Blog Continues To Grow

Even with all the traveling we’ve done, we’ve managed to spend a good amount of time writing and growing our social media. We’d still like to grow even further though, especially when it comes to this website itself. We’d love to grow our website page views by at least 3 times by the end of next year.

This year we’ve made a bit more money through our Amazon affiliate links as well. We definitely appreciate when you guys buy something through one of our links. Sometimes all we get is a few cents, but it definitely adds up. Remember, you can always see what our favorite travel items are in our shop.

What’s In Store For 2019?

We’ve been asked many times how much longer we plan on being nomadic. And the truth is, we’re not sure. We have a couple of places in mind, should we want to settle down; but our income still isn’t quite where it needs to be for that yet. So for now we’re going to keep house sitting and see where we end up.

So far for 2019, we are heading back to Atlanta to house sit in January and will be working on press trips in Alabama at the end of February. We will be attending WITS in Maine in May and TBEX in Montana in September. And as of today, that’s all we know for sure. Things tend to fall into place though, so we’re not too worried about not having more plans than that.

We know we want to keep working on fixing up our site and the content we have and bring you guys the most helpful information possible. So that is definitely a goal we have. And of course, to hopefully inspire you all to travel as well.

So thank you all so much for always reading our blog and following along on our adventures. We hope you have some amazing adventures planned for 2019 too. And who knows, maybe our paths will cross one day? 🙂

Much love,

Vicky and Buddy

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