It’s step back time! As we go place to place, packing and unpacking, lugging our backpacks, checking in for flights and checking in to AirBNB’s, the big picture– that we are taking a YEAR of our lives to travel the WORLD together– can get lost in the details.
In this post, we want to back away from the blur to share some of what the past 30 days has looked like. And feel free to look back at our first 30 days to see how much has changed!
Dates Included: July 26 – August 24, 2018
Countries Visited: 4 (Greece, Malta, Italy, Vietnam)
Cities/Towns Visited: 18 (Rethymno, Agios Nikolaos, Heraklion, Valletta, Mdina, Rabat, Marsaxlokk, Sliema, Alghero, Stintino, Bosa, Palermo, Trapani, Agrigento, Siracusa, Cefalu, Hanoi, Halong Bay)
Transportation
Number of Flights Taken: 9
Number of Buses Taken: 26 (what?!?)
Number of Trains Taken: 3
Number of Ferries Taken: 1
Number of Taxi/Uber Rides: 2
Number of Funicular Rides: 1
Number of Cruise Ships: 1
lodging
Number of AirBNB’s Slept In: 10
Number of Hotels Slept In: 1
Food
Percentage of Meals Eaten Out: 60% (54)
Percentage of Meals Eaten In: 27% (24)
Percentage of Meals Eaten in Airport Lounges: 8% (7)
Percentage of Meals Provided by Hotels or AirBNB’s: 5% (5)
Physical Activity
If you read about our first 30 days, you know that Rich and Amanda spend (almost) all of their time together, and the FitBit gives Rich credit for a million more steps. See more evidence below.
Rich
- Total Distance: 445,621 steps (209.41 miles)
- Average Daily Distance: 14,854 steps (6.98 miles)
- Daily High: 29,413 steps (13.51 miles)
- Daily Low: 5,311 steps (2.44 miles)
Amanda
- Total Distance: 354,694 steps (158.89 miles)
- Average Daily Distance: 11,823 steps (5.30 miles)
- Daily High: 23,787 steps (10.39 miles)
- Daily Low: 4,512 steps (1.97 miles)
Intellectual ActivitY
New category because Amanda likes to win at things that are clearly not competitions too.
Rich
- Books Read: 5 (The Sunrise, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, The Godfather, Davinci Code)
Amanda
- Books Read: 9 (Mediterranean Summer, The Shore, The Sunrise, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Revival, My Brilliant Friend, The Godfather, Little Fires Everywhere)
Overall Costs As Percentage of Budget
Flights: 15% ( 5% decrease)
Other Transportation (Buses, Trains, Ferries, Taxis, Funiculars): 8% (13% decrease)
Lodging: 44% (2% decrease)
Food: 19% (4% increase)
Sightseeing: 5% (4.98% increase)
Other (Books, Toiletries, Trips to H&M): 10% (8.7% increase)
Favorites:
Choosing is so hard!
Favorite Meal:
- Rich: Charcuterie at a’Putia Bottega Siciliana in Agrigento, Sicily
- Amanda: Salami Sandwich at Caseficio Borderi in Siracusa, Sicily
Favorite AirBNB:
- Rich: The Apartment Overlooking the Cathedral in Heraklion, Crete
- Amanda: The Apartment Overlooking the Cathedral in Heraklion, Crete
Favorite City/Town:
- Rich: Siracusa, Sicily
- Amanda: Palermo, Sicily (Runner Up: Heraklion, Greece)
Favorite Mode of Transportation:
- Rich: The Flight from Rome to Taiwan (Meals! Movies! Naps! Eagles NFL Super Bowl special watched 3 times!)
- Amanda: The Funicular in Trapani, Sicily
Favorite Beach:
- Rich: Stintino, Sardinia
- Amanda: Stintino, Sardinia
Favorite Town Center:
- Rich: Valletta, Malta
- Amanda: Siracusa, Sicily
Favorite Book:
- Rich: The Godfather
- Amanda: Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
Least Favorite Moment:
- Rich: Being trapped outside of the apartment in Alghero while Amanda was trapped inside with our AirBNB host’s father who only spoke Italian because the key wouldn’t work in the lock. And the major bus delay in Agrigento due to Sicily’s reverance for the Assumption of Mary. And probably pretty much any other time we had to wait a long time for something.
- Amanda: Getting stung by a jellyfish swimming in Halong Bay. The end.
Most Favorite Moments:
- Rich: Exercising with thousands of Vietnamese locals at Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi at 6:00 AM, watching the sunrise over Halong Bay, and finally reveling in beach chairs in Stintino.
- Amanda: Seeing the temples at Agrigento, watching our sandwiches get made in Siracusa, and successfully crossing the street in Hanoi without dying.
DELTAS:
Life’s a dance, you learn as you go. Some things we have learned/might do differently in retrospect:
- Familiarize ourselves with local holiday and Sunday schedules. It seems like this one got us every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation while we were travelling in Sicily and half the stores were closed or the bus schedules had changed. We are going to google major holidays in each new destination before we arrive and everything is closed.
- Slow down! While we have a whole year to devote to travel, there are times when it seems like not enough time to see EVERYTHING we want to see so we try to get in as much as we possibly can. We did that in Sicily, moving city to city to city and wound up exhausted by the time we reached the end. As my dad used to say, you can do anything you want, but you can’t do everything you want. Moving forward, our goal is to stay everywhere for at least three nights to avoid giving ourselves travel whiplash.
- The things Rich and I like to do at home are the things we like to do on the road. We like to read, we like to run, we like to go on long walks and explore the neighborhood around us, we like to have time to work and feel organized, we like to cook and eat in, we like to get 7-8 hours of sleep, and we like to spend time together. When we prioritize doing these things, we are relaxed and energized and in a good space to take in and reflect on the unbelievable world around us. When we pretend like we are contestants on the Amazing Race and jet from city to city or skip lunch or go to sleep at 3:30 AM, we are cranky and off. It doesn’t matter how incredible the destination is if we are too grumpy to enjoy it. Happiness is a state of mind!
LOVES:
- Living in a state of wonder and seeing things with new eyes. I haven’t written about Hanoi yet, but let’s just say, it is a city like no other city I have ever seen. I have also never seen a beach with water as blue as the water in Stintino, Sardinia, I have never before watched thousands of people welcome a statue of Mary riding on a boat to their town with fireworks, horns, and candles, and I have never explored ancient Greek temple after ancient Greek temple at sunset. It is so exciting to be excited and experience true wonder and awe so often.
- Stretching new muscles. Blogging and managing social media is new work for me, and planning hundreds of hours of travel, lodging, and touring is new for Rich. It feels good to try something really different and to learn and grow.
- Spending time together. This made the list in the first thirty days too! I feel like this one year of marriage is probably worth about 5-10 in terms of learning about and enjoying each other too. We have experienced some amazing, wonderful moments, and we have also navigated the hot, humid, and busy streets of Hanoi with very heavy backpacks to reach our AirBNB that is up four flights of oppressively hot stairs. It’s not always pretty, but we are grateful for every second of it.
