“Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?”– Queen

“What are your plans in the next 5 years?”  

The dreaded question you may hear on a first date or from your parents wondering when you’ll move out of their house. Neither of these were the case for me as I met my spouse at 16 and moved out when I left for college.  

But for travel, that question is an exciting one. The world is huge with endless possibilities. Where do I want to go in the next 5 years? Who knows if I’ll get to it all, but I know I’m going somewhere. So, in this post I’ll share my booked travel for the next year (because you should always have short term and long-term goals) plus my current international goals since I’ll soon be getting a passport after 10 years of losing my last one. This is definitely one of those posts that I want to write out now so I can either laugh or cry 5 years from now when I come back and read it.  

So first up: 2023 

The first year of “I’m going to travel more, starting now.” It’s my last year of my 20s and I want to end it with excitement and adventure. My current booked trips are as follows: 

January: Nothing but I’m still 28 

February: Park City, Utah 

March: Los Angeles, California  

April: Stay cation in a free dome 

May: Cancun, Mexico 

June: Honolulu, Hawaii 

July: Southern Road Trip

August: New York City and Niagara Falls 

September: Maybe a solo trip…… 

October: Nothing as of yet… I’m probably due for a break though (*Laughs out loud*) 

November: Family in Georgia  

December: Possible Utah again 

Hopefully those trips will all work out and you’ll see the post on them later. I may even update the post with links if I can figure out how to get tech savy.  The one con (or pro) about planning trips is that before I fully book one, I’ve already started trying to plan another.

Now as far as where I want to go? Well everywhere. But my current “to-go” list is as follows: 

The 7 Wonders of the World: 

• Machu Picchu, Peru 
• Colosseum, Italy 
• Chichen Itza, Mexico 
• Christ the Redeemer, Brazil 
• Taj Mahal, India 
• Great Wall of China, China 
• Petra, Jordan 

Plus, the OG Giza Pyramids, Egypt 

Europe. I’ve probably been to every country in my childhood, but I don’t remember so again we must go. Current top list: 

• London 
• Paris 
• Rome 
• Ireland 
• Iceland
• Portugal
• Switzerland

The remaining luxury trips that I’m looking forward to: 

• Dubai
• Singapore 
• Australia 
• Japan 
• Tanzania

Also, there are still some places in the US I want to see 

• Alaska (probably a cruise) 
• San Francisco  
• Yosemite 
• Rocky Mountains 

Plus I am half Guatemalan so I’d love to visit this country myself, keyword MYSELF. My husband doesn’t know this yet, (we shall test the theory of whether he reads these posts or not) but I may have already spent half a day looking at flights, hotels, and tours for a solo trip. I feel like it’s one of those things every travel-loving woman has to do at least once in her life, ideally more. Especially when you have kids.

After I check all those off, then I’ll reevaluate my list and make new goals.  

I do also plan to go into airport lounges for the first time (My Guatemalan trip will place me with a 4 hour connection in DFW that just so happens to have a Capital One Lounge I have access to) as well as attempt to get business class international seats. Maybe if I win the lottery, first class international seats. It’s always good to dream big but have realistic expectations. 

So now you know my plans. I will say that 2023 is obviously already pretty full so there is not much time for a lot of international travel. But I am looking at planning Peru in summer 2024 and I’ll have to figure out next what I can do. If I had it my way, all of these would be booked strictly on points and miles. But I’m sure I’ll have to cough up some real money for some. And if that is the case this could take longer than 5 years…. unless my new traveler influencer career takes off (not betting on that though).