There are so many wonderful places to explore in England and traveling by train is definitely our favorite mode of transportation – especially because it makes it so easy for us to bring our dog, Lily. Oxford had been very high on our list from the outset and our weekend trip to this historic town was even more eagerly anticipated after a full month at home in London.
I spontaneously set a goal of visiting 10 new countries by the end of 2023 during a random team meeting in January where everyone had to share their New Year’s resolutions. This arbitrary goal combined with my love of European Christmas markets is how we ended up in Kraków during the second weekend in December.
The older I get, the more and more excited I get about Christmas decorations and the holiday season in general. I try to buy at least one ornament on each trip we take, but my absolute favorite places to find new holiday decorations are the Christmas markets that pop up across Europe each season. We had to cancel our 2021 Christmas market trips due to the Omicron variant breakout, so I was more than ready to finally head to Basel to experience its legendary Christmas market scene.
One of Andy's closest childhood friends is Turkish and so he has always been particularly interested in Turkish culture — and extremely interested in Turkish food. Istanbul has always been at the top of his list of travel destinations, so I was thrilled that we could finally check this iconic city (and our first time in Asia) off with a long weekend trip in early November.
After a busy couple of weeks in London and the U.S., we were more than ready to get out of town for a quick weekend getaway to Dubrovnik, a city that had been high on our list for years. It was our first time visiting Croatia and it couldn't have been a more relaxing and charming experience. We had such a nice weekend eating seafood, sampling Croatian wines, and exploring the stunning Old Town.
After having to cancel the weeklong trip we were planning to take to Ireland for New Year's 2022 due to the Omicron variant, we were so excited to finally make our way to Dublin this August for a long-overdue weekend getaway in Ireland. The trip was made even better because we went with one of Andy's friends from high school, who planned the majority of the (flawless) weekend for us—and I must say, it was really nice to just be along for the ride for once.
One of the downsides of living abroad is that we have inevitably had to miss lots of big moments for our friends and family back home, including several weddings that we would have normally attended. On the flip side, it is much easier for us to go to destination weddings in places like the French Riveria, which is how we ended up spending the first weekend in July in the Côte d'Azur celebrating the wedding of one of my favorite colleagues. It truly couldn't have been a more idyllic experience.
After several fun-but-exhausting weekends in a row spent hosting friends and family in London, we were excited to get back on the road (in the air?) with a quick trip to Berlin. Andy hadn't been to Germany before and I had only been to Munich, so we were both really looking forward to finally exploring such a legendary city. Everything about our weekend getaway in Berlin was honestly perfect, and I'm already looking forward to planning our next German adventure.
Spain had been on the top of our travel list since we moved to London, but there were SO many Spanish cities and towns we wanted to visit that we could never seem to make a decision on where to start. Our one-year anniversary felt like the perfect opportunity to take enough time off to go to multiple cities on the same trip. We spent a few days in Madrid at the beginning and end of our trip and then spent the rest of our time in Andalusia. We absolutely loved every place we visited and could have spent much more time in each city.
My new year's resolution for 2022 was to visit 10 new countries this year, which meant that we needed to get a little more creative with our weekend trips. With this in mind, we booked a quick trip to Luxembourg City, the elegant capital of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Although Andy was skeptical about heading to yet another place we hardly knew anything about, we had an absolutely lovely weekend in one of the smallest sovereign states in Europe.
Lindsey in London 