A Look Back: 2017 Travels with Starbucks
10:36 PM
I've spent the last few days thinking about my resolutions for next year. I'm a sucker for resolutions and make them every year the same way that I always get excited in the fall for back to school and for the first sign of changing seasons. I guess I just like new beginnings and the chance for a fresh start. But before I start to sound pious, I hate Monday mornings - every single week.
Part of my process is to review the resolutions I made last year and think about what went well and why and what didn't go well. If I want to make some of the same resolutions, I want to have better results this year after all.
One of my resolutions last year was to travel more. I wanted to stop thinking about going places and actually go. Little did I know how well I was going to achieve this goal. Oh, the irony.
For some background, it's not as though I didn't do any traveling in 2016. We actually took an extended family vacation in France. The joy of that trip led me to wish to continue traveling through 2017. And I did. Just not the way I expected.
I decided to document my travels using Starbucks You Are Here mugs at the beginning of the year. Coffee is a constant in my life, and I thought this would be a fun way to look back after the year was over. Little did I know I would end up with 19 mugs.
Some of them seemed apparent. We still have family in California, we even had our Disneyland passes, so of course, we would end up in with California mugs as we made several trips back throughout the year. That takes care of 7 out of 19, and I only had to go to California once on business - even better.
#8 is a bit of a cheat. We live in Las Vegas, so that's not really traveling now, is it? Well, when you look at 9 - 19, I felt like my time in Vegas was a vacation at times.
I traveled a lot on business this year, at least for me, often multiple cities per trip and often trips back to back with only two or three days in between. And I saw some crazy weather along the way as well. I was in Texas most often (I think 8 times total) and when in Houston found out how terrifying waiting for tornados can be. Tornado weather is just plain scary, and I don't know if I would ever get used to it. I also experienced flooding in Houston but wasn't there for the worst of it. It's a beautiful city, and I would love to have a chance to go back and explore as a tourist soon.
I also really enjoyed my time in Atlanta and Charlotte. I think. That trip was very rushed and multi-city. I guess I need to go back to figure out which restaurants were where.
I wasn't in Chicago very long, and I didn't really enjoy my time there. If you have any recommendations to convince me to give it another chance, I'm open.
Colorado was very cold but very brown when I was there with no snow yet. Luckily, I've been there before in the winter and know how beautiful the mountains are. I need to go back now in the summer.
And that's it for 2017. No foreign travel but enough domestic to keep me really busy and to have a very full mug cabinet. Where did your travels take you this year?
Posts
0 comments