I (Caitlin) don’t think you could have ever told me that I’d spend New Year’s Day in Ioannina, Greece. But we did, which caps off 2019 as a year full of adventure and exploring the unknown.
Here’s a breakdown of our travel in 2019 by the numbers:
22 countries
24,222 miles in planes, trains, buses (low estimate)
5 cars rented
2 friend visits
1 family visit
2 dentist visits
1 broken toe
1 broken tooth
1 broken phone
3 notebooks filled
8 days camping
52 beer donations
I think the trip has, so far, exceeded expectations. Turns out we are cut out to be moving all the time and exploring the world. There’s not a lot of time to sit around and be bored, and there haven’t been any breakdowns about wanting to go home. Of course we look forward to it, we miss our family and friends and of course, Mika.
Other mundane highlights: We’ve both shrunk a bit, I don’t know how much, but our clothes are bigger. We attribute this to walking a lot more (not being at a desk every day), skipping the ferocity of Iowa’s winter that would keep us inside for months, and also being on the go prevents us from eating much of anything some days. I needed to replace my old jeans, but I had such a hard time finding jeans that were long enough that I ended up buying man jeans at an H&M in Serbia. They fit wonderfully, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. Ian bought a black market fanny pack in Barcelona to fit in with the European trends. My friend Genny left a pair of her own jeans for me to enjoy (I teared up it was so nice). Ian bought a too small shirt from H&M, but he’s since shrunk into it. I finally had my hair cut and Ian’s hair flow is going strong. I visited dentist offices in both Budapest and Sarajevo—they were amazing and I was treated so well at both of them. Each visit was a fraction of the price that I would have paid in the U.S.
Hobbies: We’re both writing more. I finished “The Artist’s Way,” which consisted of writing three pages stream of consciousness every morning for 12 weeks, along with other weekly tasks. I also finished NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)—writing 50,000 words toward a story idea in November. Ian has written almost 30 travel articles not associated with the blog that he’ll be publishing on Medium.
Mentally, I’d say we’re in a good place, and I’m in more of a noticeably good place than anticipated. It’s changing the way we think about our future in a positive, more open-minded way. We’re both freaking out just the littlest bit about what we’re going to do when we get back. Jobs, cars, house—the usual.
My goal was to get caught up with pictures and the like. Be sure to check out all of our photos that have been uploaded to albums on Facebook. I have also created albums for each country on DosHobos.com (check them out here). So you can choose which is easier. We are always uploading random stuff to stories too, so for more off-the-cuff videos and picture uploads, be sure to keep up on our Instagram.
Happy 2020 everyone!
You can browse all the countries we’ve been to and their corresponding blog posts here: https://doshobos.com/destinations
