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Now that 2024 is well and truly over, it’s time to go through just how much I travelled.
In 2024, I took an unpaid year off from my full time job to travel the world. Technically my year off started in February so I still have just under a month to go (so stay tuned to see what I can fit in!).
Let's take a look at the year in numbers.
Number of countries/territories visited
In total I visited 23 countries and territories. I started in Turkey and headed east, all the way across to New Zealand then back again. Part two started in the USA before heading south into Central America, before finishing off the year with part three in Central and South America. In total I visited six continents, only missing out on Antarctica.
How did I travel?
For the most part, I traveled solo-solo - completely by myself where I wandered around figuring out where to go and what to see for myself.
The next category with the most entries was traveling with a guide. This is a bit of a weird category as they were technically group tours, but I ended up being the only person booked on so got private tours! This happened in Jordan and in Tanzania. Tanzania was extra special as it meant that I had an entire safari jeep to myself, and an excellent guide in Issa who took me to all the best spots to see the wildlife (only missing leopards from the big five!).
The group tours were joint third with three entries. Two tours were with G Adventures ( p.s. they have a massive sale on at the moment!) and one with a local Sri Lankan tour operator. The group sizes varied from two people to 16 and the duration going from seven days in Sri Lanka to 16 days in Costa Rica.
The last category was visiting friends/family. From traveling I have met some wonderful people who have been kind enough to put me up when I’ve been in their cities (and I'll of course repay the favour when they come to the UK!) such as Houston and Melbourne. It was also great to visit family in Hong Kong and reconnect with family friends in San Francisco.
Where did I stay?
I started off the year planning on keeping within a tight budget by staying in hostels but after the first few, this 30-something year old realised that she was too old for hostels. As good as they are for meeting people (for the most part!), the lack of privacy and limited space meant that I resorted to the comforts of hotels. Almost 70% of my accommodation was hotels, with hostels making up 16%.
Airbnb made up a small percentage while I was in Australia, simply because they were the cheapest option in most places.
The smallest section of accommodation was for more unusual types, including two tents - one in the desert of Wadi Rum in Jordan, and another with resident bats in the jungle of Costa Rica - and a surprisingly comfortable and warm camper van in New Zealand.
How many times did I visit an airport?
Far too many times. Including connecting flights and returning to airports for arrivals and departures meant that I visited an airport 86 times in 2024 for 50 different flights (including a 10 minute helicopter ride in Brazil!)
How long were the flights?
If we exclude the helicopter ride, the shortest flight I took was Kilimanjaro to Nairobi. A quick 50 minutes covering 146 miles - delayed by 10 minutes because of birds around the airport! In contrast, my longest direct flight took 11hrs 35 minutes between Auckland and Hong Kong, but distance wise, it was Rio de Janeiro to London Heathrow that covered the most ground with 5750 miles.
The longest indirect flight was London Heathrow to Miami to San Jose taking a total of 14hrs 10 minutes and covered 5539 miles. It also included an announcement by the pilot saying that due to bad weather in Costa Rica we may have to land in Nicaragua! Luckily the weather cleared and we were able to land, even if it was an hour and 20 minutes late!
In total I have spent 176 hours and 31 minutes flying which is the same as 1.1 weeks!
Number of km traveled
This is the biggie. I’ve worked out the flight distances, train routes, the distance driven in the camper van and ferry crossings and came up with this total:
78,784 miles / 126,790 km or three times round the world!
How insane is that?
How much did it cost?
I’m sure you’re all desperate to find out how much all this cost me, and in all honesty, I haven’t worked it out! I will at some point but for now, all I can tell you from looking at credit card balances and how much was in my savings is that it cost less than a year's wages. Once my full year is done, I’ll sit down and calculate it properly but for now, that’s all I can say!
If you want to hear me ramble on about this for five minutes or so, I've also recorded a video on YouTube:
What else do you want to know about my year traveling? Drop me a comment!