A look ahead at 2020

‘What the new year brings to you will depend a great deal on what you bring to the new year.’ – Vern McLellon.

What happened in 2019.

On World Mental Health Day, I posted a photo on Instagram with a caption about how I was feeling in 2019. It was the first time I’d ever written publicly about my mental health. I don’t generally talk about it on my blog, but my mental health isn’t always great. I often have episodes when I feel intensely anxious, exhausted and stressed. There are days when I don’t want to get out of bed, when smiling is a struggle and I cry at the drop of a hat. In 2019, there were periods of time that passed when I cried every day. None of this was helped by my Granddad passing away in September and a couple of stressful events that I went through during the course of the year.

To improve my mental health, I spent a lot of time in 2019 working out what makes me feel better when I’m low. What makes me happy. It can be the smallest things, like a cup of coffee in bed on a Saturday morning or buying a new potted plant. Or it can be bigger things, like horse riding, going out hiking and travel.

Coming into 2020, I am currently in a good place. I know that there will always be periods of time when my mental health declines, but I also know that that’s life and it’s okay. I’ve got wonderful friends and family members who support me. I have learnt a lot of coping mechanisms to help me through the times when my mental health isn’t so good. It has been a somewhat transformative year in many ways. I feel more capable now than I did at the beginning of the year and I have a better, deeper understanding of myself.

My blog is starting to read like an online diary!

When my mental health declines, one of the worst side effects is that my blog suffers. Low periods completely do away with all my creativity and motivation to write. In 2019, I grew lazy about posting articles and lacked enthusiasm to do anything much on my blog beyond the Monthly Recap posts. Of the twenty one posts I put out there last year, only nine were not Monthly Recaps. As we enter 2020, my blog is more like an online diary, not a resource with useful information and travel stories.

The way my blog reads currently is not what I want for How The Mind Wanders… At all. So, I’m making some changes. Both on the blog and in my life as well. Read on to find out more! 2020 is set to be a year quite different to 2019!

Monthly Recaps are going!

I started my Monthly Recap posts in January 2017. I’ve religiously written thirty six recaps now – one a month for three years. It started out well. I was motivated and in a good place creatively. Alongside my recap posts I continued to write articles about my travels, post beautiful photographs and share my top tips for the destinations I visited.

However, all that has been in decline over the course of the past year. The drag of writing a monthly recap was also holding me back. I would have a spark of creativity, but then realise I’d not written my recap, so I’d do that instead of completing the article I actually wanted to write.

In 2020, I am doing away with the Monthly Recap posts and replacing them with quarterly review posts.

Reducing the number of recap posts will free up my creativity and time to focus on writing more informative articles and sharing stories. The new quarterly reviews will follow a similar format to the monthlies and include roughly the same information. There will still be highlights, low points, the books I’ve read and the top photographs of the quarter. I’m sure there’ll be some small changes and tweaks, but essentially, the quarterly reviews will serve the same purpose as the monthly recaps. The first review will be posted at the beginning of April.

I’ll be playing catch up with content.

I have taken more than enough trips over the past two years to give myself a lifetime of writing material. I’m sitting on a gold mine of information from all my travelling in 2018 and 2019 and I’ve barely shared any of it yet!

Now that I’m reducing the monthly recaps down to quarterly reviews, 2020 is going to be the year where I really knuckle down and catch up on other content. I will be aiming to share more about my trips to Nepal, Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Jordan and Uzbekistan. Not to mention that I need to write about some of the adventures I’ve had right here, in the UK.

I’m feeling excited and motivated to share all of this, so watch this space. Hopefully, by the end of 2020, there’ll be stories up like the one where I turned thirty in Doubtful Sound or the time where we welcomed in Nepalese New Year at a giant street party. I’ll also be posting more information articles about travelling in Uzbekistan and other countries and there’ll be a continuation of my Postcards From… series too.

Behind the scenes, I will be working to bring all my old blog posts up to date and relevant. There will also be ongoing changes to the layout and design of How The Mind Wanders… as I improve the organisation of the content. My aim is to make the site much easier to navigate and for information to be more easily surfaced. Keep an eye out for these changes.

I’m avoiding flying as much as possible in 2020.

I took twenty three flights between December 2018 and December 2019. Twenty three! I don’t even want to begin to imagine my carbon footprint from all that flying. And that’s not to mention flights I took prior to December 2018. The past five years have been big travel years for me and I don’t regret a single second of that. But in 2020, I’m aiming to become a more conscientious traveller.

That’s not to say I won’t board a plane ever again. I may have to travel for work which is unavoidable and P turns thirty in September, so we may go away for that. Those trips aside, I will be aiming to avoid flying in 2020. And when I do have to fly, I will be carbon off-setting my trips. I’m currently researching the best way to do this. Any advice is welcome!

So, if I’m not flying, then what am I doing? Rest assured, I won’t stop travelling entirely. But where I do travel, I’ll be aiming to reach my destination either by train, bus or ferry. My focus is turning more towards embracing the adventure of the journey as well as the destination itself. And what better place to enjoy the journeys than right here, in the UK?

I will be travelling in the UK more in 2020.

It’s time to explore my own backyard in more depth. I’ve seen a good portion of the world now and travelled to many far-flung destinations. 2020 seems like a good year to finally find out more about the UK.

I’ve already begun as I mean to go on, with a short four-night trip to Cornwall at the beginning of January to celebrate my 31st birthday. I’d never spent any time in Cornwall before. I was bowled over by the beauty of the county, the warm welcome we received from friendly locals and the charm of the towns and villages we visited and passed through. My 2020 UK travel plans definitely got off to a good start!

There are other trips in the works for 2020. They’re largely UK focused, with a couple of overseas trips. Nothing is booked yet and the trips outlined only take me to May. After that, I have nothing planned! I’m so used to having constant travel plans that it’s a little disconcerting to have nothing much in the pipeline beyond May. It’s both liberating and slightly weird!

February

I will have a short weekend away, heading back to Cornwall for two nights. This time we will be going to north Cornwall to visit Tintagel. I also plan to escape London on a couple of day trips and do some hiking – perhaps in Kent or Essex. I will travel by train to each destination.

March

Mum and I will be off on our travels again. This time, we are going to Germany for a long weekend. We will spend two nights with relatives near Dusseldorf and two nights in Munich. Travel will be by Eurostar to Brussels, then train to, through and from Germany and a final Eurostar journey back to London from Paris.

April

Over Easter, I’ll no doubt head back to Wales for a long weekend. I also have plans to take a day or short weekend trip to hike the Seven Sisters in West Sussex and perhaps visit Brighton again. I will travel by train to each destination.

May

I have booked a week off work at the beginning of May and will be spending it back in Wales. This is the longest holiday so far of 2020 and the first time big chunk of time I’ll spend back in Wales since I moved away over five years ago. I will be house sitting for my parents while they take a well-deserved holiday themselves. My intentions are to explore some tourist hotspots in my home country. I’ve been meaning to do this for ages and never prioritised it before. 2020 is the year! I will travel by train where possible, but drive if there is no alternative, and will carbon off-set accordingly.

Later in May, my sisters and I are completing a challenge to raise money for charity. I will reveal more very soon. The challenge will involve a trip to Scotland, as well as travel through England and Wales. We need flexibility, so will be driving, and I will carbon off-set the trip.

Unconfirmed travel in 2020

A trip to Dublin for work. I’m not sure when this is going to happen, but flying will be unavoidable so I will carbon off-set my flight accordingly.

A trip in September for P’s 30th birthday. Again, nothing is fixed or planned, but there’s a strong likelihood I’ll be flying somewhere to celebrate this milestone birthday. I will, of course, carbon off-set.

We will be celebrating some milestone birthdays of my parents too! It’s a surprise trip, so I can’t reveal much until September. However, it is a UK based trip and I will be taking the train and car sharing.

A train trip through Wales. G and I are planning on taking the Gerald of Wales train trip in 2020. We’re not sure when yet, but obviously there’ll be no flying involved and my inner train geek can be fully released!

Pipeline travel. I have other ideas of UK destinations I’d like to visit in 2020, but until I make fixed plans, I’ll keep quiet.

2020 looks set to be a great year.

I am aiming to have a productive, healthy, happy, fulfilling year where I travel conscientiously and write a whole lot more! I think I’ve done a good job laying the groundwork – now to let it all unfold!

Here’s to a wonderful 2020. May yours be healthy and full to the brim with fun, laughter, friendships, travel, new experiences and all the other good stuff.