2023 Evaluation: Item #1 → #walkabout

A year ago, knowing I was going to be taking some time off from formally working, I posted “Seven Things I’m Going to Do in 2023”. I’d never written a declaration like this, but it felt good, and it definitely helped motivate me through the year. It was super ambitious, though, and I in no way achieved everything I wanted to.

So, I want to evaluate how I performed against each of the 2023 items — I especially want to examine why I didn’t get everything done I wanted to. I’ll do an eval write-up for one item each day here, starting today:

“#walkabout — Heading to Japan later this month & may then stop in Hawaii on the way back“

Grade = A+ → I nailed this one

• As planned, I started in Japan and spent five interesting weeks there.
• I wasn’t in the mood for beach, sun, & island life, so instead of Hawaii, I jumped over to Paris for a nice week, my first real time there
• Then what was perhaps my most fulfilling journey ever: 40 days on The Camino de Santiago, walking from the South of France, over the Pyrenees, and then West across Spain all the way to the Atlantic. I blogged a lot about this, and you can see all those entries here. 
• Iceland was next, and I spent a total of about a month traveling around the whole country. It’s an amazing place; you gotta go. 
• After coming back to the US, I finally made it to Scandinavia and spent some time in Oslo. What a great, livable city!

I ended up traveling much more than I expected to, but it was deeply satisfying travel. I’ve learned a lot about #walkabouting over the years, and I think I did a great job balancing sights vs. experiences, urban vs. rural, independent vs. tours on this one. It’s very, very easy to get burnt out when you’re out there for a long time, but I was mostly able to avoid it, and had some of the most amazing experiences of my life.