After the last beer has been sunk at Lonely Planet office Christmas parties around the globe, our minds inevitably turn to our travels in the coming year. Here are a few of our travel resolutions for 2013, from honeymoons in the jungle to hitting the open road.
I love trekking, and 2013 looks like my lucky year. My father-in-law has organised a group to tackle the 12-day, 167km hike around Mont Blanc known as the Tour du Mont Blanc. This is the Alps’ iconic walk, and a number of previous sojourns to the Alps have whet my appetite to take on this grand route around the Alps’ tallest peak. I’m a glutton for towering mountains, cutesy villages and the serene vistas of the Alps, and this walk – I’m told – will have it all.
Check out Glenn’s guidebook to the Victorian Alps here.
As a little girl I was never one to daydream about what my wedding dress might look like, or my dashing husband-to-be; I was more consumed by the thought of exotic, far-flung jungles and rambling temples. As an adult, not much has changed and now I’m getting hitched my attention has turned to honeymoons rather than cakes and flowers. My new year’s resolution is not to spend all our hard-earned savings on just one day, but rather on three weeks somewhere we’ve both always wanted to go: Nepal. Goodbye seating plans and hair trials, hello dizzy Himalayan mountain passes and yak bells tinkling through the thin air. It’ll soon be time to leave behind the heavy dress and strap on the hiking boots…
I have the same travel resolution every year: ‘go to a place you have never been before’. In 2012 I made good on this resolution by travelling to San Francisco for a wedding; escaping London for the Jubilee Weekend in Cardiff; spending a couple of weeks in Portugal taking in Lisbon, Coimbra, and Porto; and a mini-break to Budapest. I’m still looking forward to squeezing in Berlin this year for New Year’s Eve. For 2013 I’m dreaming about adventure on Iceland’s Ring Road, filling my belly in Lille, and a Caribbean beach break to Antigua.
For me, 2013 is all about road trips. Like many Londoners, I cruise around on public transport while my driving licence gathers dust but this year I will finally hit the road and drive somewhere adventurous. I see myself zooming past Scandinavian glaciers, snaking down the Amalfi Coast or cruising around the coast of Wales. There’ll be nothing but the open road and maybe a sat-nav chirruping for me to ‘turn around where possible’.
My travel resolution for 2013 is to finally go to Europe. A trip to the ‘old world’ is something of a rite of passage for young Australians, many of whom join boozy Contiki tours or slum around for months as working backpackers, but for a number of reasons I’ve never had the opportunity to go. I’m a little too old for the shenanigans of the 18-21 set, and I have commitments in Australia that prevent me from taking a long working holiday, but I am looking forward to spending some time strolling around Paris, eating pintxos and drinking txakoli in San Sebastián, and exploring the Laguna Veneta. I’ve already booked the flights, and to say I’m excited would be an understatement.
My resolution for 2013 is to explore South America. I’ve had the good fortune to spend time in all the other continents (minus Antarctica, but that’s also on the wanted list), but everything south of the Darien Gap represents a step into the unknown – and no, I’m not counting last year’s cripplingly jetlagged queue-fest in Bogotá airport.
If a stint in SA is the big prize, the small print is all about Europe. I want to take the lead set by my inspiring Aussie peers at Lonely Planet’s London HQ, who think nothing of a short hop to the continent every other weekend, and arrive back for work on a Monday with barely a matchstick-propped eyelid out of place. Respect.
New Zealand was the subject of one of the first books I laid out as a designer at Lonely Planet, and I had thought about visiting the country throughout three years I spent living in Germany. 2013 is the year I will finally make it there. I am booking the trip in the new year and plan to fly into Auckland for a few days, before heading down to Wellington, Christchurch, and driving across to the west coast of the South Island.
In summer 2013 I intend to take the long way home from the US to the UK by sneaking in a mini exploration of South America, a continent I’ve never been to. I don’t want to miss Machu Picchu, but I’m also keen to see just how skinny Chile really is, and finish on a high in Buenos Aires.
So over to you: is 2013 the year you’ll scale a glacier, learn how to cook in Tuscany or finally visit Japan? Tell us your travel resolution in the comments!
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