The Year Ahead: Overdoing It?

I may be overdoing it.

I think in the year ahead I will be away more than I am home. I’m excited about all the trips I have planned between now and the end of 2025, but also worried that I’m going to wear myself out.

Here’s what I’ve got scheduled. Tell me if you think I’m nuts.

Rome

Just three weeks ago I got back from Africa, and I leave for Rome three weeks from today. I already wrote about my plans for Rome, where I’m staying for eleven nights.

But that’s just the first part of a longer trip.

Greece, Albania, and North Macedonia

From Rome I fly to Athens to join a tour with Overseas Adventure Travel for the fifth time. They call this Ancient Lands of Alexander the Great. There’s a pre-trip extension to Crete that starts with one day (two nights) in Athens and then two nights in Chania and two nights in Heraklion. Then we fly to Thessaloniki, where we stay for three nights. After that, two more locations in northern Greece, two locations in Albania, and two locations in North Macedonia.

I won’t be doing the post-trip extension to Serbia. Instead, at the end of the tour I’m flying on my own to Naxos, the largest island in the Cyclades. I’ll stay there four nights before coming home.

All told, I’ll be away for forty days, making this my longest trip to date. (But not the longest I have planned.)

I’ll be back before the trip to detail the itinerary.

Southeast Asia

After I get home from that trip, I have just three weeks before I leave again. And it will be another OAT tour, number 6!

This one is called Ancient Kingdoms: Thailand, Laos, Cambodia & Vietnam, and yes, it goes to those four countries.

I’m doing both the pre-trip and post-trip extensions, plus I’m arriving a few days early and going to a beach resort in Ao Nang.

Total time away on this trip: 41 days. My longest trip to date, but still not the longest I have planned.

I’ll have a detailed itinerary posted before I depart.

Morocco and Iberia

My next trip starts just about a month after I get back from Southeast Asia.

Morocco has been near the top of my bucket list for a while, so I’m finally going. And since I’ll be right next door anyway, I decided to combine it with Spain and Portugal.

Morocco is another OAT tour, number 7. They call it Morocco Sahara Odyssey.

My original plan was to do a self-guided rail tour around Spain and Portugal after the Morocco tour. But I found myself becoming overwhelmed by all the challenges of organizing my itinerary, so I ended up booking OAT #7: Northern Spain & Portugal: Pilgrimage into the Past, and OAT #8: Back Roads of Iberia: Spanish Paradores & Portuguese Pousadas.

There are a lot of parts of Spain that aren’t covered by either of these tours, and because of the timing, I’m able to add some destinations before, between, and after the three tours. I’ll provide details of my itinerary.

Altogether, these three tours plus the independent travel will have me away for three months. And that, my friends, is the longest trip I’ve ever taken and ever plan to take.

But it’s not my last trip of 2025.

London and Norway

I’ve got a longer stretch of time at home before my next trip: 44 days. Foolishly, I’ve managed to plan to be in Ajijic during the most unpleasant time of the year, when it is hot and dry and dusty.

Another bucket list item for me has been to take the Hurtigruten Coastal Express up the coast of Norway. So I booked that cruise for next summer, thinking I’d combine it with another destination or destinations in Europe.

But then I did some calculations and realized that at the end of the cruise, I’ll be at Schengen day 84. The Schengen area includes 29 European countries, and US passport holders are allowed to visit these countries visa-free for up to 90 days in any 180-day period. With my travels in Spain, Portugal, and France, plus the Hurtigruten cruise, I won’t be able to add much time in Schengen countries.

So I started looking at non-Schengen countries, of which the best options seemed to be Ireland and the UK. And then I tried to figure out flights, and I had to eliminate Ireland because flight schedules were just too complicated.

So I settled on a week in London prior to going to Norway to start the cruise.

Altogether this will be one of the shortest trips I’ve taken in a while. Including travel days, I’ll be gone just over three weeks.

But that’s still not my last trip of 2025.

The Surprise Trip

No, it’s not a surprise to me. But I’ve decided to let you all be surprised until my last trip of 2025 is underway. I leave in late November and will be gone for about a month.

That means I plan to be home for more than four months next summer and fall. That’s the longest stretch in about two years.

By then I should have a good idea whether this pace of traveling is good for me. Maybe by 2026 (a milestone year for me) I’ll consider cutting back on my travels.

Or maybe not.

What do you think? Am I traveling too much? Am I going to be burnt out? Will I miss my dog too much?