The year ahead: 2023–2024

I like to say that if I’m not currently traveling, I’m busy planning my next trip(s).

In this case, I have three upcoming trips in the next thirteen months, and possibly will squeeze in one or two more.

Here’s a preview.

Middle East — at last!

You might remember reading about my trip to Israel in 2020 — the one that didn’t happen. 

And you might also remember how I rescheduled the trip twice, first for the fall of 2021 and then for the late winter of 2022.

And then how I canceled it and instead went to Machu Picchu and the Galápagos Islands and to Turkey and the Caucasus.

Well I am finally making the trip this fall.

The itinerary has changed quite a bit from all the previous incarnations. I’m still traveling with Overseas Adventure Travel, but I’m not taking two back-to-back tours. First I’m doing Egypt & the Eternal Nile by Private, Classic River-Yacht, and then Israel: The Holy Land & Timeless Cultures.

Here’s the basic itinerary. (I’ll be back with more details closer to departure.)

Egypt

• Cairo (3 nights)
• Fly to Luxor (2 nights)
• Nile River cruise (5 nights — Luxor to Aswan)
• Abu Simbel (1 night)
• Fly to Cairo (1 night)

Jordan and Israel

I have a few nights in between the Egypt tour and the Jordan and Israel tour. So I’ll fly to Amman and get a ride to Wadi Rum, where I’ll stay two nights in a Bedouin camp. Then I get a ride back to Amman for the OAT tour.

• Amman (3 nights)
• Petra (2 nights)
• Haifa (3 nights)
• Peace Vista (2 nights)
• Jerusalem (6 nights)
• Tel Aviv (3 nights)
• Bethlehem (2 nights)
• Jericho (3 nights)

This is a trip I’ve been dreaming about since long before I was preparing to make it happen four years ago. Right now it doesn’t even feel like it is really happening in about ten weeks. And I can’t stop thinking that something will happen between now and then to make it not happen yet again. I’m trying my best to stay optimistic about it. But given the history, it’s hard to be a believer.

Australia and New Zealand

I’ve booked another OAT trip for March/April 2024 (fall in the land down under). It’s called Pure New Zealand, but there’s a pre-trip extension in Australia. In addition, I’m thinking about flying Fiji Airways and including a stopover in Fiji.

Here’s the itinerary.

• Sydney (3 nights)
• Fly to Cairns; Great Barrier Reef (3 nights)
• Fly to Auckland (4 nights)
• Rotorua (3 nights)
• Fly to Christchurch (2 nights)
• Dunedin (2 nights)
• Overnight cruise on Milford Sound (1 night)
• Queenstown (3 nights)
• Paihia (3 nights)

I have a lot of logistics to work out on this trip. It makes the most sense to fly from LAX, so I have to get there first. Then I have to decide about the Fiji stopover. Depending on schedules and prices, I might consider some alternatives. The main thing is to have a few days to get over jet lag. But I might as well do that somewhere worth going.

African Safari

Another bucket-list adventure has always been to do an African safari. My friend Mary Ann and I are going together, and we just booked the trip for July/August 2024.

We worked with Wilderness Destinations to put together an exciting trip in a number of different countries. I hate having to wait a year for this!

We will start in Cape Town, South Africa, probably for three nights. From there, we fly to Maun, Botswana, to begin the actual safari trip. Wilderness owns a number of private reserves, so we won’t be dealing with crowds.

We’ll stay a total of nine nights at three different camps in Botswana. Two of the camps are in the Okavango Delta; the third is in northern Botswana along the border with Namibia. We’ll travel by light aircraft between all the camps.

From there we will head to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, where we spend two nights. Next we fly to Kigali, Rwanda, with a few hours’ stopover in Lusaka, Zambia. We arrive late into Kigali, so we will have an overnight there and a city tour the next morning before we drive to Musanze, where we will spend three nights. There we will have a gorilla trek and a golden monkey trek.

Finally, we go back to Kigali and fly to Nairobi, Kenya. We have a friend whose daughter has an Airbnb in Nanyuki, Kenya, about a four-hour drive from Nairobi. We’ll plan to get a driver to take us there, where we will spend our last few days in Africa before returning to Nairobi for our trip home.

Mexico

I haven’t planned anything definite yet, but there are a few trips I’ve been wanting to take in Mexico. One is to Oaxaca, where I would stay for maybe a week. The other is a road trip to visit Pueblos Mágicos in Guanajuato, Queretaro, and San Luis Potosi. I’m not sure if and when I’ll do either of these trips, but I’ll see how I’m doing after I get back from the Middle East this fall and maybe plan something for the winter months.