61. At the risk of tempting fate, we are once again feeling relief at returning state-side without picking up bed bugs during our travels. That is no small accomplishment when you consider that we have slept in 61 different beds in six months, a new high. We fancy ourselves pretty well-versed in assessing the quality of an Airbnb or a hotel, but you never really know until you open the door and step inside. This past travel “year”—which normally works out to more like ten months, from the time we bid farewell to our cabin in Maine when the leaves start to change color until we return after the ice breaks up on the lake—we laid our heads down in a wide range of lodging. 

At the worst, after a very long day of travel from Sierra Leone to Senegal by ferry, van, plane, and taxi, we arrived at a beach-side bungalow booked by our local tour agent. The receptionist showed us to our cabana and promptly walked away. The small, dark, and dank room had just one narrow window set high in the concrete wall (think prison cell), a thin, lumpy mattress under a torn mosquito net, and a dingy bathroom with only cold water—and not much of it, at that. But worst of all, the room had cockroaches. We quickly lifted all our belongings off the floor, confirmed that our bags were zippered shut and stepped back outside. Normally we would not tolerate a place so awful but we had no way to contact our tour agent and we were only there for one night so we headed to the bar and made the best of a bad situation. We tried to get some sleep and checked out first thing in the morning. 

On the other end of the lodging spectrum, we enjoyed a spacious, well-appointed, French-colonial apartment centrally located in Casablanca. Its wrap-around balconies gave us a sweeping view over the city, the largest mosque in the country, and the ocean beyond. We thoroughly enjoyed house-sitting in a Cape Town mid-century modern suburban home over the Christmas holidays. And right at the end of our time abroad, we delighted in the comforts of an Airbnb overlooking the strait of Gibraltar, the far shores of North Africa, and the coastline of southern Spain.

Here are a few more numbers to capture our travels this year.

14. When we closed the cabin door in Maine and bid farewell to our summer respite last September, we had only a vague idea of where we would be traveling this year. We booked a one-way ticket to Kenya and a four-week stay in an Airbnb in Diani Beach. The rest we left to whim and fancy. After all was said and done, we traveled to 14 countries on three continents—Kenya, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Portugal, Cape Verde, Sierra Leone, Guinea (for a few hours and one crazy taxi ride), Senegal, Morocco, Spain, Gibraltar (UK), and western and southeastern United States. Honestly, I am running out of space for stamps in my passport and it is only two years old! Obviously our original ten-year plan idea of spending a year in one country did not happen this year, but we are glad to have seen and done so much while we have the energy and enthusiasm to do so. 

30. At the risk of suffering your chiding for destroying the planet single-handedly with our carbon footprint, I admit that, in order to cover so much territory, we have taken 30 flights this year. Our shortest flight was 45 minutes in a single-prop plane flying low over the Okovongo Delta; the longest was 14 hours from Chicago to Addis Ababa on Ethiopian Air. I can say with confidence that I never need to fly on Senegal Airlines again but will go out of my way to travel with Lufthansa in the future. ASKY airlines, which serves most of west Africa, surprised us by getting us from Cape Verde to Sierra Leone via Senegal, Togo, and Ghana without losing our luggage and with on-time arrivals. That said, no matter how you work it, by land, air, or water, getting around the West African countries is a challenge. I find airports and airplanes oddly comforting in their familiarity. Even if I don’t speak a single word of the local language I can make sense of the flight attendant’s safety brief—seat belt works like this, oxygen mask goes on like this, flotation device is under your seat—and getting past security is pretty much the same no matter where you are. That said, we never knew if we were going to have to pour out our water, take off our shoes, or unpack our laptops before going through the screening process. But thankfully in the end we were always allowed through.

109. I don’t consider myself a birder but I admit that I enjoy spotting birds, trying to identify them, and keeping a list of the unusual ones we have seen in our travels. Throughout Africa, we were privileged to visit many game parks. In Kenya in the east, Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa in the south and Senegal in the west, we were treated to sightings of birds of every color, size, shape, and adaptation imaginable, from the biggest flightless bird on Earth, the Common Ostrich, to the tiny and elusive African Scopes owl. From the ugliest (Maribou Stork) to the stunningly regal Black-Crowned Crane. We watched ospreys and kingfishers hunting over water and African Penguins and Long-Toed Cormorants fishing underwater. The colorful Lilac-Breasted Roller is the national bird of Kenya and while its name specifically mentions the light purple color on its chest, it actually sports eight different beautiful colors, which are said to represent the different tribes that share the land of Kenya. In fact, we saw the national bird of nearly all the countries we visited, including the majestic Fish Eagle (Namibia and Zimbabwe), the weird-looking Kori Bustard (Botswana), and the Blue Crane, with a wing span of over six feet (South Africa), among others. By mid-February we had spotted and recorded over 100 different birds. Hmm, maybe I am a birder after all…

45°N to 34°S. In our travels, we crossed the equator four times, went from latitude 45 degrees north in Maine to 34 degrees south at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, suffered through 115 degree heat in Namibia’s desert, and wore every layer of clothing we had with us in the frigid Atlas Mountains of Morocco. We sand-boarded on dunes in Namibia and Morocco and then skied and snowshoed in Colorado after we returned this spring. We saw Atlantic waves crashing on the rocks of Cape Town, on the trash-strewn beaches of Senegal, along Sierra Leone’s western peninsula, on the shores of Morocco, and around the rugged coast of Cape Verde. We saw the swells of the Mediterranean from the north and south, the warm blue waters of the Indian Ocean, the frigid currents of the Southern Ocean, and the edge of the great Sahara desert. We’ve been in so many time zones—and adjusted for daylight savings at least three times in different countries—that our online calendars have basically given up predicting our schedules.

360°. And now we find ourselves ready to close the circle. Along the way, we met countless people who amazed and inspired us. We learned how to greet locals in at least seven languages. (Please don’t ask. One goes in my brain and immediately knocks the previous one out.) In Morocco and Kenya we learned to make local food in the homes of kind, patient women. I highly recommend taking a cooking class if you have an opportunity to travel. It provides insight into local life and access to the culture through the cuisine. We had conversations about current events and noticed that pretty much everyone complains about their politicians, regardless of the country. And we met other travelers who shared their own adventures and gave us great suggestions for places to go and things to do. Once again I am reminded that we are incredibly privileged to be able to explore this magnificent planet, to see its natural wonders, meet people from all walks of life, share experiences with new friends and, despite the miles that may separate us from our loved ones, still feel connected to you all through this blog. Thanks for reading and may we all continue to have grand adventures no matter where we are.