My 5 Travel Goals for 2024

My travel goals the past few years haven’t been very extensive. Ever since the pandemic I’ve been quite hesitant to make too many travel goals in case something similar ever happened again.

Before I moved to New York in 2019, I wouldn’t say I was a very well-travelled person. I had been to Spain, Italy and France on summer holidays and had been to Las Vegas.

That was about it as we used to spend all of our summers on beaches in Donegal in Ireland.

So you could definitely say things have dramatically changed since then. If you check out my YouTube channel you can see vlogs from my travels to Bali, Norway, Marrakech, Maine and Austria to name a few.

The travel bug

I’ve well and truly caught the travel bug and so want to be more adventurous with where I go and what I get up to. Watching TV shows like Race Across the World have me planning my own trips across different continents around the world and wanting to go off the beaten track.

I’ve realised recently that I love to see the lesser visited places and the more obscure/not-so-trendy locations. Road trips have also become a favourite way to visit a place, stumbling upon random towns and areas to see the ‘real’ side of the country or state.

My social media feed has greatly changed and now I follow a lot of travel content creators, living vicariously through all of them and the amazing places they visit.

My 5 Travel Goals for 2024

And so, here are the travel goals I have set for myself in 2024 that I hope to achieve.

1. Visit Japan

Japan has made its way to the top of my travel bucket list in the last year or so. I can’t say I had much interest in visiting Japan before then, but since seeing lots of videos on my TikTok and Instagram feeds, it’s gone straight to the top of my list.

The country has so much to offer in different areas that I would want to venture outside of visiting only Tokyo. From the tiny sushi restaurants to bowing deer, from volcanoes to ski slopes and from super-advanced technology to bullet trains, Japan has so many varying elements I would like to see.

Japan will definitely be a ‘big trip’ for 2024 and I’d hope to spend at least two weeks in the country to see as much of it as possible. I doubt I’ll be there during cherry blossom season but if so, that would be an added bonus.

2. Visit a new country in Europe

I naively thought I had visited a lot of countries in Europe. Until I counted them. Of the 45 countries there are in Europe, I have visited 12. So I definitely have many to go before I can say that I’ve exhausted the continent of Europe.

There are many countries that I’d really like to visit in Europe that I still haven’t been to, including Portugal, Sweden and Romania to name a few. Hopefully I’ll be able to tick another European country off my list in 2024.

3. Visit a new continent

I was quite surprised when I realised I’ve visited 4 of the 7 continents in the world. I mean, there aren’t very many so it probably isn’t hard to visit quite a few of them but it means the only three continents left to visit are South America, Oceania (Australia etc.) and Antarctica. 

While I’ve been watching a lot of people visit Antartica recently (of course I’ve added it to my bucket list), I don’t quite envision that I will be stepping foot on a gigantic iceberg in the next 12 months.

So it’s either South America or Oceania. After watching Race Across the World where they travelled across the majority of South America, it has very much jumped up my travel list. But then again, Australia and New Zealand are also equally as appealing. 

Since the majority of my Instagram feed are now based in Australia (thanks to my whole town moving there) it’s looking more and more enticing. 

4. Slow travel somewhere

In my humble opinion, slow travel is the best way to see any place. Spending weeks rather than days somewhere new allows you to relax and explore at a leisurely pace and also allows you to treat the area as if you are a local.

We slow travelled around the UK while it was coming out of the pandemic, spending four weeks in Edinburgh, eight weeks in Manchester and four weeks in Cardiff before moving to the Big Smoke of London. 

Spending weeks at a time in each place allowed us to try different restaurants, coffee shops, walk around different areas and get a sense of the place in its entirety. Obviously, slower travel adds a lot more cost to your trip but if you can work from anywhere remotely, it could be a great way to travel.

I’m hoping to be able to spend two-three weeks in a few different countries in 2024, exploring the area while working from my laptop and getting work done at the same time. I’ll be able to feel like a local for a little while and not feeling like my travel is being rushed into a small number of days.

5. Visit a non-trendy location or a ‘2nd city’

Although I do love visiting popular tourist destinations and major cities, I want to venture a little outside the box in 2024.

Instead of visiting the country’s capital city, heading to the 2nd or 3rd most populated area as an alternative. This way, you can still visit a bustling city but perhaps can see the more authentic side of the country, plus this could also work in your favour with your budget. 

For example, last year we visited Bergen, the second-biggest city in Norway after Oslo. We were able to visit Norway, travel through the Norwegian fjords and experience a true Norwegian holiday while not visiting the main capital city.

Perhaps instead of visiting Rome in Italy, you visit Verona. Instead of Paris, you visit Toulouse. Instead of Krakow, you visit Gdansk. 

We’ll see where travel brings us in 2024, but anywhere I do go, you can bet I’ll be showing it to you on my Instagram Stories and creating all the content for TikTok and YouTube of course.

I’m excited to see where we end up in 2024, but I sense it’s going to be a huge year for travel!