What a Difference a Year Makes – Part 1

Like most people, my life has been impacted in several ways by the ongoing pandemic.  One of more significant impacts for me has been a reduction in my travel.  In order to illustrate the contrast between the amount of traveling I expected to do in retirement and what I have done during the pandemic, I will provide a summary of my primary activities for two years, 2019 and 2020.  This post, part 1, focuses on 2019.


2019 was the first full year of my retirement.  I was in 20 different countries that year.  I am not necessarily expecting to be in that many countries every year, but I may even exceed it sometime!

January – February – Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Mexico

As 2019 started, we were midway through a four-month lease in our first rental home in Mazatlán.

New Year’s Day 2019, Bruja Beach, Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Mexico

February 28 – March 3 – Road trip from Mazatlán north through Mexico to the US border

We left our rental on February 28th for several planned months of travel.  The first part was a long road trip from Mazatlán to see our families in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

The first few days we drove north from Mazatlán through the rest of the state of Sinaloa and then through the state of Sonora that borders the US.

March 1, 2019, art festival in a square, Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico

March 4 – April 16 – USA

Our road trip from the US/Mexico border in Nogales, AZ took us through parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.  Much of our route followed the old route 66.

March 12, 2019, restaurant on Route 66 in Tucumcari, NM, USA

After visiting friends and family in Wisconsin and Minnesota, we flew to Florida to visit family in Naples.

April 12, 2019, Marco Island, FL, USA

Then we took a bus to Fort Lauderdale to board a cruise ship for Europe!  Our logic is why fly when retired? We have the time, boats are our favorite way to travel (particularly when someone else Captains them), and it is a much more gradual way to shift time zones.

April 16 – May 1 – Atlantic Ocean with stops in Portugal, Belgium, and England

After seven days at sea, we spent a day in Ponta Delgada, Azores, Portugal.  We then continued another 800 miles across the Atlantic to mainland Europe, with Lisbon being our first stop.

April 23, 2019, Ponta Delgada, Azores, Portugal

Next stop was Zeebrugge, Belgium.  We activated our Eurail passes and took the train to Bruges.  We enjoyed great beer to celebrate Kevin’s birthday.

April 29, 2019, Bruges, Belgium

Our final stop before docking in Southampton, England was Portland, England.  This was near the seaside resort town of Weymouth.

April 30, 2019, Weymouth, England

May – England, Wales, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany

Our cruise ship docked in Southampton.  After disembarking, we had a meal then took the train to London.  We spent several days in London, followed by Liverpool.

May 4, 2019, Liverpool, England

We spent one night in Wales before boarding a ferry to Ireland.

May 5, 2019, Holyhead, Wales

In Ireland we spent time in Dublin and Galway.

May 8, 2019, Galway, Ireland

We next flew to Norway to meet our sisters for a weeklong tour that included travel by train, bus, and boat.

May 16, 2019, Norway fjord boat trip

After Norway, we were back to train travel.  We next visited Gothenburg and Malmo in Sweden.

May 20, 2019, Gothenburg, Sweden

We took a train that went on a ferry to Copenhagen, Denmark for a few days.

May 25, 2019, Copenhagen, Denmark

We next spent some time in Germany.  Our first stop was Hamburg.

May 28, 2019, Hamburg, Germany

June – Germany, Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, Switzerland                                                                                            

We started June in Germany (Cologne and Munich).

June 4, 2019, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, a day trip from Munich.

We then went to Vienna Austria for a few days.

June 6, 2019, Vienna, Austria

After Austria, we visited Budapest, Hungary.

June 8, 2019, Budapest, Hungary

We were headed next to the coast of Croatia but learned that the trains were less direct than we had hoped.  So, we took a train from Budapest to an unplanned visit to Zagreb, the capitol of Croatia.

June 11, 2019, Zagreb, Croatia

We took a train from Zagreb to Ljubljana, the capitol of Slovenia.

June 12, 2019, Ljubljana, Slovenia

We then had a day of bus and train travel to Pula, on the coast of Croatia, where we spent several days.

June 14, 2019, Pula, Croatia

We took a ferry from Pula to Venice, Italy.  We spent a much-needed rest week in Venice.

June 16, 2019, Venice, Italy

After Venice, we were back to train travel, next stop Milan.

June 23, 2019, Milan, Italy

Our travels then took us to the Swiss Alps with stops in Lugano and Lucerne.

June 25, 2019, Lugano, Switzerland

We ended June back in Germany, in Stuttgart.

June 29, 2019, Stuttgart, Germany

July – Germany, Netherlands, England

July started with one last German stop, in Dusseldorf.

July 1, 2019, Dusseldorf, Germany

We finished our time in mainland Europe in the Netherlands, with stops in Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

July 6, 2019, Rotterdam, Netherlands

We took an overnight ferry from Hook of Holland to Harwich in England.  After a long walk through some villages and a meal, we boarded a train to London.  After a few days in London, we returned to Southampton, this time for several days.

July 11, 2019, Southampton, England

July 14– 28– Transatlantic cruise from England to the US with stops in Iceland and Canada

Following our boating-preferred-when-possible travel philosophy, we took another transatlantic cruise to return to the US.  The cruise included a day in Liverpool before heading north to Iceland.

July 20, 2019, Reykjavik, Iceland

Our ship made two stops in Canada:  Corner Brook in Newfoundland and Halifax in Nova Scotia.

July 26, 2019, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Our ship docked in Brooklyn, NY, USA completing our cruise.

July 28, 2019, view from our balcony docked in Brooklyn, New York, USA

July 28– August 21– USA

We spent our first several days in the US in New York.

July 29, 2019, cardinal family in Central Park, New York, USA

We then flew to visit family in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

August 21 – back to Mazatlan

On August 21st we flew back to Mazatlán, our home in 2019.

August 21, 2019, had to have camarones y Pacificos upon our return to Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Mexico

October  – Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

We had some business to take care of in the US, and for many reasons Las Vegas was the easiest place for us to take care of it.  So, we spent several days there in October.

October 25, 2019, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

October – December – Mazatlan

We returned to Mazatlán after our Las Vegas trip and remained there for the remainder of the year.

December 11, 2019, playa cerritos, Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Mexico

4 Comments

  1. Shirley

    Wow….just wow! What a wonderful year for you. Hopefully, you will be able to travel more soon.

    • cdk0765

      Yes, it was a wonderful year! We do plan to start doing more traveling, but for now for various reasons mostly within Mexico. We currently live in the geographic center of Mexico so it is relatively easy to radiate out from here to travel to various places we want to go — we have a fairly long list of places we haven’t been to. We do eventually plan to also do some more extensive traveling again, just not yet.

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