Usually at the end of each year I’ll spend a day or two looking back at the highlights of the year.

In 2019 however, I spent the last two weeks of the year moving cross country from the Washington DC area to the San Francisco Bay Area. As a result, I did not have a chance to write up my travel highlights from the year until now!

For the sake of tradition, although a full year late, here’s my travel highlights from 2019: 

• MLK Weekend in Charleston and Savannah  

• Went to Big Island to see my grandma in February. Visited a coffee plantation and a brewery.

• An incredible gastronomic experience in Bogota

• Spent an evening at a lovely Hacienda Plantation 

• Trekked to an equatorial glacier at Parque Nacional Los Nevados 

• Exploring Hilton Head Island over Memorial Day Weekend

• SF Pride, followed by July 4th Weekend in Santa Barbara 

• Orcas Island and Seattle for a long weekend in August 

• Annual Atlantic City / Jersey Shore trip! 

• Running the San Jose half-marathon in early October

• Day trip to the Hudson Valley from NYC in mid-October

• SF visit in late October and again in late November 

• Day trip to Salem from Boston 

• Walking around the skyline in Columbus OH 

• Visiting a Frank Lloyd Wright House in Springfield OH

• Visiting the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield IL 

• Seeing St. Louis atop the Gateway Arch

• Visiting Crystal Bridges Museum of Art in Bentonville!

• Visiting a massive greenspace / park in Tulsa  

• Christmas Midnight mass in Oklahoma City 

• Walking around Santa Fe NM 

• Visiting the native american museums in Albuquerque

• Seeing the Colorado River at Horseshoe Bend  

• Driving through winter storms to reach Monument Valley in Northern Arizona 

• Sunrise hike in Zion National Park 

• Seeing the incredible hoodoos at Bryce National Park 

• Walking along the rim trail at Grand Canyon National Park 

• Celebrating NYE in Palm Springs