Healing Through Adventuring // My 2016 Travel Year in Review

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At the beginning of this year, if someone had told me I would be where I was today, I never would have believed them. In January 2016, I came back to university after my Christmas break. I also started to plan a Eurail trip for my extensive spring break, which I was very excited about. But looking back at my travel year in review? Yeah, none of that happened.

The Bad

At the end of February, I was visiting a different university and strongly considering making the move from London to Scotland for the next school year.

In March, I was on a plane back home for the weekend, and once more a week later home for good. I canceled my Eurail trip and had no plans of returning to my London university. In the midst of a seriously low point in my life filled with and dominated by depression and anxiety, I was not fit to continue schooling – let alone travel around Europe on my own for six weeks. All of my hopes hinged on an application to a new university that very well could have been lost in cyberspace. We took a family road trip to Nashville, and I smiled for the camera.

The Recovery

Fast forward a month later and I’m slowly recovering with a trip to New York City. It was my first time since I was eight years old, and my eyes were still as wide as they had been eleven years before.

From New York, it was on to DC for a few days to celebrate my boyfriend’s birthday with him in his hometown.

When I got home, I received my acceptance letter, and couldn’t have been happier.

May brought a cross-country road trip and another trip to D.C.

Staring out at the Grand Canyon

June was a month of firsts: my first time in Canada, my first time crossing a country’s border in a car, my first time taking a trip with a significant other, and my first time using Airbnb. Everything went swimmingly and I couldn’t have been happier.

Hiking in Bruce Peninsula National Park

I spent my July and August in the closest place to home that isn’t home: northern Minnesota, working at a German language immersion camp. And I couldn’t have been happier.

The Good

In September, I moved across the pond for the second time and felt an immediate sense of belonging. Soon enough, I was completely head over heels with my little Scottish town.

 October meant a quick train trip and two nights in the attic of a castle.

November was a big one, with weekend trips to visit an old exchange student in Germany and to Barcelona.

Finally, in December I traveled 24 hours to get home and another 12 to make it to Panama. There, I rang in the new year to a sky filled with fireworks. And I couldn’t be happier.