I think it’s a great time in the year to look back at the past decade. Most people have done this at the start of 2020. However, I was too busy planning trips. Now that all those trips have been cancelled, it’s finally time for me to look back. In this post, you’ll find my favourite travel experiences of 2010 all the way through to 2019. I’ve had such a great decade, and I really hope I’ll be just as lucky to make such awesome trips in the decades to come.

Let’s start things off with a few numbers:
Countries I visited: 40 unique countries (not including The Netherlands)
New countries I visited: 30 countries (in chronological order: Costa Rica, Panama, Spain, South Africa, Portugal, UAE, Cyprus, India, Oman, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Poland, South Korea, Iceland, Switzerland, Qatar, Malaysia, Brunei, Cuba, Norway, Russia, Peru, North Macedonia, Serbia, Israel, Palestine, Czechia, Nepal), which brought the total amount of countries I’ve been to in the world to 49
Countries I lived in: 3. I lived in Leiden (in The Netherlands), in Edinburgh (UK), in Abu Dhabi (UAE) and then in Rotterdam (in The Netherlands).

PADI Open Water Certification in Bocas Del Toro, Panama (2010)

Bocas Del Toro is one of the cheapest places in the world to get your PADI Open Water Certification. That’s why my friend and I decided out of the blue to go for our certification. I think I paid 235 USD for the Open Water Courses back in 2010.

I didn’t particularly enjoy the time we had to stay cooped up in the classroom, but the few times we went out to the sea to put our learning into practice made up for all the studying. I felt like I was made for diving. My friend and I were very lucky because we basically had private lessons with two very nice instructors, one from the US and one from Canada.

From 2010 to 2019 I’ve been diving in a few different places: in Bonaire and Curacao, in The Netherlands, in Malaysian Borneo and on Ibiza. I’ve logged a total of 28 dives. My favourites were on Bonaire and Curacao.

Read more about my other dives here:

• Bocas Del Toro
• Bonaire – Diving Klein Bonaire
• Bonaire – Diving Salt Pier
• Curaçao – Diving in the West
• Grevelingen Lake – Diving in the Netherlands

Road Trip Scottish Highlands (2010)

I don’t think I can spend enough time in Scotland. There are many more road trips I would like to do there, including the North Coast 500. However, back in 2010 I made an epic road trip from Edinburgh to the Isle of Skye and back. If people ask me what my favourite place on earth is, I will always tell them the Highlands. The grass truly is greener there in my opinion. I took this trip back when I wasn’t blogging, so the photos aren’t all that. All the more reason to return one day to capture the beauty of this rugged landscape.

Read more about my visits to Scotland here:

• Highlands – Road Trip from Edinburgh to Isle of Skye
• Falkirk – A Day Trip
• Peebles – A Day Trip
• Edinburgh – Exploring Dean Village

Swimming with Penguins in Simon’s Town and Just Penguins in General (2011)

Penguins are my favourite animals. In March 2011, I made a three-week road trip in South Africa. After Cape Town. One of the destinations was Simon’s Town. Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures of this place.

The reason for this is because I didn’t bring an underwater camera and there was no use bringing my normal camera since I would just be swimming. Oh, how the times have changed in 2020 with phones that are water-resistant.

Locals don’t know why the colony of African penguins decided to make Boulders Beach their home. They are not shy towards people at all. When I visited I was lucky because there were no crowds. I lay on the beach for about an hour while I watched some penguins hopping around me. Then I went for a swim. I love penguins, but being in the water with them was a bit scary. They are awkward on land but super fast and efficient in the sea.

Luckily, I do have pictures of the penguins colony at Stony Point in South Africa which was also a great place to visit for these awkward little animals.

Read more about my penguin sightings here:

• Stony Point African Penguin Colony
• Paracas – A One Day Itinerary (Peru)

Visiting Oman (2014 and 2015)

In the years I lived in Abu Dhabi and Oman was only a short road trip away, I visited the country twice. Once to do a road trip near Muscat and once to visit the Musandam peninsula.

I loved how untouched that country was back then. I would love to make my way back to it to visit Salalah, a kind of tropical beach destination, and to do some more road trips around the country. I have the feeling it will be a tad more touristy than it was when I visited. That’s OK, but it makes me appreciate my introduction to the country a bit more.

Read more about the different destinations I visited in Oman here:

• Muscat
• Around Muscat – Wadi Mayh, Yitti Beach, Bandar Jissah
• Musandam – Khasab and Surroundings
• Snorkeling in Khasab

My Love for Greek Orthodox Churches

It might sound weird, but one of my favourite travel experiences is the fact that I found out that I love visiting Greek Orthodox churches. I discovered this new love somewhere in 2014 and 2015. It started in countries like Cyprus, Greece and Turkey, and I visited countries like Bulgaria and Serbia to find even more churches

Over the years, I have visited my fair share of beautifully painted churches. I’ll share my list of favourites below, but my hunt for these gorgeous buildings is far from done. I would also like to explore the Armenian variant, because I have had an introduction in Jerusalem and I think I might also enjoy that style.

You can read more about my favourite Greek Orthodox churches here:

• Thessaloniki – A Three Day Itinerary (Greece)
• Troodos Mountains – UNESCO Painted Churches (Cyprus)
• Rila Monastery and Boyana Church (Bulgaria)
• Meteora (Greece)
• Istanbul – A Five Day Itinerary (Turkey)
• 6 Things To Do in Belgrade (Serbia)
• Ohrid – A Four Day Itinerary(North Macedonia)

Spotting Wildlife

I like to see which animals reside in the countries I visit, to see if I would like to go on a safari. I love seeing animals in their natural habitat. My favourite sighting was the family of Sri Lankan leopards with a baby in Yala National Park. It’s incredibly rare to spot these animals, so I consider myself very lucky.

Other rare animals I saw were rhinos in Nepal (which I have yet to write a blog post about) and in South Africa.

I also like to mention the fact that I saw the incredibly elusive beaver in the Biesbosch and deer and boars in the Veluwe in the Netherlands. Another animal I’m happy I saw were the enormous condors flying through the Colca Canyon in Peru.

In Malaysian Borneo, I saw a orang-utan with a baby. I tried to see whales on the Azores, instead I saw many different kinds of dolphins, which I also consider a win. There are many more animals I would love to spot in the wild like belugas, whale sharks, tigers, lions, grizzly bears, polar bears, but I’ve saved those for the upcoming decades.

Read more about my animal sightings here:

• Veluwezoom National Park – Tracking Wild Animals
• Mulu National Park – Animals of the Night
• Yala National Park
• Biesbosch National Park – Searching for Beavers
• Colca Canyon – Spotting Majestic Condors
• Paracas – A One Day Itinerary
• Kuching – A Two Day Itinerary

Husky Sledding in Norway

I love dogs, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that husky sledding would be on my bucket list.

I loved the fact that my mum and I had the opportunity to enjoy a sled ride when we visited Norway in the winter. It was just as much fun as I had imagined it to be. The dogs were eager to get going whenever we would stop, and it was a treat to see them enjoy the exercise so much. The fact that we could cuddle the dogs beforehand also added to the experience.

I might as well mention the fact that we fed reindeer when we were in Norway. This is not something I had on my bucket list, but it definitely deserves a small mention.

Read more about my trip to Norway here:

• Tromsø – Of Huskies and Reindeer
• Tromsø – A Three Day Itinerary

Conclusion

I’ve had an absolutely smashing decade of travelling. Of course, there are always a few activities that were incredibly special, but that did not make the final list. They still deserve a small honorary mention in this post, so I have saved them for this section.

This decade I did the highest bungee jump in the world in Bloukrans South Africa, I hiked up a glacier in Iceland, I stayed in a South Korean temple in Haeinsa, I went mudflat hiking in The Netherlands, I attended my friend’s Hindu wedding in India, I drove around Havana in an old-timer, I sat on the back of a motorbike to see Dudhsagar Falls in Goa and I went rafting in Nepal which I will tell you more about in a future blog post.

Now I’m looking forward what the upcoming decade has in store for me!

What was your favourite travel experience of the past decade?