Celebrating 12 months of the “Need Another Holiday” blog with #Take12Trips
Having lunch with Clare Farrell aka The Holiday Addict (right) and Katie Collins (centre) at #Traverse13 in Brighton.
Clare Farrell, the lovely Holiday Addict recently celebrated 12 months of blogging on her site, Need Another Holiday and to celebrate her blogiversary, Clare launched a super-exciting travel challenge for her readers; “Take 12 Trips”. The idea is to inspire those of us who work full-time to travel more and to take 12 trips in 12 months. I always like a challenge, so couldn’t resist joining in!
The rules of engagement
This isn’t as difficult as it might sound though, a trip can be anything from a weekend away to a day trip or even exploring your home city and local tourist attractions. Big adventures and mini adventures, they all count; so don’t let a low budget prevent you from taking part.
Clare advises; “to #Take12Trips, you only have to commit to doing something once a month” – we all deserve a break once in a while and so committing to take time out each month is not only fun, it’s good for us.
My 2013 travel story so far
Big long haul adventures are usually more my thing although since completing my studies late last year, I’ve had more free time on a weekend, so I’ve started to take a lot more short trips and on reflection, I’m quite pleased with my efforts so far.
New Year’s in Vegas
I started 2013 in Las Vegas, after spending Christmas in Arizona and Utah, USA. Since then I haven’t travelled very far but I have travelled often. In addition to visiting family and friends in York two or three times a month, I’ve managed to get away for quite a few other short breaks and day trips in the UK including:
- February: London (Destinations : The Holiday and Travel Show)
- March: London (TNT Travel Show)
- April: Scarborough and Brighton (Traverse13 where I first met Clare)
- May: Coventry
- June: Newcastle and London (Traverse Mingle)
- July: Nottingham, Scarborough and Cardiff
- September: Nottingham
My Take 12 Trips starting point
The Liffey, Dublin
This month I visited Dublin, Ireland for the first time and caught up with Mrs Holiday Addict herself at TBEXDublin, marking the start of my own #Take12Trips challenge for the next 12 months. I didn’t get to see as much of Dublin as I would have liked but I do intend to go back and I’ll definitely return to the Generator Hostel.
Over the next 12 months I’ve already got my sights on returning to Cardiff, London, Newcastle, Iceland and Dublin of course, plus a new adventure into the wilds of Alaska and Northern Canada next summer! The great thing about the #Take12Trips challenge is that it is giving me an excuse to plan more mini adventures than I probably would have and although I love travelling solo, I’m hoping to encourage some of my buddies to come along for the ride.
Let’s do this!
I’ll be recording my #Take12Trips here on the blog and also on Instagram and Twitter. So what do you think, are you ready to take on the Take 12 Trips challenge? Will this encourage you to travel more? Or have you set yourself a different travel challenge over the next year? If you choose to join us, don’t forget to let Clare know and tag your tweets, photos and posts with #Take12Trips.
Are you in? Let me know in the comments, below.
I love this Kirsten! I think we may have genuinely embarked on a mission! And I am certainly looking forward to crossing paths on some of these 12 trips…
To be honest, I think the most interesting part of this is local travel. The “making an effort not to overlook what’s on your doorstep” thing is the cheapest and easiest way to keep that travel bug satisfied. But I can’t wait to see what you get up to in Alaska and Northern Canada.
Let’s do this!
Absolutely – I’ve got a good feeling about this! 🙂 Completely agree with you about local travel too and I think your #Take12Trips is a fantastic opportunity to celebrate what’s on our doorsteps and hopefully inspire others to make the most of it. Mission accepted!