Hi all. Now, before you think it, it’s not my birthday that was a few months ago, but for some reason best known to… well me probably, I was feeling a little reflective lately about where I am in life and travel, so I thought ‘why not do a reflective blog’? so, here I am, doing one!

So I guess that what I’ve been feeling is that I am now in my fifties, and the way I travel has changed so much from 27 years ago when I first stepped on that Thai Airways plane and travel became my number one hobby and passion in life.

Well, today life is different. I’m married, I have now had permanent employment in two companies for over twelve years. I have a mortgage. And I don’t quite have the energy or enthusiasm of the 1999 Andy. None of these things are abnormal, of course. Somethings I have noticed:

1/ Days are shorter

Especially when travelling. No, seriously, generally I speaking I find that the day is done way quicker than it used to be, and by that I mean it feels like it moves faster. Before I know it’s time to get dinner, or get on to other things. I think this is not just me getting older, but the world getting faster in so many ways. In 1999 I went overseas and found an internet café here and there and checked my email once a week or less and maybe some news.

Now we fill what was empty time with social media, you can follow live sport whilst you travel, study Duolingo on a bus ride, take photos pretty much whenever you want because we never leave anywhere without our phones. Then we have to make sure our devices are fully charged. If I want to call home I can at no real expense, or use What’s App, message, text.

2/ Blogging and Vlogging Take Their Toll

Now I take the blogging and vlogging very seriously, and that lends itself also to much less downtime from day to day. There’s setting up backup too each night to backup files on the cloud, editing, blogging, editing photos for the blog, then publicising vlogs and blogs, it’s my choice and I can’t complain, but if I want to build on past successes I can’t pull back too much either.

3/ I think in Terms of What Haven’t I Done Yet – I Look Forward to Death!

No, not like that. I mean I forward think years ahead now, I think about retirement, having enough money, and what do I want to do and where do I want to visit before, you know, well before I can’t travel the way I want to anymore. I’m 51, the sixties are calling. I have a mortgage, I work hard when home and I work plenty of hours.

I got a mortgage at 49. Standard here is 30 years for a mortgage, obviously my goal is to pay it off sooner but it’s not easy, and I have no intention of working until I am 79. No day is promised or guaranteed, and I see that now, I really didn’t twenty years ago.

And part of me is concerned – what if I run out of things to do? But also, what order I do them in is now relevant because I don’t know how my health and wellbeing will be in ten, twenty or more years.

4/ Where do I still want to travel?

So with everything in mind, where do I want to go that I am yet visit? Well, probably a fair bit of the answer lies in Africa. Before I start listing places, I am also keen to visit places I have never been. I do not have the goal of ‘visiting every country in the world’ – but I would like to see what I can whilst I can. I’d like to try more airlines, I’d like to fly in a 747 again – over the last couple of trips I tried to make it happen, but it just didn’t fit into my plans. There aren’t many still flying with passengers, although there are more that do freight. I’d also like to take an A380 again, although that shouldn’t be so difficult.

I also want to take more interesting and different aircraft, I so enjoyed the Malawi Airlines Dash 8 from last year, and there are many smaller planes out there that are much more fun to take than say an Airbus A320, which is an incredible workhorse but lacks any sort of thrill.

Back to countries and places I still want to visit. I’ll start with Namibia and Botswana and a couple more safaris would be great, along with South Africa. Along with these, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is somewhere I feel I should visit one day, it’s volatile and has it’s health issues too, I won’t deny I would feel nervous visiting it but, well it just sounds like an undiscovered place even today – it’s not well visited. Perhaps even harder to visit and more of a challenge, Chad – a friend of mine went last year and the images are just brilliant. Tunisia is less of a challenging destination, but also on the radar to see the locations of some famous films mostly – Star Wars and Life of Brian.

Outside of Africa, well South America holds a couple of places I’d like to visit, including Colombia where I’d like to spend a month or so, Uruguay, and head far south in Argentina or Chile. The Atacama Desert in Chile looks brilliant too.

I wouldn’t mind taking time to visit a few of the Pacific Islands, mostly for the flights and seeing them for above as I don’t usually hunt out beach holidays, although a little snorkelling is always something I enjoy, so also checking out some of the Caribbean Islands sounds good too. And in Europe I have wanted to visit the Ukraine for a long time but well, not the time. If they become stable, Iraq, Syria and a return to Iran in the Middle East would be great.

And there are plenty of places I would like to return to – Cambodia, Laos, Pakistan, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ghana… and more.

Anyways. I am pretty much on the way to listing every country in the world so I might call it a day on this post! Interested in anyone’s thoughts on aging and changing priorities and abilities, so please do comment! Thanks for reading today, take care and May the Journey Never End!