Boy, 2023 was the year of revisiting places I had been before. This year was my second time to Costa Rica, third time to Bali, somewhere around the tenth time to Walt Disney World, and gagillionth time to Las Vegas and San Diego. Our little jaunt to Kansas City in November was the only new city that I added to my list this year. Yes, we were in Singapore for an overnight, but I barely count that apart from our amazing experience at Cloud Street Restaurant.

2024, though, is going to be a whole bunch of brand new spots. I have two trips completely booked already, with a few more waiting in the wings to see how things pan out time-wise and financially this year. I blew a lot of my points and miles in 2023, so this year will be a rebuilding year, as they say in sports!

The first trip I have planned is a combo trip to Mexico City and Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo. I haven’t been to Mexico at all since I was a junior in college, so this will be pretty much all brand new to me. I am so excited to check out Mexico City, especially the food, and I can’t wait to bring you all the details. In Ixtapa, we are staying at the Cala De Mar resort – a smallish resort for Mexico, it has less than 100 rooms all situated on a cliff over the ocean. It has won a ton of “best of” accolades, and I’m really jazzed to spend a few nights relaxing here.

The other trip I have booked, although am still in the process of planning, is a trip with our middle schoolers to London! I am such an anglophile, and focused on British Literature for my major in college, that I have been dying to spend a good chunk of time here for a very long time. The kids want to see the Harry Potter stuff, and Clara is a total Beatlemaniac, so we’ll be doing a jaunt up to Liverpool for a day as well. I got total sticker shock while searching for places to stay in London – this place is NOT CHEAP, especially when you need to get two rooms for four people. I ended up booking rooms at the Clerk & Well Pub, for a totally authentic British experience. I really cannot wait for this trip, it’s going to be a total blast.

There is also a strong possibility that we will be going back to Napa for a long weekend, too. I haven’t travelled to wine country of any kind for over five years, and it’s some of my favorite kind of travel. I belong to a few wine clubs out of Napa, so I want to take advantage of that, and revisit the area after 10 years.

I’m also really dying to get to mainland Europe this year. In 2022, we took three Euro trips, making up for lost time after COVID, although only one of them was to the mainland! We went to Dublin for a fun long weekend, Malta for Anna’s graduation trip, which was super surprising, and I still think about this trip a lot. We also took our middle schoolers to Europe for the first, time, hanging out in Madrid and Barcelona where we ate really really well. We saw a whole bunch of Caravaggios in 2022, and this year we only saw two, so we need to start making up for it and hopefully make our way to Italy (Florence, Milan, or Rome would do) or Paris in the fall.

I’ll be starting the year off, though, will all my Top 5’s from 2023, as well as a ton of Chicago restaurant reviews. We’re going out a bunch for Restaurant Week, and we’ll also be checking out Indienne on February 1, which is one of Chicago’s newest Michelin-starred restaurants, so definitely watch this space for more from Chicago too!

Happy New Year everyone!