2022 | A Year In Review

2022 Brought Us To 6 Different Countries

Our year in a nutshell.

As usual, it is astounding to look back over this past year to recollect all that we did. Each year I feel like we do enough to fill a whole lifetime, and it’s hard to imagine how many more exciting adventures we will fit into the coming years.

As you can see, we don’t travel quickly. We take our time and move with intention so that we don’t get stressed and burnt out. The longest we stayed in a country this year was Uganda for 5 months. This was a country that we returned to after spending 7 months there in 2021.

Botswana

Over Christmas and New Year 2021/22 we were housesitting and taking care of Mimi the cat in Maun, Botswana. Despite being located right next to the Okavango Delta, we, unfortunately, didn’t go out into it. We did have plans to do so, but one of the locals convinced us to go with him to his safari lodge east of the city instead. We did have a magical time with him around his lodge for a few days, but of course, the strings of regret hang heavy on this one.

However, we were also told that the time of year that we were there was not the optimal time to go out into the delta, and it’s best to do so in September/October. So who knows, maybe we will get back there one day to see it in all of its glory.

We left Botswana in mid-January.

Zambia

We traveled by land from Botswana up to Zambia where we stayed in Livingstone for 2 weeks. Of course, this is the home of the famed Victoria Falls, so we made sure to take in the spectacle.

It truly was incredible!

It was when walking from the falls to our bus stop that we came across 2 zebras grazing on grass on the side of the trail. We were amazed that they didn’t seem to care that humans were near them as locals would walk back and forth without a second glance their way.

There were also numerous baboons around the falls that put on quite the show for us. I made a video of our day at the falls which you can view below.

Tanzania

Again we traveled to Tanzania by bus over the border from Zambia. We took our time moving through Tanzania as we had rushed through it in just 7 days on our initial trip from Uganda to Botswana in 2021. We wanted to see more of the country and spent about a month there in total.

We started in the mountains of Mbeya in the southwest, then moved up the center of the country through the original capital city of Dodoma, then to the north and the city of Arusha. We took the bus from Arusha to Moshi for a day so we could take in the famed Mt. Kiliminjaro, but a thick blanket of clouds was over the top of it and we sadly didn’t see a thing.

While in Arusha we painted a small mural for a safari company's headquarters.

We then headed off to the city of Mwanza on the southern end of Lake Victoria where we took a ferry across the southwest corner of the lake to Bukoba.

From there we continued on up to Uganda mid-march.

Uganda

Arriving back in Uganda felt like coming home after we had spent 7 months there the previous year. We had a couple of mural projects in three different locations that we wanted to complete. But first, we were invited to the Entebbe Zoo to meet with the facilities outreach coordinator about a possible future collaboration painting wildlife in Ugandan schools.

The Zoo, formally called the Ugandan Wildlife Education Center (UWEC) is a leader in the industry for rehabilitating wildlife that has been abandoned or injured by mostly poachers. Some animals are able to be re-integrated into nature, some are not.

What was supposed to only be a few days, turned into a month when we offered to paint their visitor information center for them. Living at the zoo was surreal and we had amazing experiences with the animals that live there.

Our absolute favorite day was when we were lucky to be zookeepers for the day and we got to feed the animals and clean the lion cages.

We then moved up to Ruboni, in the foothills of the Rwenzori mountains. There we painted a large mural on the side of one of the community centers. We had lived in this community for 3 weeks in 2021, so we were familiar with the area.

After staying there for a month we moved back down to the Savannah and to our beloved community of Kikorongo. There we had started a project to bring the village some water in 2021, so we wanted to continue that work.

We spent another month there then moved on to our final Ugandan location where we had promised to paint murals at, Kalitusi Nature Resort in Fort Portal.

There we spent the remaining 2 months of our time in Uganda painting artwork.

Turkey

At the beginning of August, we flew north back to Europe. We arrived in Istanbul, and much like the first time we visited in 2020, we got stuck in the city finding it hard to leave. We really do love Istanbul and were happy to be back and exploring more places that we hadn’t seen the first time.

This time we stayed three weeks there before we made our way up to Bulgaria.

Bulgaria

We took an overnight bus from Istanbul direct to Plovdiv, Bulgaria. We had visited Bulgaria on a holiday from Canada over the New Year in 2015/16, so we had a bit of an idea of what to expect. However, we had never seen Plovdiv and were amazed at the incredible Roman ruins that the city displays.

After Plovdiv, we made our way to the center of the country and the town of Gabrovo. In 2015 we made a friend there that we have kept in touch with, and wanted to check in on him. He got us set up with a host in a remote area outside of the town, and we mostly spent our days roaming the quiet roadways by bikes.

We did have a very interesting experience in this location, though, which has to do with fleas! You can read about that here if you are interested.

We then made our way to Veliko Tarnovo and the most scenic Bulgarian city that we have seen yet.

We had a volunteer gig set up outside of Varna along the Black Sea coast and made our way out there a couple of weeks after arriving in Bulgaria. There we worked in an apple orchard picking apples and pruning 16 very overgrown apple trees.

Our German friend, Nico, whom we had met in Nicaragua in 2018 came to visit us for 10 days when we were finished volunteering. We took some time to explore more parts of the country with him and really enjoyed our few days in Balchik, another city on the shores of the Black Sea.

We traveled back to Veliko Tarnovo with him and had another nice time in the fabulous city. This time we also had time to visit the fortress!

Our trip ended with Nico when we returned to Varna on the Black Sea. Here we would say goodbye to him then we embarked on a 5-week mural painting job at the YoHo Hostel. We painted murals on half of their common room but had to leave before we could complete it all because our Bulgarian visa was running out.

We promised to return in 2023 to finish what we started.

Turkey

With time remaining on our 90-day Turkish visa, we decided to head back south to explore more of the country. As noted, we had only been to Istanbul and we were determined to see more. We took the bus to Edirne just across the Bulgarian, Turkish and Greek borders.

After dealing with not being able to get cash from the ATM’s we made our way south to Izmir. However, we were determined to get as south as we could in the country, so only spent a couple of days there, then continued on to Antalya, which is where we are now.

We have really fallen in love with Antalya’s quaint old town with its narrow meandering streets, its tall mountains in the distance, and the rugged cliffs that hug the shoreline.

Here we are painting a few art projects in a hotel, and will likely be hanging out until the end of January. However, we do hope to make a couple of side trips to Capadoccia and Pumakale while we are here.

As usual, we will see what unfolds.

This year has surely been one wildly exciting year and we are more thankful than ever for this traveling life that we are living. With the success of our online pursuits finally coming around, we look forward to 2023 and know that nothing but unlimited fun and adventure will come our way.

One major event of 2022 that I haven’t mentioned yet is that I joined Medium in mid-January this year. I will say that joining Medium has been the singular best thing that I have done on my entrepreneurial front in our past five years of full-time travel. The connections I have made here and the opportunity that I have been given to share our stories have made a profound impact on my life.

I am immensely grateful.

I’m grateful not just for this platform where I can share my stories, but I am grateful to be able to read all of yours! It is in hearing about others' experiences and learning how others are living on this planet, that my life has surely been enriched.

So I thank you, for all of it.

I truly hope that wherever you find yourself in the world that you experience happiness and joy in life and a knowing that 2023 will be your best year yet!

Happy New Year and best wishes to everyone far and wide!

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