LashWorldTour 2023 Travels in Review

2023 was yet another year of full-time world travels for me. In fact, it was my 26^th year of continuous travels!

Waaaayyy back in mid 1998, when I kicked off my world travels, it wasn’t long before I thought to myself, “Wow, this is awesome! I’m going to do this for as long as I can, hopefully for the rest of my life.” And sure enough, here I am 26 years later, still happily trotting around the globe, en route to reaching my goal of visiting every country on the planet.

As for 2023, in January I was camped out at my own private apartment in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and kicking off my second year of travels around South America, which was a planned two-year exploration of the entire continent.

I had started the journey in February, 2022, by flying into Ecuador then promptly heading out to the famed Galapagos Islands for a one-month stay. I wrote more about the wonderful Galapagos here.

The rest of 2022 I spent exploring Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and Chile, then finished the year by bus-ing it up over a high Andes pass on December 13^th to Mendoza, Argentina, then finally ending the year in Buenos Aires.

I spent Christmas of 2022 and New Year’s 2023 in Buenos Aires, not making any particularly big festivity of either holiday. Although there are certainly many great things to do in Buenos Aires, I saved up all my Christmas money for special excursions down in Patagonia, at the bottom of South America.

Argentina is a very large, long country and its many spectacular natural places and historic towns & cities are spread out all over the country. Reaching them is much like visiting the best national parks and cities around the USA. It’s much faster (and cheaper!) in Argentina to fly between regions than to go overland.

So I ended up using Buenos Aires as a base, flying in and out multiple times between January and May to explore all the country’s best attractions. I also spent more than one month exploring Buenos Aires.

Buenos Aires is full of huge, gorgeous parks & gardens, fabulous specialty museums and lots of professional dog walkers leading 10-20 dogs at a time to/from large parks for them to frolick on the lawns and play together. I spent several weeks strolling the wonderful parks that showcase large lakes, water birds, meandering streams, flower gardens and forests full of towering indigenous trees. I went regularly to play with troupes of dogs and getting to know their walkers.

I was also mesmerized by the Vintage Car Museum, Museum of Eva Peron, Cultural & Decorative Arts Museum and other gorgeous museums.

In Buenos Aires I was equally busy working on assignment to review16 luxury hotels, several of which are truly spectacular. One hotel is home to the city’s famous Tango Rojo shows and I was spoiled by being invited to attend the show gratis. The steamy, beautiful production was accompanied by a live Tango band, greatly adding to the ambiance.

Speaking of my hotel review assignments, in 2023 I visited and reviewed a whopping 162 boutique hotels, luxury resorts and hotels in seven countries. Throughout my travels around South America I was often just as busy working on hotel assignments as I was exploring new places.

Before I get into a detailed overview of my 2023 travels, here’s a quick summary:

Countries Visited:

I visited seven countries: Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and the USA. Of those, however, only two were new countries for me. I’d already spent time in Chile and Argentina the previous year; visited the Amazon region of Brazil back in 2002; and traveled extensively around Mexico in 2016 and 2017.

General Itinerary:

January through May exploring Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay

June through mid September traveling around Brazil

Mid September through October working on hotels in Riviera Maya, Mexico

November & December in Florida, visiting family and doing hotel work

Five countries that got away!

Quite sadly, and to my great digust, I missed visiting five of thirteen countries in South America: Bolivia, Venezuela, Guyana, French Guiana and Suriname. More details on that later…

Hotel Work:

As noted above, I reviewed an whopping 162 hotels in all seven aforementioned countries. I think it’s the largest number of hotels I’ve reviewed in a single year thus far. At the tail end of 2023, I really packed in a lot of hotels: 38 in Mexico and 25 in Florida, for a total of 63 in under three months. Whew, it felt tough!

Detailed travels in 2023:

As the year began, I was most excited about visiting Patagonia, in far south Argentina and Chile, at the bottom of South America. I planned to fly down to Ushuaia, Argentina from Buenos Aires and then explore the vast region overland.

Since I couldn’t get a cheap flight until early February, I took a quick two-week detour over to Uruguay, which lies just across the broad Rio de la Plata from Buenos Aires. The journey entails a two-hour ferry trip to Uruguayan shores and then a three-hour bus trip across low undulating countryside to the capital, Montenegro, or off to other parts of the country.

Uruguay – glorious Atlantic coast beaches

Uruguay is a small, little-populated country that lies along the Atlantic Ocean, Rio de la Plata and the Uruguay River. It’s safe, mostly rural but very well-developed in urban areas, and surprisingly expensive. Uruguay is most famous in the region for its stunning Atlantic beaches and is visiting in droves by vacationers from Argentina and Chile, in particular.

I was assigned to visit hotels in Montevideo and along the main beach tourist areas on the Atlanatic east coast. I spent a few days in the historic capital then caught a bus to the beaches, where I stayed for 10 days at a fabulous little Bohemian-style beach house with a wonderful Uruguayan woman named Amma, her lovely cat and lively dog. That proved to be one of my favorite stays in all of South America.

Back in Buenos Aires, I had just a few days to pack up and fly down to Ushuaia, often lauded as the southernmost city in the world. That claim is contested by Port Williams, Chile, which is actually slightly further south of Ushuaia, though others argue that Port Williams is so tiny that it hardly qualifies as a city.

Ushuaia – the world’s southernmost city

In any event, Ushaia proved to be absolutely stunning, with a backdrop of jagged peaks holding a glacier that practically dangles above town. The small city is also set right on the shores of icy-cold Beagle Channel, with a fishing port, cruiseship port and more spectacularly jagged mountains just across the channel in Chile.

Ushaia is one of the main ports for cruises to Antarctica and to Cape Horn Islands National Park. Quite unfortunately, I did not have the funds for an Antarctic cruise. But I did greatly enjoy an all-day cruise along the Beagle Channel (Christmas funds), where we visited sea lions, cormorant birds and two species of penquins. Views up and down the channel were also quite dramatic.

I also made a day trip to Tierra del Fuego National Park, where I hiked, visited South America’s (and the Western Hemisphere’s) southernmost paved road end, National Route 3 and the end of the Panamerican Highway at Lapataia Bay and ate an incredibly delicious chocolate cake at the luxurious national park lodge.

After one wonderful week exploring Ushuaia and visiting hotels, I took a long, all-day bus trip over to the Chile region of Patagonia. The trip entailed crossing Tierra del Fuego Island from south to north, taking a ferry across the Straights of Magellan, then riding many more hours by bus to Punta Arenas, Chile.

Patagonia in Chile – Punta Arenas and Puerto Natales

There I marveled at an exquisitely decored historic mansion home and full-size replicas of the massive sailing ships used by Fernando Magellan in the late 1400s and by Darwin in the mid 1800s.

I further explored Patagonia at Puerto Natales, Chile and nearby Torres del Paine National Park; El Calafate and El Chalten, Argentina; and later at Bariloche, Argentina, located considerably further north. In total I enjoyed five weeks in southern Patagonia and one week in Bariloche.

El Calafate – Perito Moreno Glacier – El Chalten – Glacier Nat Park

El Calafate is famed for nearby Perito Moreno Glacier, set on the edge of a huge lake within Glacier National Park. Although I’d already visited glaciers in New Zealand, Perito Moreno Glacier was consderably more beautiful and dramatic.

Hiking trails in another section of Glacier National Park, up out of El Chalten, was also very memorable, particularly viewing the dramatic peaks of Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre.

After returning to Buenos Aires from the far south, I then flew up to the renowned Iguazu Falls, tucked into a tiny triangle of Arentinian land next to Brazil and Paraguay.

Iguazu Falls – Argentina

Iguazu Falls are much like Niagara Falls: a very broad band of enormously gushing water pounding over tall wide cliffs into churning froth below. Except that Iguazu Falls are three times wider and more voluminous than Niagara.

Visiting the falls requires buying an entrance ticket that’s valid for two consecutive days. I took full advantage of the deal by actually spending two full days exploring the many trails and vantage view points. It was spectacular.

Paraguay

From there I crossed over to Paraguay for two+ weeks, where I visited three destinations and a handful of hotels. I can’t really report anything particularly wonderful or amazing about Paraguay except for the fantastic apartment and hosts I stayed with in the capital city, Ascuncion.

My hosts, Guise and husband, Dario, are superb award-winning cross-fit trainers and all-around great people, who I clicked with instantly. My boutique-like private apartment was one of my very best in all of South America.

From there, over to Salta in far northwest Argentina and back to Buenos Aires for my very last stay before excitedly flying up to Rio de Janiero, Brazil in late May.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

OMG!!! Rio is THE BEST city in the world! Set along an incredibly long coastline, jam-packed with fluffy golden-sand beaches and towered over by several dramatic, jagged mountain peaks, Rio is absolutely gorgeous.

With dense tropical vegetation, stunning weather, wild animals and a plethora of birds, dazzling beaches, a small lake, beautiful shady parks, a significant historic district, world-class museums, a bohemian artist/musician enclave up in the hills, lots of deilicious food and a world-famous & rather notorious nightlife, Rio has everything.

The city is so big, so diverse and so beautiful that it’s like ten distinct, gorgeous cities all put together. I was smitten.

I ended up staying in Rio a total of two full months and could easily have stayed longer. I did just about everything the city has to offer, short of the nightlife, and enjoyed every single day there.

I also visited Sao Paulo, mainly because I had to review 10 luxury hotels there. From there I was hoping to fly to Bolivia. I’d already tried to obtain a Bolivian visa in Paraguay, Salta and Rio, so the Bolivian Consulate in Sao Paulo was my last chance.

Trying to get into Bolivia!

Try as I might, as an American I could not obtain a visa to visit Bolivia! I went to four different Bolivian Embassies/consulates in three different countries, but was unable to obtain a visa. It was the first time my American passport worked against me.

I’d met several other travelers, from different countries, who had entered Bolivia easily and without fees or documentation. Alas, Americans (ONLY) must pay $160 US for a 30-day visa and complete a whole slew of documentation.

My last attempts were in Rio and Sao Paulo, Brazil. In the end, it was literally imposstible for me to get all the documentation they required. And that was that. Wow! Crying!

So instead, I spent two more months exploring beautiful Brazil. I contacted my hotel work supervisor, who assigned me more hotels up and down the coast, and I set out.

I ended up visiting Paraty, Salvador, Praia do Forte, Praia do Frances (near Maceio) and Recife/Olinda. At that point I was up near the far northeast coast of Brazil. I wanted to continue traveling up the coast, all the way the border of French Guiana and Suriname, then visit the four remaining countries in northeast South America. However, it didn’t work out that way, because…

Yearning to visit Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana and Venezuela

Venezuela, Guyana, French Guiana and Suriname are all located up in the far northeast corner of South America. I wanted to visit all of them, of course. Quite unfortunately, they all proved to be some combination of extremely expensive, difficult to enter and/or incredibly dangerous. So in the end I gave them all a pass, for now at least.

So I thrashed about wondering where to go next. I had two months before I was due to return to Florida, in November, to do another hotel assignment there. I contacted my supervisor to tell her my predicament and she offered me a huge hotel assignment (38 resorts) in Riviera Maya, Mexico… my old stomping grounds! Yippie!

Default work trip to Riviera Maya in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula

So I quickly scrambled around to find flights, book accomodation, pack my bags and rather hurriedly leave Brazil!

I spent six+ weeks in Playa del Carmen and Tulum, heading out daily to visit huge mega-resorts set along the coast, and then tediously writing up the reviews. It was entirely a work trip, something rather odd for me.

Quite unfortunately, prices there had tripled since I had made the area home for six months in 2016. Even worse, there was an incredibly horrible scorching heat wave tehre, the hottest ever that any locals could remember, and certainly much hotter than when I’d been there before.

For more than one month the apparent temperatures were 40-45C / 105-110 F ! It was horrrrrendous!

Finally, about 10 days before I left, the temperatures slid down marginally to an almost bearable heat. And I finally escaped up to Florida in early November.

Ironically, and literally true, I was thrilled to fly to Florida, where it was cooler! And less humid! Ah, what a relief to escape the Riviera Maya and get to St Pete!

Finishing the year in St Petersburg, Florida and final hotel assignment

In November I was busy visiting 25 hotels in the Tampa/St Pete area and writing up the reviews.

In the midst of that was Thanksgiving with family followed by a week-long visit by relatives from Chicago. Then December was upon us and we had to bustle around preparing for Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

Of course there was writing up Christmas cards & mailing them, decorating the house and outdoor bushes, setting up and decorating the tree, researching and buying and wrapping presents, stuffing stockings, baking Christmas cookies and preparing the Christmas day feast. All great fun!

I ended 2023 on the evening of December 31^st by preparing and eating a delicious grilled steak dinner, topped by homemade chocolate mousse and then sitting in the living room Math a fire roaring in the fireplace while watching explosive fireworks displays from around the world on TV and, at the stroke of midnight here, having a champagne toast with my mom & step-dad… before slinking off to bed.

I had to laugh at myself for – this year at least – preferring the warmth and quiet of home & watching fireworks on TV to going out on the town to watch fireworks live with a crowd of revelers. But all’s well that ends well!