LashWorldTour 2024 Travel Plans

LashWorldTour 2024 Travel Plans

Greetings from Alaska!

This year marks my 27^th year of continuous solo world travels. And I fully intend to make it another adventurous year exploring ‘new’ countries, all in my quest to visit every country on the planet.

As many of you already know, I kicked off 2024 by heading to Juneau, Alaska. As my greeting implies, I’m here now, enjoying mounds and mounds of beautiful, fluffy white snow!

I’m here in Juneau to look after two lovely cats for two entire months – February and March. On March 31^st, I’ll return to Florida briefly to re-pack my bags for the rest of my 2024 travel itinerary, then set out into the world once more.

To help reach my goal of visiting all the countries in the world, this year I’ve made two New Year’s Resolutions. First is to become a regular house & pet sitter. In previous years, I’ve already done about a dozen house/pet sits around the world, but this year I hope to start doing them on a regular basis and become an expert pet sitter. With my current two-month pet sit in Alaska, I’m off to a great start!

A major motivation for seeking more regular pet sitting assignments (besides loving to take care of cats & dogs) is cost reduction. For the past 26 years, most of the countries I’ve visited in the world are quite inexpensive, easy to explore on a low budget. So until now, I’ve been able to pay my way easily enough – paying for all my food, accommodations, transportation, daily expenses and some treats along the way.

But from now on, most of the countries I still have to explore are extremely expensive. I’m talking western Europe, UK, the Caribbean and Pacific Islands, the Middle East and some parts of Africa. The easiest way for me to afford visiting these great destinations is to cut out accommodation expenses. The best way I know to do that is by house/pet sitting and work exchange.

So my first goal in 2024 is to become an expert house/pet sitter. I’m already on my way!

In early January I joined Trusted House Sitters for the year. I detailed all my experience and personal info, added three 5-star reviews from previous pet sitting hosts in Fiji, Australia and Aruba, then started hunting for pet sitting assignments in specific countries that I intend to visit this year.

Kicking off the year, and membership, with this great & lengthy Alaska assignment should really help me on my way for the rest of the year!

Btw, I actually never intended to visit Alaska this year (nor anytime soon, for that matter). Alaska wasn’t even on my mind. I was supposed to go to Dominican Republic for the months of February & March to complete a big hotel review assignment of 70 resorts!

At the last minute, I found this pet sitting opportunity in Alaska and changed my plans quite suddenly. I wrote more about my big change in plans here

My second goal for 2024 is to visit at least 10 new countries. Coming to Alaska for two months has certainly not helped me towards that goal! But I have always intended to visit Alaska some day, so it is part of my over all world travel plan. And here I am.

More specifically, this year I plan to visit 10 countries in UK and Western Europe, plus Dubai, UAE. I have already visited England twice, but I have yet to explore Scotland, Wales, Ireland and North Ireland. They are all in the works for 2024.

In Europe, I plan to visit Holland, Belgium and one or two other nearby countries. Let’s see how it unfolds after I arrive. Traveling in EU is a bit tricky for non-EU citizens since you’re only allowed to stay a maximum of 90 days within a 180-day period. So basically, three months per half year. Luckily, UK is not included in that Schengen Zone, which makes things considerably easier.

I’ll be traveling around UK and EU from about mid-April through November. That’s over seven months. I’m not sure I’ll need four+ months to explore UK, though I might. So, if there’s time ‘left over’ before December, I may visit a couple Eastern European, non-Schengen countries, such as Serbia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, which I missed when traveling in the region 2018-2021. Or those ultra-northern countries of Estonia, Latvia and/or Belarus.

In December I will head to Dubai for one month. If possible from there, I’ll visit other Middle Eastern countries, such as Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and/or Jordan. But that’s pushing into early 2025.

My planned Middle Eastern itinerary is based on previous research. Back in 2020, while hanging out in Turkey during Covid, I thoroughly researched that entire region. One of my major conclusions was to only visit the area between December and February, possible March. That’s the only time the heat may be tolerable.

But December in Dubai will finish off my 2024 travels.

To summarize the travel year:

Feb & March: Juneau, Alaska

April: brief visits with family& friends in Florida, NYC and Pennsylvania

April/May through November: UK and EU countries

December: Dubai, UAE

For now, and during the next two months, I’ll be sharing lots of photos, adventures and interesting info about Juneau and Alaska. So stay tuned for lots of snowscapes, native indigenous cultural insights, glaciers, local history and in-depth details about wild Alaska salmon, humpback whales, gold mining and more!

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Meanwhile, you might also like:

How I Ended up Going to Alaska in early 2024

35 Highlights of my Two-Year Explorations of South America

Introduction to Patagonia

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