From February 1, 2023 to February 1, 2024, this little lady here made it to all seven continents on Planet Earth. I had been to four of them pretty regularly through the years (North America – duh, South America, Europe and Asia.). But I added three continents to my checklist during this 365 day period. Oceana, Africa and …… yep….Antartica.

So let me go through each continent in the order in which I was on them….

1. North America. Well of course. I live here. Not sure it’s that interesting to run through all of the domestic travel I have made in the course of this 365 days — but suffice to say there was no small amount of US based travel. It’s shocking my cats recognize me considering how much I travel. But I will go ahead and skip this and move on to the other, more interesting trips. (IMHO.)
2. Oceana. Ok. So I am so old, I didn’t know the name of the continent had changed. I thought it was still called Australia. Nope. Somewhere in between my grade school education and well, decades later, the name changed to Oceana to compensate for all of the territories in the region not called Australia. Makes sense — but I wish I had paid attention to this change before February of 2023 because it made me feel really ancient and stupid to discover this. At any rate, I went to Oceana, specifically to Australia, and I LOVED it. But wow, is it far away. It’s no joke. When you get there, you really feel the Men at Work song, “I Come from the Land Down Under” in a serious way. My flights included a 6 hour trip from NYC to SFO — and then an 18 hour trip to Melbourne. I mean, that’s like 24 hours of flying. But I will say it’s totally worth it. Melbourne is so great. If it wasn’t so damn far away from every other major country in the world, I would move to Australia based on how much I enjoyed being in Melbourne. From Melbourne, we flew to Sydney — and on our last night there, the opera house lit up for Pride, and it was quite stunning. I was there for work, but I really fell in love with the country of Australia, which is now part of the continent called Oceana.
3. Europe. There were multiple trips to Europe in the 365 day timeframe — but in April of 2023 I went to Paris. I love me a good Europe trip. We stayed in the Soho House there — which is always comfortable, and it was a nice and productive trip. (Besides France, I was also in the UK, Spain, Germany and Switzerland during this year time period.). So that covers Europe.
4. Asia. In May I went to mainland China and Hong Kong via Taipei. The best part of this trip was discovering and flying on EVA Airlines, which might be my favorite flight experience ever. Flying on EVA was, well, magical. The only downside is that you have to leave from JFK, in a terminal that is not nearly as nice as the United terminal at EWR. But I survived. And once I boarded the EVA airlines plane, I couldn’t believe how nice my business class pod was. I also felt like if I even thought of wanting another glass of wine, the flight attendants knew it by some psychic ability — because the service was just impeccable. And the roof of the airplane has twinkling stars you can look at as you doze off. I could just go on and on — it was that good. And yes, I’ve flown Cathay Pacific — and no, it’s not as nice despite its milk tea or whatever it is that everyone loves about flying Cathay. EVA wins for sure. There’s not much else to report back on this trip — except I was super bummed on the way home when I split my flights between ANA and United. I missed EVA and that lovely pod. Later in the year, I think I also went to Japan –making a second Asia trip for the year, but honestly, I can’t remember — I might not have. I think I did though? It’s so blurry for me.
5. Africa. After my father died in August, 2019 (I’ll get to that at some point), my mother in her grief told the family she finally was going to take us all to Africa. And boy did she do that. We had the most amazing experiences in both Kenya and Tanzania. There are too many incredible stories from this trip. The wildlife sightings were unmatchable — and these two countries were just as beautiful as I expected them to be. And the tents were super fancy. We had a full bar in one of our tents in the Serengeti. If anyone knows me well, they know I really require a mini bar in every hotel room — and am disappointed when I have to stay in a hotel that doesn’t have one. But to have a FULL bar (not mini) in this elaborate tent on the Grumeti River, was beyond the pale. I don’t think I actually drank anything out of that bar, but I just liked to know it was there. Every morning when my friend Scott and I would wake up to go on Safari, Scott would see me dump out the glass of wine on my side table that I never drank. Suffice to say — Africa was brilliant — and it was bookended by two European stops on both sides — Frankfurt and Zurich.
6. South America. When I returned from Africa, one of my domestic US trips included a stop in Santa Rosa, California. And there my trip to Antartica was born. But to get to Antartica, you have to go through South America so that’s how I managed to knock off this continent in the 365 day period. Three nights in Chile were included on the amazing Antartica expedition. I had been to South America before — it wasn’t my first time in Chile — but this time I went to the very, very bottom of the continent and it truly felt like the end of the civilized world. And it basically is with the exception that my hotel room did not have a mini bar — so that part was UNcivilized.
7. Antartica. The seventh continent. I don’t even know how to start with this one. Other than to say WOW. This continent did not feel like planet earth — so it’s no wonder the aliens choose to land there, or so they say. Leading up to my departure, I had never felt more nervous about a trip. I was going to Antartica and the thing that made me the most nervous were the whales. I really had nightmares that one would try to sink our ship – or that I would be swallowed by one like Pinocchio. Literally that was all I could think about as I packed and got ready for the trip. Someone told me to watch the movie, Where’d You Go Bernadette, which I had never heard about. So I did — and even though Bernadette falls in love with Antartica in the film, it made me even more nervous to see her kayaking out in the middle of the ocean that is full of glacier ice (and whales). On the day I left, I went to spin class and on my handle bars when I got there was a little blue whale plush. It was perfect, and I took it as a good luck omen for an amazing trip. And it was. I now am like Bernadette and am in love with Antartica. I am going to devote future blog posts to more details on Antartica since this post is dragging on. It was quite extraordinary.

So there you go. This is how I made it to all seven continents in one 365 day period, with two trips of a lifetime to boot. I will say that I got into a tiff with the Russian expedition guide on the Antartica boat, where he tried to insist over dinner and wine that there are actually eight continents. But alas, as I told him, there are only seven. And I’ve been on all of them.