Reminiscing: Travel Highlights and Lowlights of 2025

A splendid start to our recent twelve months of travel was our January flight to Rome and four-night stay in one of our favorite places, the walled Old Town of Lucca, the birthplace of Puccini and the location of several excellent restaurants.

February and March in Prague and Vienna gave us the opportunity to watch one of our favorite operas, The Magic Flute, in an historic Prague opera house in which Mozart himself conducted. We'd seen it before on film while watching the classic movie Amadeus, which was largely filmed in Prague.

In late March and early April we took advantage of a bargain business class fare to Paris on Aer Lingus. We experienced the theft of Kathy's purse while riding a TGV train from Paris CDG Airport to Tours. Fortunately, the loss was small. We had done some things right, but we learned a couple of valuable train travel tips from a sympathetic policeman in Tours.

In late May we made our nineteenth trip to Australia and again attended the annual Oz Fest hosted by Australian members of FlyerTalk. It was thoroughly enjoyable, despite a diversion back to LAX and a one-day delay in arriving. It's safe to say it was one of those travel experiences in which getting there was definitely NOT half the fun.

In June we sailed on a seven-night Seabourn cruise from Juneau Alaska to Vancouver British Columbia, taking in some magnificent scenery along the way, and visiting towns both memorable and forgettable.

In July we both managed to renew our passports online with lightning speed. Isn't it a good feeling when things work efficiently?

The Labor Day weekend saw us flying to Honolulu on a bargain fare,  our first visit there since 2022. We entertained ourselves by seeking out some reasonably priced Waikiki dining options.

Later in September we visited Kathy's home town of Durango, Colorado, to attend her sixtieth high school reunion.

During this trip, we managed to attend a fantastic luncheon hosted by Kathy's youngest brother and his wife in their beautiful home in Farmington, New Mexico. An up-and-coming young chef, Justin Pioche (he was a 2023 James Beard Southwest Finalist) prepared and presented a unique feast to twelve lucky guests with the assistance of his mother and sister. 

We also were fortunate enough to finally meet Gil and Kim Garduno. Gil is a superb writer about food and restaurants. We love to read Gil's Thrilling (And Filling) Blog, which features his reviews of restaurants in the southwest and occasionally beyond. They are not just reviews, but beautifully written essays filled with humor, insights, and fascinating details. He writes about our shared luncheon here.

We capped off our travel year by wandering around parts of France and Italy with Kathy's brother Tom and his wife Ellyn. We savored the cuisine of Alsace before traveling onward to Italy, capped off with our visit to Bergamo, which instantly became one of our favorite Old Towns in Italy, perhaps even surpassing Lucca.

We concluded that trip by flying to Athens with Tom and Ellyn and embarking on Oceania's Marina for an eleven-day voyage to Barcelona. 

One of the several countries we visited on the cruise was one new  to us, the North African nation of Tunisia. By our calculations, that's the 83rd sovereign country we've visited together. As we always hastily add, "but who's counting?"

We had both caught viruses on the ship that left us with annoying coughs for a month after returning home. To ease our trip, we checked our rollaboards on the Lufthansa flight from Barcelona to Frankfurt. Kathy's bag arrived late on the carousel with the handle destroyed, making it virtually unusable. 

In the course of obtaining a replacement bag from Lufthansa, Brian was threatened with arrest by a suddenly irate Lufthansa employee, simply for taking a photo of the suitcases on display. The employee suspected Brian of taking a photo of him and exploded almost hysterically, retreating quickly when shown the innocent actual photo Brian had taken. 

We left with a quite decent German-made suitcase, unfortunately too large to be a carry-on, and an understanding that in a similar situation it would be a good idea to ask permission to take a photo in advance.

We've  qualified for another year of  top-tier Titanium Atmos Rewards status on Alaska Airlines. Bob, our engineer friend, questions why titanium sits above silver and gold levels, given that titanium is less valuable than either. All we can think of to tell Bob is that titanium is known for its qualities of durability and low maintenance. We ourselves hope to be durable and we always try to be low maintenance.

And there we have it, a year of travel with numerous highlights and just enough lowlights to keep things interesting. As we look forward to family time during the holidays, and our first trip of 2026 in early January, we wish our readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!