When I first retired three years ago, I set a goal of “one million” travel miles. I write this with my pinky  finger held to the corner of my lips Mike Myers’ style. My thinking was 70,000 miles a year for fifteen years, hoping I could stay healthy until the age of 80. I’ve kept a diary of my adventures so far and will be at 197,500 miles at the end of this year, slightly below my target. However, travel had been somewhat restricted by my wife’s limited vacation time. I also had the benefit of accompanying her on business trips but those were primarily to Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, and New York. It’s overseas travel where you really rack up the miles. 

This past year will finish with 59,300 miles, following our flight to Orlando on Christmas day and subsequent drive down the Gulf Coast. We’ll work our way up to Pensacola and end in Tampa with a New Year’s Eve celebration. The two of us will start next year’s log with a drive through Sarasota to North Port where my son resides and then take my grandchildren to Universal Studios for a few days. In the meantime, we hope to find a retirement property where we can bask in the Florida sun between adventures around the world. Our longest trip last year was to Thailand, comparable in distance to our Venice to Athens cruise the year before. Next year, we’ll do two major excursions to both Egypt and Bali that should easily help fulfill my annual mileage goal. 

It’s been a tough year for my wife, including the loss of her 96-year old mother, 18-year old cat, and oldest schnauzer at 15.5 years. She also gave up her advertising career and Portland home that will give us more flexibility for travel in future years. She can’t really decide if she’s truly retired or not, but won’t have time for full-time work with all the trips we’ve planned. We’re in Vegas in February and Phoenix and Tucson in March, hoping to escape Portland’s winter rain and dreariness. We’ve talked of New York for Broadway shows and the California coast, since they are no longer business destinations. We want to fill-in some West Coast holes in our Bucket Lists before we potentially move to Florida. For example, a side-trip to the Grand Canyon is planned during our stay in Las Vegas. We also need to get to Albuquerque, Moab, and Alaska while we’re still in the general area.  

As part of my million mile quest, we’ve booked a Viking river cruise through Russia and an ocean cruise from Barcelona to Norway. Those will take place two years from now as we spread out the payments.  A trip through China is also on our radar to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. According to Hallmark, the gift for that occasion should be china, so it’s only appropriate that we visit the Great Wall together. We’ll continue to take advantage of Marriott Vacation Club time-share opportunities to conquer the world. 197,500 miles down – 802,500 to go!