Our travel plans for 2019

Looking for inspiration? Just curious? Stalking us around the world? Whichever your motive, we thought we’d let you know our travel plans for 2019. Although we may be home in Blighty for now, our feet are itching and we intend to make travel plans for 2019 as adventure-packed as 2018 have been.

The first thing to know is that we’re still not done with Latin America, so we’ll be back there for the vast majority of the coming year. We are going to be slowing down slightly though, by reducing the number of countries we explore and spending more quality time in getting to know them, which includes 2 stints of being ‘settled’ in Colombia.

As a quick reminder, here’s where we managed to explore from October 2017 to November 2018:

Even though our itinerary of 2017-18 could be considered by some as ‘slow travel’, 10 countries in 14 months really does wear you down, and we’re craving some feeling of normal and having a place to unpack our backpacks. Our travel plans for 2019 have been built around a need to feel settled whilst also maintaining the sense of adventure.

We’ll therefore still do small trips out from our base during this time (travelling with just a 20L rucksack is THE BEST), but we want to use our time to immerse ourselves and feel like a local in our chosen spots. So without further adieu, our travel plans for 2019:

January – March:

Predominantly in Bogotá, Colombia. Andy’s dad and stepmum will be meeting us in Bogotá at the end of the 6 week South American trip we’ve planned out for them, and from there we’ll accompany them to places such as Medellín, Guatapé, Cartagena and San Andres/Providencia. We also plan 3-4 day trips out to the Tatacoa Desert and a few more towns outside of the capital, like Monguí and Choachí to visit La Chorrera waterfall.

April:

The Galapagos Islands and mainland Ecuador. Lozzy’s parents are coming out to visit us again (last April they did a whistle-stop tour of Colombia), and this time they’d like to see the Galapagos, somewhere that will be new to us too. We didn’t spend enough time on mainland Ecuador last year – only 3 weeks because we listened to travellers saying it’s not that great – and there are a couple of places we’d like to explore further, namely the Amazon rainforest.

May-July:

Paraguay (9 days) and Brazil. We had previously put off going to Brazil so that Lozzy’s Spanish learning didn’t get muddled up, but now we’re itching to go and super excited to include it in our travel plans for 2019. Lozzy’s sister is also pretty excited as she’ll be going us for the southern part of our exploration.


There is SO MUCH to see in Brazil (I mean, look at the size of it), and we’re pretty sure 3 months won’t be enough, but it’s good enough for a first crack. We have a fantastic friend that we spent Christmas 2017 with in Santiago, and he has invited us to visit and help with assisting the kids at his English school in Juara, the middle of Brazilian nowhere. Other than that, we’d like to visit Rio, the Lençóis Maranhenses dunes near Sao Luís, Recife and Florianópolis, to name but a few.

August-September:

Medellín, Colombia. It might seem weird splitting our Colombia stints up in our travel plans for 2019, but by doing it this way we avoid both the rainy seasons. We’ve only ever done travel in Colombia during rainy season before (spending April-May and October-November there in 2019), so we’re excited to see it without getting drenched.

There are many more small towns we’d like to explore around Medellín, such as Jardín and Jericó, but this is also the season to see the colourful algae blooms at Cañas Cristales, so we’ll be flying down there hopefully at some point (there are no roads!).

October-December

Belize and Mexico, we’re coming back for you! We had originally planned to visit these during August and September last year, but a large chunk of work coming in at a couple of weeks’ notice meant we had to scrap those plans and stay in Antigua Guatemala an extra 4 weeks (not the worst place to get stuck!).

We couldn’t make travel plans for 2019 without including these two countries, and although we’ll probably only spend 10-14 days in Belize, we intend to smash the travelling in Mexico, with a particular interest in to travelling to Oaxaca and the Pueblos Mágicos (magical small towns).

If the situation in Nicaragua improves, we hope to also squeeze in a trip there and neighbouring Honduras and El Salvador. Let’s watch this space!

Christmas

This part, we’re not sure of. It’s fantastic to be in England for Christmas this year after being away for it last year, but Christmas in Medellín looks insaaaaaane so we may have to at the very least stop off there for a few days in December before heading home. It’s a long way away, so we’ll see how we feel nearer the time 🙂

So there are our pencilled-in travel plans for 2019. And for 2020… Who knows?!

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Last Updated on 8 November 2023 by Cuppa to Copa Travels