How is it already November? We have less than 2 months before we end the trip and head home to celebrate Christmas with family back in the US.

Kevin has been working extra hard, and I’ve picked up a second gig, so our “free time” to update the blog has fallen off a bit. We’re so sorry!

Going forward, I think the plan is to post with less info and more pictures, then later on I can go back to add details and tips into posts. Our goal is to be caught up by Christmas.

Our last post was the end of April and the end of our time in Salerno. We’ve done quite a bit of awesome, in our opinion, things between then and now. Our Instagram account is the best way to stay up to date, but here’s a rundown of what we’ve been up to.

Since we were in Europe and they make travel much more affordable than in the US, we got a little greedy. In May we spent about 10 days each in three different cities/countries. Prague, Budapest, and Zadar (Croatia) were all great in their own way.

In June we headed to Costa Rica for a month and then spent about a week with my dad in Panama. After Panama, it was Tulum, Mexico for one month. These were easy-living days full of hot sun, beautiful beaches, and plenty of tacos.

To celebrate some important family milestones we headed home for about a week. We hung out in Vermont and got to visit friends in NYC. It was a nice little breather before we dove back into our travels.

In September we stayed in the beautiful town of Mostar, Bosnia. I was instantly charmed and really loved it here. We even made some friends that we are still keeping in touch with. The hospitality and welcoming nature of the Bosnians we met was off the charts.

For our last 3 months we planned for a full-on winter experience in Scandinavia. In October we were in Trondheim, Norway. Almost everyone speaks English and were very curious about why we chose Trondheim. We were wondering why more people don’t! It was beautiful.

Now, on November 2nd, we are sitting across the table from each other in our cozy apartment in Malmo, Sweden. Malmo is about 30 minutes away from Copenhagen, so we hope to spend a few days there as well.

Our last month of the trip is going to require some serious bundling up. We’re staying in Rovaniemi, Finland. In Lapland, we’ll be only 4 miles south of the Arctic Circle. Rovaniemi is most famous for being the Official Hometown of Santa Claus. We’ll be arriving in town just in time to celebrate the grand opening of the Christmas season at the Santa Claus village. I imagine there will be lots of festivities for us to enjoy during the month, as long as we can stay warm enough to hang with the crowd.

For those who are wondering, we have winter clothes but are still only toting around our original two bags each. We sent a box of summer gear back home when we left Mostar and we’ve been investing in a few long-sleeved pieces here and there to round out our wardrobe. When we were home during that quick break before Mostar, I actually picked up my winter boots and my heavy winter coat. Thanks to strategic packing and compression packing cubes we made it all fit. We’re determined to make it all the way without adding to our baggage, we got this!

It is fun to write these posts, now months later, because we’re already reminiscing about our experiences. We can’t wait to be closer to family, but things have gone so surprisingly well despite some hurdles. We still have no regrets. In fact, it will be tough to NOT try this again sometime in the future. Maybe next time we will spend 2 months in each city? Maybe we go to Asia? Who knows. But this. has. been. great.