HAPPY 2019!
How was your guys’ New Year? Did you already start working on your goals for 2019? Even though I tend to procrastinate all the time, this year I started planning my goals for the new year way in advance– all the way at the start of December!
The new year is one of my favorite times because it gives us a chance to look back at the previous year and see how far we’ve come, and to write our hopes, wishes, and plans for the upcoming year. I’ve already written my goals in my new planner (check out the cute design!) and colored in my Daruma doll – now all that’s left is to achieve them!
Did I achieve my goals for 2018? Let’s see how I did.
(If you don’t care about this section, feel free to scroll down mid-way to my 2019 goals – I don’t mind 
BLOGGING GOALS
1. Create and Organize a Destinations Page 
Yes, the goal from 2017 is back again! As mentioned before, this blog deserves a Destinations page where I’ll organize all the posts by country, activity, and type. I have a really cool idea in mind and can’t wait for you guys to see the finished product!
It’s done! Check out the Destinations page here – it’s a little basic for now and doesn’t have the countries yet, but at least it’s separated by continents (and San Francisco 
2. Learn How to Use my Drone 
My gift this Christmas was a DJI Mavic Pro drone, which is amazing (check out the videos on YouTube!) Problem is, I still have no idea how to fly this thing. My vlogging goal for this year is to learn how to take cool videos and photos so I can share some aerial photos with you :)
Not quite 
I played around with the drone for the first two months, but then moved to Ukraine and forgot to pack it with me didn’t have enough luggage space. Let’s see if 2019 will be better for my Drone Photographer career. 
3. Design and Order Business Cards
Pretty explanatory, but I feel like business cards are useful in a ton of situations apart from business. If you meet a new friend at a hostel, a potential freelance client on the plane, and so on, a business card is way more snazzy than writing your email on a piece of paper (which I’ve done before as well!)
Done! I ordered two designs: one that’s colorful and fun, and the other is a little more sleek and professional. They’ve been really useful when meeting new friends or colleagues while traveling, and the best part is, I don’t have to fish out a pen and paper to write down my contact info. You can check them out above :)
4. Complete 5 City or Country Guide Posts
One of my ultimate goals is for this blog to finally become useful to people. I’ve been playing around with the idea of writing city/country guides for a while but the massive amount of information slows down how fast I write. I already started a country guide for Cuba and hope to add Taipei (Taiwan), Singapore, New Zealand, and a few more to the list.
Done! I have the basic draft for a few country, city, and even two island guides done. Expect them to be on the blog verrry shortly. In the meantime, you can check out the first city guide that I posted – the City Guide to Borjomi here ;)
I’m also hoping to create a huge jam-packed City Guide to San Francisco over the course of 2019.
TRAVEL GOALS
1. Try a Full-Course Meal
Or as I like to call it, “fancy food.” After watching way too many cooking and travel shows, I want to try the real deal. A three-course meal is the standard, but you can get a five, six, ten, or even twenty-one-course meal! I’ll probably try this in Kyiv when I’m on a layover, or maybe some capital European city like Budapest or Prague.
Done – I didn’t do this in Kyiv, Budapest or Prague, but instead on my birthday in Barcelona!
(Side note: Although I did try this really delicious “fancy” restaurant in Kyiv called Kanapa and highly recommend it!)
We went to Hisop, a modern but cozy restaurant and had the 9-course tasting menu, which included this amazing cheese board. I also tried deer for the first time (photo above) and the chef even came over and presented a birthday cake to me. How sweet!
2. Do a Volunteering Assignment Through WorkAway
Back when I started to plan my move abroad and travels through Europe, a friend told me about a site called WorkAway. I saw there were a lot of fun opportunities in near my hometown (like teaching English to school kids) and abroad (help run the front desk at a Japanese hostel? Sounds fun!). By the end of this year I would love to try at least one volunteer project – if not more!
Not quite – I donated to my city’s local children’s orphanage and animal shelter but didn’t volunteer “in depth” as much as I wanted to. Next year I would like to spend more time teaching ESL at the local English school.
3. Travel to 10 New Countries
In 2016 I traveled to 8 countries. In 2017 I traveled to 8 countries. Let’s go crazy and travel to 10 countries together in 2018! Since I’ll be living in my Ukrainian hometown for a few months, I’d really like to knock off some close European countries that I’ve never been to: Latvia, Hungary (the thermal baths!), Italy, Czech Republic (Prague!), and Spain (Spanish dudes! jk)
Done – and then some! In 2018, I traveled to (in order): The Bahamas, France, Georgia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Spain, Andorra, Sweden, and South Korea for a total of 12 countries. After re-reading my 2018 goals post at the end of the year, I was honestly surprised that I visited to some of the countries that I talked about above (Hungary, Czech Rep., and Spain). The funny thing is, they weren’t planned in advanced – I just booked and went!
4. Write my 50 Adventures Bucket List post
I’ve been having so many thoughts of colorful adventures, lush jungles, turquoise beaches, and delicious food in my head that it’s time I write all of them down! …And hopefully finish some down the road. ;)
(Mostly) done! I have the list on a Word document, ready to be posted, but I’m planning to tweak it a little and add photos.
LIFE GOALS
1. Learn Conversational Chinese
I’m still not sure how I decided to undertake the adventure of learning Mandarin, but here we are. I think it went something like: Hey Luda, you know what would be fun? Learning one of the world’s hardest languages! Et voila. Udemy was having a year-end sale where all the courses were $11, and lo and behold, this top rated Basic Chinese course was on the list. It had a ton of 5-star reviews and the instructor looked fun (and knew what he was doing), so I bought it.
I had a great start to my Chinese class in the beginning of the year, but I put it on the backburner when I moved to Ukraine. I was able to finish a mini-course and about 40% of the original course, so I may have to revisit this goal in the next few years – especially since I hope to travel to China one day!
2. Organize my Days to be more Efficient
I felt like half of my day was mindlessly scrolling through Facebook and Instagram and not doing anything productive. I noticed that whenever I did a to-do list for the day, I actually stuck to it and did most of my work. This year I plan to use my Law of Attraction planner (and not just because I paid $30 for it lol).
This planner saved my life! I had no idea how I survived without planners for such a long time, because I feel 150% more organized when I have clearly defined goals and tasks for each day. I also bought a separate planner to organize my blogging schedule and a notebook to write and brainstorm all of my blogging ideas.
3. Disconnect from the Phone and be in the Moment
Last but not least, I want to have a distraction-less 2018. In the new year I plan to have more genuine conversations with my friends and family because I want to spend time with them and not my phone.
Success! At the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018, I noticed how annoyed I was at myself for being so attached to my dang phone. Every buzz or ding would make me pick it up, glance at whatever notification popped up on my screen, and go back to whatever I was doing – oftentimes, completely knocked out of the focus that I had. This past year, I slowly “trained” myself to disconnect by putting my phone face down or turning off the vibration. I would also take longer to reply to people, especially if it wasn’t work-related or didn’t require my immediate response.
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So, how did I do for this year? Overall I was honestly surprised that I got so many things done from my list!
I gave myself 3 points for the things I completed (green), 2 points for semi-completed (orange); and 1 point for non-completed (red) and divided that by 33. My total score was 87%, which isn’t bad at all!
No year is going to be 100%, so I’ll take what I did and give myself a pat on the back :)
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2019 GOALS
BLOGGING GOALS
1 – Get back to doing monthly update posts
Back when I started to write my “monthly updates” posts in 2017, I honestly didn’t have that much of an interesting life (LOL), and therefore writing those posts felt like pulling teeth. Now that I’m traveling more often, I’d like to think that my posts would be more interesting and plan to write more …. And if not, I can always bribe readers with photos of my three cats. :)
For my monthly update posts, I plan to not go so hard on myself by thinking that I need such an organized structure when writing. So what if nothing cool/exciting happened? I’ll write more casually and like I’m taking with a friend, instead of feeling like I have to type up those “what I did over the summer” reports we had to do in middle school.
2 – Become Active (Again) on Instagram
Ughhh, Instagram. Why is it so hard to post on the ‘Gram when you’re a perfectionist like me?
If you take a look at my profile, you’ll see my last post was from March 2017. That’s right, it’s been almost 2 years since I posted anything! I think the problem I had was there was this mental block about making sure everything was perfect: the caption, the timing, the filter, and even trying to make sure that it would fit into my aesthetic. All of that got tiring really quick and made me turn away from the whole point of Instagram.
This year, I’m going to think about my posts more carefully and plan them out in advance. I really love the travel community on Instagram and want to be more active. :)
3 – Post More Often on my Blog
And last but not least – and probably the most important blogging goal for 2019! – is to post more often on this blog. How else am I going to get more cool readers like you if this blog is only full of cobwebs and dust? :P
In the beginning I’ll keep it to one new post a week and gradually go from there. I already have about 7 or 8 posts about the Maldives and South Korea that are ready to be posted, and can’t wait to share more of my travels with you guys.
TRAVEL GOALS
1- Travel to 50 Countries
Pretty self-explanatory, but after visiting 12 countries this year, I want to do something even bigger for 2019! I’m currently at 34 countries and I think I have what it takes to make it to 50 by the end of the year. Plus, how cool would it be to see 25% of the world?
2- Visit Some ‘Stans
No, I don’t have any friends named Stan (friendship applications accepted until Dec. 31 
I’m talking about the Central Asian countries like Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and so on. I’ve always admired their architecture and style (check out the photo above!) and, as part of my #3 goal below, they’re all off the beaten path.
I’m already starting to do some research and will fly into Kazakstan, then take the bus and train between the other countries. I’ll most likely do this trip in the spring or summer when the weather is nice, and as always, blog about it later. Feel free to add me on Instagram and you can follow along when I travel there!
3- Get off the Beaten Path
This year I stayed mostly on the beaten path – especially with countries like France, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Spain, and so on – and I’m ready to jump off it and start exploring other countries. Countries that don’t show up in guidebooks that often. Countries that sometimes make people ask “Where?” when you tell them where you’re going. Countries where you might not see another tourist for a few kilometers… Or countries that have cheap air tickets (I’m not picky 
What countries are on my mind? Here are just a few that I’ve already started to plan:
Mozambique, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Kenya
Burma, Laos, Bhutan, China
The Baltics (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), Belarus, Malta
LIFE GOALS
1- Start Meditating
Once upon a time (two weeks ago) in a galaxy far, far away (San Francisco), a friend mentioned this amazing 5-minute habit that could change my life. It’ll give you focus! It’ll make you less stressed! It’ll clear your pores and do your taxes! (Just kidding on the last part, but wouldn’t that be cool?)
Wtf was she talking about? It was none other than 
After being hypnotized intrigued by my friend’s explanation, I went home and tried to meditate for 5 minutes. Now, if you ever meditated before, you know how hard it is to keep your mind focused on nothing for five minutes. I failed at least a dozen times as thoughts of what I plan to eat for lunch, photos of Shibas, and embarrassing moments that happened 9 years ago popped into my head. But I stuck to it, and in the end, I even felt a dreamy state of mind (or was that me wanting to fall asleep?)
I can’t wait to start meditating regularly in the new year and becoming more relaxed and focused as a result.
2- Make New Friends and Reconnect with Old Ones
I met a bunch of cool people during my travels this year that I want to keep this “tradition” going! My trip to South Korea was my first ever solo solo trip and I was so afraid that I was going to be lonely the entire time (and that there wouldn’t be anyone to take my photo LOL) but after a sending a few messages on Couchsurfing and meeting up, I now have three new adventure buddies!
In the new year, I hope to become even more active on Couchsurfing and make new friends while traveling. I’d also like to keep in touch with my current friends, and I’ll do this by picking one or two days a month to go through my Facebook contacts and send a quick message to ask how they’re doing.
That’s it! There are only two life goals because I don’t want to overcomplicate myself – plus, there’s always next year >:)
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What are some of your goals for 2019? Let me know below and we can be accountability buddies. Looking forward to reading your comments, and as always, I hope everything you wish for (and more) comes true in the new year. :)