2018 travel plans, adventures and goals

by | Last modified on Oct 17, 2023 | Personal journal

The end of the year crept up so quickly that I have spent most of this month working out what I actually want to do next year. It feels like quite a significant year (I’ll go into more detail why in a separate blog) so I really wanted to make sure I did it right and made the most of the freedom I have right now with my life. Because who knows how long it will last?!

Of course with that freedom comes an infinite amount of possibilities and options which is not always a good thing if you’re in an indecisive mood. Still, I’m mostly there. Here’s the rough plan for 2018 and my adventures.

RELATED: 2017 Summary; the highs and lows?

January

Winter Skills
Soon after celebrating NY I will be heading to the Pyrenees to join 360 Expeditions for a Winter Skills week. I’ve never done anything snowy related before so this is going to be great fun. I’ll be trying ice climbing, snow holing and winter mountaineering. It’s also going to provide me with a bit of crucial training and a chance to test out my kit before the Norway Expedition.

Norway Expedition
January 22nd I’ll be flying to Norway with Seanna, Jo, Aimiee and Trish to take on my most extreme expedition yet. Cross-country skiing, pulling pulks, 200km of the arctic circle, the full length of Finnmark Plateau. I’m nervous!! I get cold easily. I’ve never skied before. I have no idea how you go to the toilet in the Arctic. What was I thinking?!

Norway expedition

February

Some me time!
I’ve got an empty window with nothing in it yet. Gil and I will be spending 3 months apart so I will be on my own. I want to use the space for a bit of ‘me time’. I’ve got a few ideas brewing like doing my Divemaster or visiting my friend overseas, but want to see how I feel nearer the time. Although there is one thing I’ve got planned….

London’s Bridges
I really wanted to do a mini solo adventure and had an idea that it should be in my most favourite place on earth that I miss lots – London! So here’s my plan….over 2 days, starting at Hampton Court and going all the way to Tower Bridge, I will cross every single London bridge. I haven’t calculated the route exactly but it will be well over 60km!

March

Biosphere Expeditions
I’ll be spending 10 days in the Azores volunteering with the conservation organisation Biosphere Expeditions. Our mission will be to track and record data on Whales, Dolphins and Turtles. I’m really excited to be able to continue my conservation efforts and have everything crossed that I will get some good whale sightings!

April

The Desert
The details are yet to be firmed up, but currently, this is looking like it will be a really special expedition so….watch this space. (I know….secrecy is really boring!)

Taking a break to enjoy the view

Love Her Wild Weekend 2018
Kate (my tent buddy on the Everest Adventure) and I are in the midst of organising the Love Her Wild Weekend – something that I hope will become an annual event. It will be a back to basics outdoor retreat. Bringing together women from the Love Her Wild community to meet new friends, practise yoga, listen to adventure stories and to learn some new outdoor skills. Sounds bliss right?! There are still some tickets left if you fancy joining.

May

I’m looking for Teammates
One of the most successful things I did in 2017 was organising the Everest Adventure. I invited others to join me on a special Love Her Wild expedition that brought together women from all backgrounds and abilities to attempt to hike the height of Everest in 5 days in the Lake District. I want to do something similar in 2018 only this time I will be organising it with Emma Lawton who I met at Yestival. We want to show that adventures don’t always need to be physical – running, running, cycling long distances – so have devised an epic expedition and will be looking for teammates to join us.

Details will be released in January so if you are keen to be the first to hear, make sure you are following the Love Her Wild page.

Love Her Wild walk in Haslemere

June/July/August

Kickin’ the States
So I had a different title written here 2 days ago and an entirely different plan, but after writing the summary I couldn’t get this nagging feeling out of my gut….the adventure just wasn’t right.

It’s good to follow your gut and something was telling me that I should revert back to the idea that I had initially. I’d changed my plan because a (mean, not very professional) key sponsor messed us about and then a big adventurer announced they were doing the same route leaving the same time, albeit on a different mode of transport. Rather than see these as hurdles, I took them as signs. But I couldn’t ignore any longer that actually this was what I really wanted to do. (Plus BA announced in their High Life magazine that I would be doing this challenge and you can’t argue with that.)

So here it is…

Gil and I will be travelling the full length of America on adult kick-scooters. From Canada all the way to Mexico.

Not sure what else to say really! I was a bit worried that people would think it was stupid but honestly, I found kick-scooting on our Scoot the Loop adventure one of the most rewarding ways to travel. It was fun and tough (especially the ups) but also ideal for someone who is generally very clumsy and unskilled. This will be 100% about us raising as much money as we can for our dear children at the Arise school we visited in Tanzania….they deserve a new classroom and we will work our hardest to try and put one there.

Yep….that’s my name in the BA HIgh Life in-flight magazine!

adventure plans for 2018

September

Stok Kangri
With a team of women from Love Her Wild, I will be attempting to summit Stok Kangri, India’s highest trekking mountain. It will be a lot of first for me….the first time I’ve trekked at altitude, the first time I’ve seen the Himalayas and the first time I’ve been to India. I can already feel those spectacular views.

October/November/December

I will be overdue a visit to my in-laws in Israel. But other than that I have o plans yet beyond Septemeber

I’ll be posting more adventure updates on my Facebook Page as well as details about what I will be doing in February once I’ve worked it out.

What are my goals for 2018

I wrote down 7 things that I wanted to achieve in 2017.

…Go on another long distance adventure: FAIL
…Go on a yoga retreat: FAIL
…Stop stressing so much: SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN
…Keep up Bullet Journalling: YES
…Write a book: FAIL
…Climb a mountain: YES
…Quadruple my blog subscriptions and readers: YES

My goals actually changed considerably throughout the year so I don’t feel like I wasn’t successful in reaching my targets…far from it. Instead, my goals became more career-focused as Love Her Wild and my blog grew. My biggest disappointment was not finishing the book so that is going back on the list for next year. Here’s what I’d like to achieve in 2018:

…5,000 followers on all my social media platforms and reaching 15,000 unique monthly visitors to my website

…Reach 100 Patreons on Love Her Wild. This is a vital plan I have in place to help me sustain Love Her Wild so I can realistically keep putting the time in that I’m giving it now.

…Find a semi-base for Gil and I. It is trying being on the move all the time and I’d like to have longer breaks off in between adventures and trips which means finding somewhere of our own. We’ve not decided what or where yet but money will be the biggest deciding factor…it needs to be cheap!

…Focus on writing for my blog – more advice articles on travel and adventure

…Find workspaces to work in where ever I am (eg, don’t work from your bedroom all the time!)

…Go wild camping on my own. So I’ve never really thought about it before but I came to a realisation this year that I’m afraid of being in the dark on my own! Now I’m fairly new to all this camping outdoorsy thing but I feel like it’s time I set myself the challenge of having a night out on my own.

…Get into the habit of always reading before bed

…Practice mindfulness and Yoga most days. I’m changing my approach and aiming for little and often as I know these 2 practices have huge benefits in all areas of my life.

…Write a book!

So that’s it! My goals and my plans for what I hope will be a great and happy year. What adventures do you have in store for 2018?

Bex Band

Bex Band

Welcome to my blog! I'm an award-winning adventurer, bestselling author and founder of Love Her Wild. My work and adventures have featured in BBC, The Guardian and Condé Nast. I love nothing more than travelling and getting outdoors on solo and family adventures. Using my years of experience, I provide advice and inspiration on various topics, including wild camping, charity challenges, glamping and travel itineraries.

18 Comments

  1. Chelsea Haden

    Woooow! You’ve so so many goals. Fantastic. Loved following you so far and can’t wait to see what more you do.

    Mine will be to start my walking leader trainer, qualify as a paddle sports instructor, get Creative Countryside ‘s online Journal booming full of more readers, take a paraglide and prepare to have my tiny home ready to build!

    Reply
    • Bex Band

      Haha…thanks Chelsea!! Those are some epic goals. Especially building a tiny home. That’s AMAZING! Will you be blogging about it? I’d love to follow!

      Reply
  2. Jon Doolan

    Love the up front honesty that it’s ok not to achieve your 2017 goals. What matters is that you just continue pushing forward making yourself and the world a better place.

    My goal in January is to complete an online writing course which is called Self-Publishing for Adventurers (the same title as my Yestival talk). I’d love for you to be one of my first writers if you’d be interested and I’d do everything I can to help you achieve your ‘write a book’ goal.

    Merry Christmas!
    Jon

    Reply
    • Bex Band

      So true!! I saw in your newsletter that this was your plan going forward…great idea! I’d be keen to work together. I’ll drop you a message and lets chat some more.

      Merry Christmas Jon!! 🙂

      Reply
  3. Hannah Cox

    Great Goals – excited to follow all your achievements in 2018.. 🙂 X

    Reply
    • Bex Band

      Like wise! Looking forward to seeing Better Not Stop flourishing next year!

      Reply
  4. Debbie

    By goal is to actually start my bullet journal ?I have had it for over 6mths but got scared off by online creatives and there amazing journals……..

    Reply
    • Bex Band

      Haha…mine does not look pretty on any level. Don’t be put off though by all those examples. Underneath all those insane doodles is just a really good note system!!

      Reply
  5. HandZaround

    Such an exciting year ahead! So many adventures planned 🙂
    We really like the idea of summing up the goals and trying to achieve them – we need to do a similar thing on our blog because our goals haven’t been physically written down so it’s now hard to know how far we’ve come in comparison to last year!

    Our goal for the next year is to keep going with what we’ve planned – get from Kenya (where we are now) to Tanzania, through Uganda and Rwanda, by public transport by May and at the same time keep working on the way on film and photo projects as we do now, to sustain our travels!

    Then, to travel around Europe for the summer and come back to Africa to go from Tanzania to South Africa overland.

    We can’t wait to hear more about your upcoming adventures!
    Hanna & Zach

    Reply
  6. Sue Sharp

    What an amazing year you have planned! Looking forward to following your adventures. My goals include finishing Offas Dyke, wild camping on my own, camino part 3 and learn to kayak for the paddle pick-up! It’s not on your list Bex – are you not coming?

    Reply
  7. Jodie

    I’ll be following Bex! At this stage my goals are settling into our apartment rental and getting back into work for a while to save, save, save for our wedding in September! Ofcourse a few trips to Sunny Coast, Gold Coast and Byron to keep the travel bug at bay and maybe a trip to Japan to visit friends while they still live there. But nothing like your adventures! Live it up BB!

    Reply
    • Bex Band

      Finding a new home and getting married is an adventure of a different kind…but an adventure none the less! I look forward to keeping up with your blog in 2018. Thanks for following! Happy New Year!! 🙂

      Reply
  8. Susie Chassagne

    It’s quite reassuring to see that there are some goals that didn’t get ticked off your list. I have only one thing to achieve in 2018. It’s a little bit like your Norwegian trip, as it involves getting cold, and Im no good with cold either: I’m going to be learning to kayak in white water for a fundraising adventure in the French Alps in July. eek! This is my plan if you’re interested to know more:
    https://www.susiechassagne.com/how-a-crisis-can-turn-into-a-life-changing-adventure/
    Good luck with your year, it looks exciting. See you at Yestival in October!

    Reply
    • Bex Band

      Wow…that looks really exciting!! Cold is one thing but cold water is even harder. You’re very brave!
      I look forward to following your journey 🙂

      Reply
  9. Liz

    These are all great goals and it sounds like you have an amazing year in store! Best wishes on the Norway expedition – I’m looking forward to hearing how that goes! And you should totally solo wild camp this year – it’s such an experience!

    Reply
    • Bex Band

      Thank you Liz! That is the one I am most nervous about. I will wait until the weather gets a bit better.

      Reply
  10. Patrick Timm

    You have to do the wild camping solo trip! I did one years ago as I was (maybe still am haha) pretty scared of the dark and wanted to overcome it. I realise in hindsight it actually made a massive impact in my confidence, both in myself and in my abilities and the gains from that. Oh, and looking forward to reading about the Norway expedition! Have fun!

    Reply
    • Bex Band

      Great to hear I’m not alone Patrick! It’s good that I made it public as I am now accountable. As soon as the weather improves I’m getting my solo camp in the diary!!

      Reply

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