2022 Year in Review: We Found Our Sunshine

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Looking back on 2022, I can honestly say it turned out to be a pretty great year! Granted, I set the bar low and went into the year with minimal expectations considering what we all had to contend with the previous two years. This year, my passion for travel was renewed and we got to visit some new and exciting places on our bucket list in the U.S.! Personally, this was also a transformative year for me with my physical health and shifting my mindset and developing healthier daily habits.

2022 was an overall positive year to recap and I’m listing out some great things in my favorite travel, foodie, blog, and personal highlights of the year. Hope you enjoy!

Travel Highlights

So let’s kick things off with my favorite part of my yearly recaps – travel highlights! Travel this year was a bit more exciting for us, thankfully. And while we still didn’t leave the country (fingers crossed for 2023), we had plenty of exploring to do in our home country.

Countries Visited: 1 – U.S.A.
States Visited: 6 (Arizona, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Tennessee & Washington)

Spring Training in Arizona

After missing out on spring training last year, we were determined to get back to Arizona for another baseball-filled trip! The MLB unfortunately had a lockout at the start of the spring training season, which delayed games and forced them to completely restructure the schedule. Good thing we booked for the end of March! We were still able to make it to a couple of games and we had the most epic time doing a UTV tour, visiting the Desert Botanical Garden, and eating our way around the city.

Maui Revisited

In April, I made another solo trip back home to Maui to visit my family, which also coincided with a trip that some of my friends were taking to the island (which I helped them plan!). I got to spend some time with them and packed the rest of my schedule with visiting my family and doing “research” on new restaurants to add to my Maui Food Guide. I even got to meet my nephew’s new baby daughter!

Point Reyes Day Trip

The Point Reyes area is such an easy and awesome day trip destination for those living in the Bay Area. We took Micah’s niece on a little adventure and revisited Tomales Bay for oysters, walked through the Cypress Tree Tunnel, headed out to the lighthouse for some seashore views, and stocked up on delicious cheese from Marin French Cheese. It was a relaxing day filled with food and nature!

PNW Road Trip

In July, we set out on a road trip up to Washington to visit our friends outside of Seattle for a few days. It was a relaxing time for us to catch up with them before we headed out to Walla Walla and then down to Bend.

Walla Walla had been on my must-visit list for a long time so I’m glad we finally made it happen! There is some great wine out in Eastern Washington and the town itself is very cute. Plus, they have some really fabulous restaurants and we had some amazing foodie finds.

Continuing to Discover Suisun Valley

We continued our exploration of the underrated Suisun Valley wine region into 2022 and signed up to be members at a local winery to get us out there more. I absolutely love having so many wine regions at our fingertips that are more affordable to visit regularly (sorry Napa!).

10-Year Anniversary in Placerville

In August, we celebrated our 10-year wedding anniversary! Can you believe it?! A whole decade of marriage and amazing adventures with so much more to come. We wanted to celebrate but decided not to go too big. Micah found a cute B&B up in the hill country of Placerville called the Eden Vale Inn, located about 45 minutes outside of Sacramento. We spent the weekend relaxing and visiting nearby Apple Hill!

Exploring Tennessee

Tennessee was an exciting new destination for us, and the furthest east we’ve explored together in the U.S. This was definitely my favorite travel highlight of the year! We visited Knoxville in Eastern Tennessee, including the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and had a blast running around Nashville consuming as much hot chicken and BBQ as we could fit into our stomachs.

Annual Apple Hill Trip

Another trip around the sun would not be complete without a fall trip to Apple Hill, which has become somewhat of an annual tradition for us. There’s just something about cider and warm donuts that gives you the best fall feels!

Carmel Weekend Getaway

Our last travel hurrah for the year was a getaway to Carmel Valley and Carmel-by-the-Sea in early December. We were long overdue for a return visit to the area, so we booked a belated birthday getaway for us to enjoy together.

It was a pricey weekend and it rained a full day while we were there, but we made the best of the clear days we had. We ate some amazing food and just enjoyed spending time together in this delightful fairytale village by the sea!

New Luggage!

This year, we finally bit the bullet and splurged on some new carryon-on luggage. We have been lugging around the same set we bought from Kohls early on in our marriage (broken zippers and all) and I felt it was time to get some quality luggage for our travels.

I focused on carry-ons simply because I want to learn to travel lighter – lugging around big bags is just exhausting. Plus, delays at baggage claim and lost luggage are frustrating and I have zero patience for that!

I ended up getting the Beis carry-on to use for U.S. travel and road trips. This bag is slightly bigger than the regulations for many airlines so I don’t want to risk taking it on carriers with stringent rules.

I also scored two Monos carry-ons on a Pre-Black Friday sale; one for him and one for me! Another new addition was the Beis expandable backpack to use as my personal item as I really needed something with more compartments for lugging around my laptop and other electronics.

So far, I’m loving all of the new purchases and can’t wait to take them on adventures in 2023!

Foodie Highlights

Man…we had some good food this year! Narrowing this list down was extremely hard, but here are my top five meals/foodie experiences from 2022.

1. Hot Chicken at Red’s 615 in Nashville

On our trip to Tennessee, we tried three hot chicken restaurants and Red’s 615 blew everything out of the water! In fact, I think it was our favorite meal of the whole trip. We had chicken thighs that were spicy, crispy and juicy, paired with a creamy pimento mac and cheese and mustard potato salad. I’m constantly thinking about going back to Nashville just for this chicken!

2. An Evening at Spago Maui

My brother treated my family to a lavish evening at Spago Maui (where he works) and we made our way through too many courses to even count. We had the best seat in the house, service was impeccable, and the food was fantastic. It was an all around memorable meal wherein I felt way too spoiled (thanks Aaron!).

3. Kibbeh Nayyeh in Walla Walla

We loved our entire meal at Saffron in Walla Walla, but the kibbeh nayyeh was by far my favorite dish. Saffron’s kibbeh nayyeh is made with minced, raw lamb and beef, cracked wheat, roasted pepper, poivron rouge (red pepper), sweet onion, fresh herbs, nigella seeds, chili oil and served with house-made pita.

Not only was it one of the more adventurous things I’ve eaten, it’s also one of the best dishes I’ve ever had.

4. Black Cod at Mission Bistro in Carmel

One one of our evenings in Carmel-by-the-Sea, we had a fantastic dinner at Mission Bistro. We ordered the miso sake black cod and it was simply cooked to perfection. It melted in our mouths with each bite and I was only sad we decided to share the dish instead of have one each for ourselves!

5. Crispy Tacos from CRUjiente in Phoenix

CRUjiente is probably my favorite Arizona foodie find to date. Tucked away in an unassuming strip mall is this gourmet taco restaurant that served up the best crispy tacos we’ve ever had. Crujiente translated from Spanish means crunchy, which is quite a fitting name for a restaurant slinging bomb crispy tacos!

For good measure, we tried one of each – beef, lamb, pork, and potato. The beef was our favorite, but everything was flat out amazing. If you are ever in Phoenix, this place is a must! Pair it with a Oaxacan negroni and you’ll be all set.

Travel Hacking Highlights

I wanted to talk a little about this subject this year because it really has made more travel possible for us. Travel hacking is something I have been deep diving more into lately, even though we’ve had travel rewards cards for a while now. I’m just learning to be smarter on how I apply our points and miles!

It can be a lot of work and research, but it’s rewarding when you figure out a great way to apply your points and miles. It saves us a ton of money (I love free stuff – don’t we all?), and we aren’t spending anything extra to earn these points. It’s all about earning your sign-up bonuses, using the right cards to maximize earnings on different types of purchases, and paying your balances off every month.

Last year, we stayed in hotels for 11 nights completely on points! Considering our price point for hotels averages $250+ per night, that is a pretty big cost savings. We used Marriot rewards (plus our annual free night), along with a combination of Chase Ultimate Rewards and Hyatt points.

Transferring Chase points to Hyatt has been my saving grace as they provide such a great value! In Nashville, I booked a $500+/night hotel for roughly half the cost in points as we would have paid in cash.

In 2023, I’m already estimating a cost savings of close to $5,000 (or more)! If you’re a responsible credit card owner and love to travel, you need to get yourself some good travel rewards cards! Our favorites right now are:

Chase Sapphire Preferred (perfect card for beginners with numerous benefits)
Capital One Venture X (a great premium rewards card with a lower annual fee than many in its category)
Marriott Bonvoy (the free annual night is worth it alone and covers the annual fee)
World of Hyatt (another card with an annual free night that more than covers the cost of the annual fee)

Blog Highlights

I’m happy to report that 2022 was the best year ever for this little travel blog of mine. Aside from 2020, I’ve had steady growth and am pleased that SEO is paying off because the number one driver of traffic to this site is good old fashioned internet searches.

Pinterest is still going strong too! Social media, as usual, is a bomb for me because I’m just not very good at keeping up with it. It can be a little exhausting but creating new content can be fun too. I’m definitely going to push for a little more consistency there next year!

Personal Highlights

I also wanted to highlight some personal transformation because it was a pretty significant year for me in that regard. Truth be told, how I feel physically and mentally directly impacts how I will balance everyday life and travel going forward so it’s kind of related right? I also feel like adding a bit of a personal element here is helpful for everyone to just get to know me a bit.

I said last year that I was going to focus on my health and I finally made it happen. It took a few months into the year before I finally hit my breaking point and help arrived just at the right time – in the form of a health coach. Firstly, I entered a health & fitness challenge in a group run by friends of mine that own a health coaching business. And guess what…I won! It was a pretty big prize too – $500, which I subsequently invested into furthering my health journey by signing up for a health coaching plan. It was the best decision I made all year. I needed help. Some people can make changes on their own, but I needed someone to hold me accountable to effect real change.

With their guidance, I’ve made little adjustments in my mindset and day-to-day behavior and I’m proud to have formed habits where I now:

focus on building my meals around protein (I don’t stress about fat and carbs – I eat them too)
am more intentional with getting steps in (still a struggle since I work from home)
consume less alcohol (also still struggle with this one but this was the biggest obstacle I needed to tackle in order for my life and health to improve)
do resistance training 3 – 4 times a week (not killing myself with cardio or crazy-over exercising). I am just focusing on building up my strength with lifting weights and mobility training (and melting some fat away too).

I haven’t cut anything out of my life because the ultimate goal for me is to find balance with all the things I love. Fat loss is a part of the journey too, for now – I’ve lost about 24 pounds from my heaviest this year. However, I’m giving myself a lot of grace here and not focusing as much on the number but rather how I feel.

Learning to have a healthier relationship with food, alcohol, and movement have truly transformed my life this year and I’m so grateful to be in a more positive mindset now. I’ve been able to go on all my adventures mentioned above this year without reverting to bad habits, which is simply a miracle given how much we eat and drink when we travel. It’s a huge win for me and I’m excited to carry my new habits through to next year and beyond!

What’s in store for 2023?

In terms of travel, we’ll be heading back to Maui in the summer (together, finally!) for an event and also to see my family. I’m also working on planning and booking Ireland in the fall (rescheduling our cancelled trip from 2020). I originally wanted to do Ireland in the spring, but flights and hotels are just too expensive for our budget (even with utilizing points for things). So, spring travel is up in the air at the moment and we’ll just see where the wind takes us!

Other than that, I still want to do a lot of local travel and foodie things within California and the Bay Area. There’s a few wine regions left on my list that I’d like to check off (particularly Amador and Morgan Hill), and I’m itching to spend more time at the coast eating as much seafood as I can get my hands on. I am glad that in some ways the world is easing back into normalcy because I need more travel for my mental health!

Personally, I’m continuing with my health journey as I still have goals to accomplish. I’m not making any resolutions and am just going to ease into the new year with a healthier mindset and focus on balance.

Farewell 2022

As always, thank you all reading my articles on this blog (especially the really long ones…like this one). I truly love sharing our adventures and helping each and every one of you plan your own travels!

I hope 2022 treated you better than the previous two years. If it didn’t, I hope 2023 finds some way to bring a smile to your face. I know I am looking forward to all the adventures I have planned and can’t wait to share more with you in the coming months!

2022 Year in Review: We Found Our Sunshine