Making travel plans for 2026

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Next year is a big birthday year for me and as it gets closer, I am deep in the process of making plans.

Now you might think that it being my birthday that other people would be making plans, but my husband is a total passenger princess and basically turns up on our holidays and has a great time. In the final days of our multi-stop honeymoon he had the audacity to comment on how it had all gone ‘surprisingly smoothly’, as if I hadn’t spent hours and hours of researching, planning and booking accommodation, transport and restaurants…

So, 2026 plans are:

2026 Winter Olympics

We are big fans of the Olympics. We were lucky to get a number of tickets for events at the London Olympics, which was phenomenal because it was a home games. We also travelled to Paris for the 2024 Olympics, where we managed to get athletics tickets (something we missed out on at London) and had a great time. So, we decided to continue riding the Olympics wave from 2024 and managed to get tickets for the 2026 Winter Olympics which are being held in Milan and Cortino.

We have tickets for both figure skating and short-track speed skating, both in Milan. So, in February, that’s where we’re headed. But to take advantage of a little Italy trip, we have decided to start our trip with a little pre-Milan trip to Bologna. I still need to book flights and transport between the two cities, but I am excited.

A family trip – a glamp?

My mum has mentioned that we should all have a little family getaway to celebrate. I have absolutely no plans planned for this, but do like the idea of maybe getting everyone to go glamping. My husband and I love glamping and feel like it might be something a bit different and also fun for my small nephew and niece.

My mum and sister keep asking me whether I’ve had any thoughts on a getaway so I do need to do some thinking on this.

Japan

This is the big one.

A trip to Japan.

It’s actually very much Japan 2.0 for us as we were supposed to go to Japan in November 2020. Well, you can guess what happened to that trip, it got cancelled due to a teeny tiny little global pandemic.

So, we have finally dusted off the plan we had for 2020, improved upon it and I am now in the process of trying to deploy that plan. At the moment I’m focused just on the main things – flights and then accommodation that is available to book now, then I need to work out actually what we want to see when we are there and when things need to be booked.

The Japlan (as I have dubbed it) is A LOT. I have probably already spent longer researching and reading than I normally would and I am absolutely right at the start of the process. This already feels like a part-time job.

Damn you Japlan.

Other plans?

We don’t have any other plans at the moment as the above are going to take most of my annual leave, but we might sneak in the odd little weekend away, who knows?

Roll on 2026.