Travel moments we're grateful for in 2024

My colleagues and I have the best jobs in the world. I mean, it was only three months ago that my boss called me to say, “You’re going to Disney World.” And boy, did we go to Walt Disney World®. And now, when I can’t sleep, or I’m feeling nostalgic, I can swipe through those photos, and my heart is right back there, laughing with my son as the Slinky Dog Dash zooms around the curve. I am so grateful for that moment. 

It feels almost impossible that one week we can be dancing with thousands of others during Spicemas and the next be enjoying the Scottish countryside from a cozy bus. But travel gives us this. And while we often jump from one amazing destination to the next, when we take the time to reflect on the wonder of it all, we are gifted again with a deep sense of awe. And if we let it, that awe has the power to expand us in mind and spirit and remind us of the connection we share with each other and the world around us. 

I asked my colleagues to tell me about the travel moments they are most grateful for this year. I think you’ll find, as I did, that they will remind you to scroll through your photos, remember your own moments and offer a little whisper of thanks that you got to go to.

Playing with friends in Barcelona

James Pham - Destination Editor Southeast Asia

I had back surgery last year, leaving me with some nerve damage and mobility issues. I’m still working my way back to health, but often wonder whether things will ever be the same. But when some friends suggested we plan a 5-week megatrip through Europe and Japan, I didn’t hesitate. I’m writing this from Barcelona, where we just spent the best day ever being big kids playing in a massive ball pit, jousting with giant inflatable pillows and just being silly at the Balloon Museum. My friends have been amazing - helping schlep my luggage on cobblestone roads, taking Ubers when they could easily just walk, and making countless tiny accommodations to make sure I can experience travel to the fullest. I’m grateful for travel which injects joy into my life and I’m even more grateful for great friends to share these moments with.

Seaside comfort at Camara de Lobos

Akanksha Singh - Destination Editor India and the subcontinent

I’ve always been comforted by the sea. With its salty air and vast blues, I had a moment of calm looking out from the Madeiran coast (where I’d rung in the New Year) at Camara De Lobos. It was the antithesis of one of those grand travel epiphanies - I was a tourist in one of the island’s most touristy spots, and I was comfortable in my surroundings. I think we put far too much stock in life-altering, never-done-before moments as travelers – this was a change for me. (And, in many ways, set the tone for my travels for the year)

Cheering on baby turtles with mom

Ann Douglas Lott - Digital Editor

My mom and I recently took a trip to Hilton Head at the very end of sea turtle season – like, the very end. The final nest had allegedly already hatched. We had the opportunity to head out with the Hilton Head Sea Turtle Patrol to check on the final two nests that had just hatched, and a few stragglers remained, which we helped out of the nest and guided to sea.

Beachgoers stood to the side to marvel at the adorable little hatchlings, asking Amber, who runs the program, questions about the sea turtle life cycle. While working on the final nest, Amber turned to me and asked if I wanted to release the last 20 or so hatchlings into the ebbing tide, and I obviously said, “Of course!” So she handed me a pair of gloves, and I got to work, gently picking them up and positioning them in the sand so they could chase the waves. There are people who have lived on the island for years and years who have yet to witness this phenomenon. It was one of those moments when I couldn’t stop thinking, “This is why we travel.”

On a day trip from Copenhagen 

Chamidae Ford - Associate Writer

I often think of my weekend in Copenhagen as a whirlwind of stunning architecture, strolls along the canal, and fantastic food. But a moment that stands out to me so vividly happened beyond the city limits at the Louisiana Museum.

After hopping on a train in the city center and an hour-long journey through the Danish countryside, I often caught glimpses of the ocean peaking through the trees in the distance. The Louisana Museum is magical with its Frank Lloyd Wright-esq architecture, winding corridors filled with some of the best collections I have ever seen and an expansive sculpture garden. But what sticks with me is the location. Suppose you head towards the café. You will come to a sort of cliff that looks out to a seemingly endless view of the Øresund, the strait that connects the Baltic and the North Sea. It was a hot spring day for the area, and I stood on the cliff watching the sun shimmer off the sound, feeling the wind hit my cheeks, and I watched the couple in the distance sitting on the dock together, watching the water. And I felt utterly at peace. It was a moment that made me so grateful for travel. I had been given the chance to see things I had never even imagined. 

Set jetting in Spain

Matt Paco - Senior Producer

In 2024, I was able to return to Spain to film the best of this wonderful country, which I hadn't visited since I was a foreign exchange student in high school. While there, I got to visit San Juan de Gaztelugatxe, which was Dragon Stone in one of my favorite shows of all time, Game of Thrones.

Seeing the World Nomad Games in Kazakhstan

Deepa Lakshmin - Director of Social Media

Seeing the World Nomad Games (aka the Olympics of Central Asia) in Astana, Kazakhstan, is by far the coolest experience I’ve had on the road. Though the sports are rooted in the region’s nomadic heritage, countries from all over the world participate. Watching fans and athletes celebrate and share their cultural traditions with each other was a beautiful reminder of why travel is so priceless to me. I believe wherever life takes you, you carry the memory of those connections.

Learning not to take Rome for granted

Serina Patel - Marketing Manager

This October, I went to Rome for the fifth time – but the second time with my family. It was only supposed to be a quick 20-hour layover and we expected nothing more than busy streets and tourist-filled restaurants, but boy were we in for a treat. The energy felt different. Peaceful, bearable, magical.

We walked around the Colosseum, disappointed in ourselves that we didn't pre-book the newly opened gladiator tunnels, but while standing outside as the sunset hit the Roman brick we all just stared at it in awe. This magnificent, ancient, history-filled structure still standing somehow touched us more than the previous times we saw it. We had taken it for granted.

We live in a world where we can visit anywhere in the world through our phones and social media in a matter of seconds, but this time with my family was one to remember. This special moment made me realize how grateful I am to be with them in that moment, together, and to appreciate the world no matter how overwhelming and exposed it is. 

Summiting fourteeners in Colorado

Emily Dubin - Senior Book Designer

Summiting La Plata in August, one of Colorado's 14ers, was a travel moment that stands out from the past year. After hours of ascending thousands of vertical feet from mountain forest to barren rock fields above treeline, the mixture of overwhelming awe and physical relief when taking that last step to the top and witnessing the vastness of the Rocky Mountains is a total natural high. The lack of oxygen is probably a contributing factor too!

I'm holding onto that feeling of gratitude — for my feet for getting me to the top (and back down) and for the grounding effect of feeling small in the expanse of wilderness.

Watching bears in Canada 

Jessica Lockhart - Destination Editor Oceania

Here’s what I won’t forget from my travels this year: How my partner’s face transformed from a look of horror into one of awe as she watched a 300lb grizzly, just meters away from our boat, bite into a salmon, causing its reddish-orange eggs to explode everywhere. We’d traveled for over 10 hours north of Vancouver, British Columbia to the Great Bear Rainforest with hopes of seeing bears readying themselves for hibernation during the salmon run. What we witnessed was an annual event that every Fat Bear Week enthusiast should be lucky enough to see in their lifetimes.

Warming up on the train with dad

Tom Hall - Vice President of Experience

Platform 6, Munich Hauptbahnhof, Germany, 3.10am, April 18. It’s cold, around 1c/33F. For the past two and a half hours my father and I have been shuffling round the station concourse trying to keep warm. The city fell asleep some time ago apart from those of us waiting for our 3.32am departure to Mannheim who have remained, chatting quietly and sharing the delight in the eccentric adventures of travelling supporters. From Munich, I’ll take an onward connection to Paris, bound eventually for London by lunchtime. I’m not sure whose idea it was to skip the hotel and travel home this way after attending Bayern Munich versus Arsenal in the Champions League. Probably mine. The only thing I care about though is being allowed onboard our waiting ICE train, into the warmth, and falling asleep. The arrival of the train manager is greeted by muffled cheers from the frozen solid Bayern fans we’ve been waiting with.

Entering the warm carriage feels like reaching the promised land, and I fall asleep as the conductor’s whistle blows, waking as we pass silent platforms at Augsburg, Ulm and Stuttgart. By mid-morning we’re having a streetside coffee near the Canal Saint-Martin in Paris, and I’m thankful for an evening and morning that’s stayed with me ever since, even if I did sleep through much of it. And Arsenal lost.