One dreary day in December, while Nick was sick with COVID, I found myself downstairs working at my impromptu home office at our dining room table just feeling entirely depleted emotionally.  Not only did December bring our own uncertainties dealing with COVID in our own household, it also brought the last month of 2020 in a year that felt like so much was taken from us.  For me personally during 2020, among everything else going on, travel that was such a constant in my life was suddenly gone.  I found myself that December day reminiscing about the most amazing travel memories we’ve had, about those moments exploring that I still can’t quite believe actually happened or that I saw those amazing places with my own eyes and the education that travel has brought me.  I whole-heartedly believe that to solve so many of the world’s problems, we have to travel, we have to see things and meet people from different places.  For me, travel has always been a way of learning about the world and my own country.

I found myself scrolling through my files of videos that I’ve taken while traveling, drone shots that Nick has gotten over the years and generally just going through every video file I have whether it was taken on my phone quickly in the moment or from one of our “real” cameras or our drone.  It was exhilarating to go through those memories, to remember those moments and feel what they felt like.  By the end of the day I had come up with a compilation video of some of my favorite video moments and I wanted to share that here on Land of Marvels.  In truth, my version was made to the song “If the World was Ending” by Julia Micheals and JP Saxe, as that song is one of my favorites and with everything 2020 threw at us, it seemed fitting.  But due to copyright issues, I can’t post that version here.  Instead, here is a similar version of the video with a purchased instrumental song that still captures what I set out to create: a memory of my travels, pre-COVID.

I think travel will be different going forward, I think COVID will change the landscape of travel and while I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, I do think we’ll forever remember what life was like pre and post COVID.  In this compilation of some of my favorite videos from our travels, I hope it will inspire you to remember your own travel moments and look forward to the travel memories to come as we move past the horrific year that was 2020.  Enjoy!