It’s that time of year again when I take a look back at the previous year and fondly remember all the trips I took throughout 2025. When I look back through my 2024 recap, I didn’t have anything concrete planned but it looks like I pretty much did everything I wanted to do.
If you look at my travel stats you might be surprised about how few countries I actually visited this year but there’s a couple of reasons for that. For one, I did more trips around the UK this year and it’s never a bad thing to spend time exploring your home country.
Another reason is I actually only did 1 overseas trip with work this year. That’s the lowest it’s been since I started doing more location based reality jobs than sports jobs. But that’s the thing with freelance work. You never quite know what you are going to get and Boyfriend has certainly liked the fact that I’ve spent more time working close to home this year.
Curious to see what I did in 2025? Read on to find out!
2025 Travel Stats
Countries Visited: 5
New Countries Visited: 2
Flights Taken: 8
A Look Back at 2025
January – An Unexciting Start To The Year
I would love to say I started the year in an exciting way but that really isn’t the case! I didn’t go anywhere and I didn’t particularly do anything exciting. I had a bit of work in London but mostly it was a lazy month enjoying walks around Bushy Park, having date nights with Boyfriend and going into London for nights out.
But the best thing I did in January 2025 was attend my first Crafty Beer Girls night out. I’d been a member of the Facebook group for a while but with my weird work / travel schedule, had never made it a social. I had completely forgotten that I only started going to these this year. I absolutely love these ladies and now it feels like I’ve been a part of the gang for longer than just one year!
February – London As A Tourist
In February I had the wonderful Brittany from The Sweet Wanderlust come and visit which meant playing tourist in my own city. And as you can imagine a lot of that involved sweet things! We of course checked out several dessert places and did a couple of afternoon teas. One of which Brittany insisted on having the child’s version so we could get the more fun plastic dinosaur plate set up.
And because Brittany is American and apparently all my American guests want to do this, we went to nearby Richmond to see some sights from Ted Lasso. Don’t get me wrong, I love having an excuse to go to Richmond and I do enjoy Ted Lasso, it’s just funny how it’s always the most important thing to do when Americans come and stay.
February – First Spurs Women Match
If you didn’t know this about me, I’m a football fan and Tottenham Hotspur are my team and while I have seen the men play many times, I had yet to see the women play. I did say in my 2024 recap post I was hoping to do this so when I saw the women were playing at White Heart Lane I couldn’t resist going. Sadly it wasn’t a win for the ladies but it was still great to finally see them play.
March – Birthday Fun
I am very lucky to have such a generous partner as Boyfriend always makes a big deal of my birthday. Even though we said this year we would do less, he still made it a great day. We went into London for Puppy Yoga which was so much fun! The dogs were unbelievably fluffy and so adorable and it actually was a proper yoga workout too which I wasn’t expecting! Then afterwards we grabbed some lunch and then it was off for some beer drinking because my man knows what I love.
March – Beers & Boarding Passes
Speaking of beer, I decided to turn my obsession of beer into something. I started a Facebook Group for beer lovers who also love to travel. I’m so amazed at how quickly the group grew and so happy it’s filled with people sharing beers from their travels or asking for beer recommendations for upcoming trips.
I also made a new Instagram account to go with it. A place where I can post the beers I’ve enjoyed drinking and share the cool places I find on my trips. I love having a little corner of the internet where I can share my obsession with craft beer.
April – Albania
One country I’ve been keen to visit is Albania and in April I finally made the trip over. We did our favourite styles of travel, where we just booked the first few days and left the rest unplanned. Originally we thought we might go into Montenegro too but we loved Albania so much, we spent the whole 2 weeks exploring as much of the country as we could.
We had a blast this trip and Albania quickly turned into one of our favourite countries. We saw cities, mountain towns, beach resorts and would have happily extended the trip if Boyfriend didn’t have to get back for work. He left loving the country even though he got bitten by a dog on this trip. He’s fine now and after we took him to the doctors, I treated him to something sweet at a cafe and the barista hit on him even with me there so you know, a nice little ego boost for him made it not a completely terrible day!
May – Work
May was one of the craziest work months of my life! I had back to back jobs so no rest days in between them. Then I got asked to cover a friend’s shift on what would have been my first day off. No big deal, it was only 1 extra day. But then half an hour before that final shift finished, a friend (who knew I was desperate for a day off!) messages to say they needed an extra person on the job she was doing and did I fancy it. So yeah, that’s how I ended up working pretty much every day in May.
June – Morocco
Ever since my work switched from doing more reality TV shows than sports work, I’ve been traveling a lot for work. So it was weird that my first (and as it turns out only) abroad job of 2025 wasn’t until June. But Morocco is a country I love to visit so I was very excited when I was offered this job. While sadly I didn’t get a chance to do anything as we were in the middle of nowhere, it was still a fun job.
My absolute favourite part of the job, which had nothing to do with the job itself, was the fact that my hotel had loads of peacocks. I even got to see baby peacocks for the first time. They were so adorable and you could even have them chilling with you in the treehouse lounge. So cool.
READ ALSO: Guide to Moroccan Food
July – Cat Sitting
I love animals and if I didn’t travel so much I would definitely have a pet by now. Luckily for me I get the chance to experience life with cats when my dad goes on holiday. It’s a great chance for me to take a week off work and play with some adorable kitties. It also gave me a chance to show Boyfriend a bit more of my home town.
READ ALSO: Guide to Cat Cafes in the UK
August – Amsterdam
With my unexpectedly crazy work schedule, we didn’t really have much time for a big summer trip this year. So we decided to do a trip closer to home and ended up going to Amsterdam. Both of us have been before so there was no stress to see everything. Instead it gave us a chance to see some of the smaller museums and just enjoy this beautiful city at a relaxed pace.
It also meant we had plenty of time to check out the beer scene in Amsterdam. I got the chance to revisit some old favourites, as well as checking out some new places.
August – Wales
As Boyfriend is a Welshie, we head up to hometown of Bridgend often to visit his dad. But this was actually our final visit as his dad is moving to England to be closer to his boys. Even though I’d never heard of Bridgend before Boyfriend, it was sad that this was my final visit. There’s a lovely beer shop right by the train station which as you can imagine we’ve been to many times over the years.
Since this might be our last visit to Wales for a while we also wanted to pop over to Cardiff as it’s a city we both love. It was a great excuse to just wander around, eat far too many Welsh cakes and of course visit the craft beer scene in Cardiff.
September – Anniversary
September was a busy work month for me, so I’m grateful my anniversary gave me a chance to take a break. Since it was the 5th year anniversary we wanted to do something a bit more special and we certainly got that at Nutfield Priority Hotel & Spa. The building was absolutely gorgeous and the staff couldn’t have been friendlier. We had a gorgeous room with a lovely view, treated ourselves to bubbles on arrival in our room and simply gave ourselves a few days to relax and enjoy each other’s company.
October – Dubrovnik
For our final overseas trip of 2025, Boyfriend had a companion voucher to use up since we’re both members of the BA One World club. He had a look at places we could fly to in October and Dubrovnik came up. We both really enjoyed a previous trip to Croatia so we were keen to go back. But we actually only stayed in Dubrovnik for a few days at the start and end of the trip as the rest of the time was spent in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
But I can see why Dubrovnik is a popular city in Croatia. The Old Town with its walls still intact has a charm that you don’t get in many places. Plus the beer scene in Croatia is really good and we found some really great beer places in Dubrovnik. However, the highlight for me was taking the ferry across to Lokrum Island. I knew there were peacocks there but I had no idea there would be as many as there were. The island is full of them! It’s a must visit for animal lovers.
October – Bosnia and Herzegovina
While Dubrovnik was great, the main part of the trip was spent travelling around Bosnia and Herzegovina. Like before, we also had intentions of visiting Montenegro too but sadly this time the buses were against us. While this was another trip not planned in advance, we did have a rough idea of the bus routes available. Unfortunately for us, we didn’t realise most of these buses are summer only routes. In the end it became too complicated trying to plan a route that would work and would definitely get us to Dubrovnik on time for our flight home so we ended up once again missing out on Montenegro.
But the trip was still incredible because Bosnia and Herzegovina is a great country to visit and neither of us were disappointed about getting extra time in this country. We got to head to extra places and planned a few extra day trips so it was great. Although, being the bridge lover I am, the highlight for me was finally getting to see Mostar’s Old Bridge in person. It was truly a spectacular sight. Although the day trip to Blagaj was a close second!
November – Cheddar
Since my Bestie lives so far we decided to plan a little trip together somewhere in the middle so neither of us had to do the full journey. We had a look on the map and decided to head to Cheddar so we could visit the caves and the gorge. We got a really cute place on AirBnB just outside of Cheddar in the village of Draycott. The place was huge and even had a playroom which Bestie’s little one absolutely loved.
Cheddar was just a short drive away and was definitely worth the visit. We climbed up the gorge for incredible views, visited both caves (and saw where cave aged cheddar comes from) and drove through the gorge. Plus the village had some really great cafes and restaurants and we even got to sample a few beers from local Cheddar Ales.
November – Cambridge
A job in November gave me a great chance to revisit a city I haven’t been to in 10 years! Cambridge was one of the first English cities I visited solo and I really enjoyed my time there so it was great to go back. I actually had one of those jobs where I could also have a bit of a life, so one week on late shifts I could visit the town and some cafes and the next week on early shift I could visit restaurants and bars.
My favourite part of the job was getting to have a night out with one of the Crafty Beer Girls who lived in Cambridge. Being a local girl she could take me to the best beer pubs outside the city centre and we even went to one place that I may argue is the most Christmasty pub in the whole of the UK!
December – Brentford
Because of the nature of reality TV shows, most of them get filmed during the months of March to October, sometimes as late as November. But it’s not very often you get a job outside of these months. So I was quite surprised when a short last minute job popped up in Brentford. And even though Brentford isn’t far from me, because of the hours I was put up in a hotel near where we were filming. It was a great little excuse to spend a week in a hotel with a pool and sauna one last time before the year ended.
What’s Planned for 2026?
I love this part of the year when everything is still up in the open and I literally have the whole world in front of me. While I’m happy to plan a few things in advance, I’m not a fan of having the whole year planned out. Right now I love that I don’t know how the rest of the year will go. But it’s sure fun to guess!
At the moment I do have a few things booked already. I’m happy to say I’m returning to Lisbon to see Brittany. It’s my turn to go see her and I’m especially excited as she just got a new puppy.
Then after that I have a couple of trips planned with Boyfriend. In February we are heading off to Copenhagen so he can finally go to Scandinavia. And then in April we’ll be heading to Malaysia to see his family there before heading to Bali so I can show him my happy place. After that the world’s our oyster!
But this is what I’m currently thinking might happen in 2026…
- A visit to Lisbon and maybe a day trip somewhere
- Returning to Copenhagen and finally going to Malmo
- A trip to Kula Lumpur and Bali
- Finally making it to Montenegro
- I’d like to go to my first Harlequins Women’s match
As always, thank you to everyone who reads and supports this blog. I can’t wait to see what 2026 holds for Curious Claire!
More Personal Posts
- What I Read in 2025
- A Year in Review: 2024
- How I Got Into Travel
- Confessions Of My First Solo Trip
- The Time I Had To Flee Poland
- Why I’ve Been Blogging Less
Like this post? Don’t forget to pin the below image
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links which means I earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.
What a wonderful year of adventures! Scotland and Croatia are both on my bucket list.