My brain is full of loosely mapped out travel plans waiting for the right time to make them a reality. While I was in India doing yoga for a month, I decided now is my time to take big trips.
Before my aging parents get older, before college kids graduate, have real jobs, and start planning weddings, not when Brian retires and we have more time, not after we save more money. Now is the right time, while we can still hike down a mountain of stairs wearing a scuba tank and ski in Eastern Europe using T-bars, while we can still do anything our kids can do.
Without much discussion with anyone, lying in my bed on Hare Krishna Mandir Road , I booked a Spring Break trip to Morocco and wondered if I could get to 50 countries in 2026, the year I turn 50.
India was country number 26. I’m now on country number 43, so yes, I’m tracking to hit 50. Which means visiting 25 countries in two calendar years!
In February I spent my 50th birthday free diving in Australia and going to the New Zealand Iyengar Yoga Convention, with Abhijata Iyengar (from India) teaching.
In March we are conquering five countries in Southeast Asia as a family of four, over 24 days.
Stay tuned for the last two surprises!
Follow me Instagram, where I’m documenting each country to 50!
50 Countries in 50 Years… The List
Countries are listed by the first year I visited them. I am only counting sovereign countries listed by the UN. Repeat visits are not listed.
For example, recent(ish) scuba trips to Mexico, Bahamas, Little Cayman, and Bonaire do not count. Nor does our honeymoon in Bermuda or the Faroe Islands from our 20 in 20 Anniversary Trip.
1994: Bahamas – My high school senior trip.
1998:France, Monaco, Italy – Study abroad with Brian.
2001:United Kingdom, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic – Brian’s grad school study abroad summer.
2003: Ireland – Our last pub crawl before having a baby.
2005: Mexico – With baby Haiden.
2013:Norway – With three girls under age 10.
2017:Dominican Republic – With baby Esther!
2019:Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Estonia – Our 20th anniversary trip, with four kids.
2021:Belize – My first time scuba diving.
2021:Canada – Christmas spent with Northern Lights.
2022:Cuba – Was originally planned for March 2020.
2023:Finland– Christmas skiing in -10 degrees.
2024:Costa Rica – A Spring Break road trip.
2025:India, Portugal, Morocco, Spain, Argentina, Uruguay, Grenada, United Arab Emirates, Maldives, St. Lucia, Dominica, Croatia, Bulgaria
2026: Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Poland, Australia, New Zealand
I’m currently at 43 countries! I have flights booked for five more countries in March. Follow each country on Instagram.
The Backstory
When I became a mom at age 28, it felt like the most important job in the world to me. Brian, then 32, had a good income, while my freelance writing gigs didn’t pay enough to justify childcare. So, I let go of my dream of being a travel writer and stayed home – and became Simply Natural Mom. I used cloth diapers, made laundry detergent and had backyard chickens. I nursed babies for more than a decade.
In 2013, we visited friends in Norway with the kids. I’d just had my second miscarriage and was deciding whether to try for another baby or reignite my passion for travel. Walking through Oslo with six children one afternoon, I realized I could do both: have four kids and travel the world. And we did!
Esther had a passport before she could even sit up for a photo. We took her to the Dominican Republic as a baby. Somewhere, a car seat request got lost in translation with a driver, and they brought a car seat for the boat!
When Esther was three and Haiden in 8th grade, we took the girls to London and Paris to meet our French host family from my 1998 study abroad program. Lydia was participating in an exchange program with French art students via Zoom (before it was widely known), and that opportunity sparked the trip to Paris.
Brian had started his own business, finally giving us more flexibility to travel.
Then Covid hit. Haiden was diagnosed with Anorexia, making life less flexible. We continued to visit new countries, even during Covid, but long-haul travel wasn’t an option.
I’ve navigated canceled trips and the frustrating depths of travel insurance claims, sometimes shedding tears at my computer. I’ve traveled to a remote island in Belize with a suitcase full of packaged snacks, nervous about managing a week of scuba diving without a grocery store.
During Covid, we took countless tests to hop around Canada, risking non-refundable destinations like a Northern Lights lodge on Christmas Eve in Yellowknife. In Banff, Esther was the only ski school kid allowed to stay for lunch because she was the only vaccinated child, as Canada didn’t yet have the vaccine available for kids.
Through it all, we travel. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do.
Now, both college-aged daughters are thriving, and I feel comfortable globetrotting while they’re stateside.
Lydia, age 16, is the easiest teen to travel with title. She appreciates the finer things, like a face mask in her carry-on for a 10-hour flight, and calling flight attendants from her middle seat between sleeping sisters for extra snacks in the middle of the night. Give her hotel slippers, and she’s a happy traveler. Esther, at 10, is a worldly and self-sufficient child who can do anything we can.
So yes, now is the time to wander the world.
I might even fill up my passport!