Recent Travels

My past year, more than most, had a strong theme of travel, so I wanted to share a few pictures and thoughts about each of the places I visited. Nothing too in depth, but just a quick overview for posterity, in chronological order.

Sedona

We started the year with a road trip out to Sedona to visit some family who had recently moved there. It was my first time in Sedona, and the natural beauty of the iconic red rocks exceeded my expectations.

A few things I did not expect before visiting:

• Sedona is a “dark sky” community. There’s very little light pollution, which makes it great for stargazing. But with almost no public lighting, man is it dark at night, and navigating around after sunset can be tough if you’re just arriving.
• No offense to the residents, but the vibe of the town is a little bit that of a retirement community. Lots of older folks, though in their credit, they all appear to be very active. I suppose you don’t choose to retire there unless you love the outdoors, hiking, mountain biking, and so forth.

Lisbon

When it comes to company on-sites¹, my employer has been very generous with the choice of locations. We do two every year and the first for 2024 was Lisbon. Very interesting, lively, and old city. Supposedly one of the oldest in Europe.

The highlight was touring the nearby town of Sintra, seeing a castle atop some far away hill, and spontaneously hiking to the top with some coworkers. Definitely the most medieval thing I’ve seen.

Milan

We were invited to a wedding being held at the nearby Lake Como and took the opportunity to spend a few days in Milan as well. While Milan tends to be lower on the list of cities to visit in Italy, I still enjoyed its more everyday, business atmosphere. There aren’t as many must-see landmarks, but the best is the Duomo which dominates the city center. It’s impressive as one of the largest Cathedrals you’ll ever see.

Sonoma

Sonoma was the second of the biannual work on-sites. Despite being a long-time resident of (southern) California, it was my first time in wine country. Not as novel as some of other destinations this year, but still a great time to catch up with co-workers, and the short flight was certainly appreciated.

Japan

The last big trip of the year was Japan, with most of it spent in Tokyo, and a small excursion to nearby Hakone. This was a trip we had long been hoping to make, it has been one of the best.

Tokyo is such a singular place, and very different than any other I’ve been (especially as my first time in Asia as a whole). Very clean and orderly, while at the same time crazy with so much happening in any direction you look. Tokyo was full of great food and small shops to visit. I think we only scratched the surface.

On our way to Hakone I experienced the famous Japanese love of trains. Starting with a pretty typical regional line, which continued with transfers to increasingly more specialized cars and tracks, shorter switch-back following cars on the way to Gora station, and cable-cars pulling themselves up steep inclines. Impressive stuff.

No doubt we’ll be back to Japan with so many other places to visit.

Next Year

I’m hoping we’ll keep this travel streak up next year, so I may post some more about those, though maybe closer to when they happen rather than a roundup like this one. Until then.