🎉 TOP TRAVEL SPOTS OF 2024 Revealed!

I don't know if it's still appropriate to be wearing a Christmas hat, but I'm doing it. If I can get a thing to sit right— that'll do, that'll do. Right, 2024. 2024 was absolutely epic. I ticked off some of the biggest things on my bucket list. I went to Antarctica, which was just mind-blowing. I drove all the way up to the very top of Nordkapp in my own motorhome, which was incredible. I took a group of people across to Europe with me, part of the Wandering Motorhome Club, and we all went across to I got to go to the Outer Hebrides, which again was one place that had been on my bucket list for a really, really long time. So as a full-time travel blogger, I get asked all the time, where are my favourite places? What are my recommendations? And here are my top awards just from the places that I visited in 2024. Can I also just say, how cute is my new Christmas mug?

I love it.

I like it a lot. Anyway, right, it was tough. It was really tough this year given the places that I've been lucky enough to visit. Trying to narrow it down has been really difficult, but I have done that. I have cheated on a couple of them and given some honourable mentions, but here are the awards for the top categories for 2024. And our mission is to try and do this before my voice gives out entirely. I've been fighting this cold off about 2 and a half weeks now and it's just not going. So we can do this, we can wrap this all up really quickly, it'll be fine. Right, here we go. My favourite one, by the way, has to be the last one. You'll You'll see why when we get there. So best waterfall has to be Iguazu Falls in Brazil. Now you can actually do Brazil or Argentina. I highly recommend that you go to the Brazilian side, and if you can, stay on the hotel on the Brazilian side, which is actually inside the complex, because that way you can walk down to the falls whenever you like and you can avoid the hundreds or even thousands of tourists. It was magical, absolutely magical. So that's the best waterfall. Honorable mention has to go to Tanforsen Waterfall in Sweden. You can actually park your motorhome or your campervan right up in the car park. Now again, you can get the place to yourself, so I was there in late September and just had it all to myself and was able to take some incredible drone shots. So honorable mention for Tanforsen. Best beach— this was again, it was another really tough category, but my favorite beach that I went to in 2024 has to be Luskentyre Beach on the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides. Just The colours of it. Yes, it helped that it was a beautifully sunny day, and I was there in April, and it was just absolutely stunning. It was warm as well, like genuinely shorts and t-shirt kind of weather. It was magic, which makes the colours look beautiful and everything else. This isn't Photoshopped, this is exactly what it looks like. Have to say as well, it was a really tough one between this one, which you could actually pay £5 the night to just stay there right on the edge of the beach with your van if you're self-contained, so that was fantastic, but there's also another beach a little bit further up and around. I always pronounce this wrong. I think it's called Huishness or Huishinish, or I'll write it for you. This is how it's written, not necessarily how it's pronounced. That was fantastic. And again, you can pay. It was slightly more built up, the beach. So although the beach itself was really pretty, the actual where you were staying wasn't quite as nice as Luskentyre, which is why Luskentyre won the point on the best beach. Best sunset. I love a good sunset. I also like a good sunrise, but the best sunset I saw has to have been Norway, and the sky just Exploded. It was one of the many days in Norway where I hadn't got a clue where I was going to stay that night, and I was just driving down the road looking for somewhere to stay, and you could just see the sun setting and the colours just growing. I thought, this is amazing. So I got to the side of a fjord where there was actually this incredible lay-by that I ended up spending the night in, and it just, it just went. I just had time to launch the drone and get some absolutely amazing shots. It was brilliant. Honourable mention, of course, has to go to Antarctica. The sunsets down there are incredible. Incredible. And I saw so many of them. It's amazing, isn't it? This incredible place, and after about 5, 6 days, you're like, yeah, that's another penguin. Yeah, that's another whale. Yeah, you get so blasé. But the sunsets down there were beautiful. I cannot wait to go back again. Talking of which, actually, if you do want to join me on my return trip to Antarctica, which will be in February 2026, there are— I think there's 4 cabins left. So most of the trip is booked up, certainly out of my allotted discount. We've got up to like 35% discount on the exact same ship that I went on. It's brilliant, but I think there were 4 cabins left. So if Antarctica is on your bucket list and you want to come and see some of these incredible sights, then absolutely do come and join me. Best park up? Again, this was another tough one, especially as I've just done Sweden and Norway, and you can stay pretty much wherever you like around there as long as you're respectful and not causing any chaos. So there's a lot of amazing park-ups that I've stayed at. This one in Sweden at the top of Mount Gautus Buda, I think, is how it's pronounced.

Totally free.

You could see for miles. Again, I was very lucky with the weather because it was just clear and crisp and even, but it was just beautiful. Absolutely stunning. Another one that I loved was in Norway, and I pulled up on this, but I didn't know it was there, but pulled up on the spit, managed to launch the drone, got some fantastic shots of the van. So those were two free park-ups. Paid park-ups. I've had some amazing ones, actually. The one by Luskentyre Beach on the Isle of Harris. This one with the little air in Scotland. I think it was £8 for the night. That was really good. There were loads. I'm honestly— if you want to see all the park-ups that I stayed at in both Scotland and in Scandinavia, to be fair, you can see them all inside the road trip planners. I've done one for Scandinavia, brand new this year. The Scotland one's been updated for this year with all of the Hebrides and the new places that I stayed at this year. So I'll leave the links below in the comments. You can see both of those. Cutest village? Oh, this is a tough one. I do like a cute village. Has to be Santa's Village in Lapland. I mean, just for the sheer audacity of the place, but it was so cute. There were little elves everywhere, and even though there was no snow— I was there in October, I think it was just October when I was there— and there was no snow, but everyone had elves. There was all the lights. The best bit was the Arctic Circle line, so you could walk across it. They also had a live cam, so I called my other half and I was like, hi! And he was able to get a picture of me actually on the live cam, which was quite cool. So yeah, has to be— that has to be the cutest village I went into. But also Henningsvær in the Lofoten Islands in Norway, that Beautiful. It's this tiny little village. Don't miss the cinnamon rolls in the bakery, they're delicious. But it's also got one of the most famous football pitches in the world because it's just so picturesque. So yeah, you can go and see all that. There's actually quite a cool little park up in the middle of the village, and then you can also park on the outskirts of the village, which is where I saw one of the best Northern Lights displays I've seen. That was incredible. But yeah, that was a really pretty little village. The best historical visit. If you ever are lucky enough to go to Stockholm in Sweden, go to the Vasa Museum, and that is a museum built around this enormous ship that they pulled up. It's the ship that they learned how to pull up ships from the seabed, so they were able to do things like the Mary Rose. This was the first ship that they did all this with. The story of how they got this thing up was incredible, and the preservation level of it, it's just amazing. You walk in, you're like, wow, that— it was awesome, absolutely awesome. Also, I really enjoyed The Viking longship at the Viking Museum, which was again up in the Lofoten Islands in Norway. They've got this huge longship and you can really see how it all worked and like the different ends of the longship and stuff. I really enjoyed that, that was really good fun. Best food? Oh, steak in Argentina. I'm not a massive steak person, but oh, just the steak in Argentina was magic, absolutely. I have to say, Mac did love the reindeer treats from Lapland. I didn't eat any reindeer myself, I couldn't quite bring myself to kill poor Rudolph, but the dog treats that they had there, he He adored, so apparently they were quite tasty. Best natural drive? This is a tough one. So Scotland, obviously amazing, love Scotland, the Highlands were brilliant and the drive down through the Hebrides was brilliant, but the best one has to be— there's 2 parts to this. In Sweden they have the road called the Wilderness Road and that's where you saw like hundreds, hundreds of reindeer just roaming wild. You could stay there, As I did overnight, and you just wake up surrounded by— it was so cool, so many reindeer. If you do have a dog like I do, obviously make sure that they're kept on a lead because this is part of the Sami herding ground, so you've got to be really careful that your dog doesn't interfere with them. But that was just so cool, just this reindeer walking past the window all the time. It was brilliant. But also, the drive that continues then up to Nordkapp, that was fantastic. So I think for views, probably I can't think, I think, is it the E6? I'll put the name in there, but the view of that, just the mountains and the sea, that was incredible, but for the sheer, oh my God, that's a reindeer, it has to be the Wilderness Drive in Sweden. That's epic.

I also can't believe I completely forgot to mention the Atlantic Road in Norway, which was another one of my bucket lists ticked off. This road is definitely worth driving if you're anywhere in the area.

Best view, ah, this has to be the toughest category because obviously I have been lucky enough to see some Incredible views this year. So obviously every single day from Antarctica, the view of the ice and the penguins and the whales, that has to be the best view that I saw this year. It was incredible. I mean, obviously Norway and Sweden were wow, but just opening the curtains and seeing those views in Antarctica and these enormous glaciers and the wildlife, ah, it was absolutely magic. Absolute magic. I feel so lucky to have seen that. Most random place. This is— I've been to some really random places, I have to say, this year, but I think the most random one, purely because it's unlike anything I've seen anywhere else, has to be the Falkirk Wheel in Scotland. And if you haven't been on it, it's a canal, part of a canal system, and you go on in a canal and you sort of go up round like this and it takes you up to the higher level and then you can carry on. And then if you're coming from the higher level, you go down like this and you carry on. It's really fun. You can do it just as a trip, so you can turn up as a tourist They've got fantastic motorhome parking there, you can stay overnight, which we did, and then you can just buy a ticket and go on like a trip up and then you go down the canal back and come back, it was really fun. So yeah, Falkirk Wheel, that was fun, I enjoyed that, has to be the most random one I think.

Honourable mentions to the Grotto Cafe in South Shields, which is this really fun little cafe that's actually on a beach at the bottom of a cliff and the only way down to it is either via an elevator or down lots steps in the cliff, so that was good fun. And then of course the Ice Hotel in Sweden, that's one place that I think everyone should visit because it is so random and just so unlike anything else you'll see elsewhere, so that was really cool fun.

Best passport stamp without a doubt has to be Ushuaia, and oh, that might have won, you know, that could have done one of the best villages to be fair. Ushuaia in Argentina, the very, very most southern place, it's probably a town, To be fair, more than a village, but once you're in there, you can go to the post office and you can get a stamp for Antarctica and for Ushuaia. So those are my 2 favourite passport stamps there. They're their pride of place. And then final one, the cutest residents. Cutest residents has to be— the reindeer were cute, and oh, I got to feed baby husky dogs that were training to be proper, like, husky sled-pulling dogs. That was cute. You've got to hand-feed them. Very cool. Did that at Lapland at Santa's Village. But the cutest residents have to have been watching baby penguins. They were about 2, 3 months old learning to swim in Antarctica, and they sort of put their heads under and they're like, I don't really know what to do. The adult penguins just leave them. So when they get to a certain age, they literally leave them so hunger drives them into the sea, but they don't teach them how to swim. So there's all these babies, there's like a crèche of 3, 4 months old, and they're putting their heads under and they're flapping their little wings around. It was genius. Watch them for about two hours. It was so much fun. I can't wait to go back and do that again. So they're definitely the cutest residents, and then a personal one for me. But my proudest moment, ticking Antarctica off my bucket list was cool. That was a real eff it moment a couple of years ago when I was like, "I'm just gonna do it." It's never gonna be a good time to spend that much money, but I really want to go and do it, and I'm so so glad I did because it was incredible. So that was magic. But I think for me. Driving my motorhome all the way up to Nordkapp, especially because I did from the bottom of Sweden all the way up to Nordkapp and most of the way back all by myself. And I think dealing with all the issues that I had, but just having the courage to start it— that was a daunting trip. It's a long, long way. I did about 7,000 miles in 7 weeks, and like I say, most of it was by myself. And just, yeah, I am eternally proud of the fact that I just started. This is a crazy trip. Admittedly, the beginning of it was part of the Wandering Motorhome Club trip, so that was cool, taking a load of people across. I'm really proud to have done that, and there are now 20-odd people who are confident to go off and tour Europe and experience everything that Europe can give them. That's a little personal win for me. And then continuing from that trip up to Nordkapp has to be my highlight. So there we go, those are my personal travel awards for 2024. I would love to hear what your highlights are. By all means, drop them in the comments below. I wish you a very, very happy New Year and bring on 2025! See you next time.

Bye!