6 countries, 10 flights, 24 beds, 21,317 miles + wrap-up VIDEO
After weeks of 2025 year-end hibernating, hanging out with family, and enjoying the holidays, we are just starting to get back into our swing of life, work, school, and, of course, travel for 2026. That’s also had us reflecting on our 2025 travel year.
Jodie’s been tallying up our travel stats from 2025. We thought we’d share those with you, including a few thoughts on the year ahead and where we might be going. For 2026, we’re in the stage that we like to call “squishy plans.”
Check out our 2025 wrap-up + 2026 planning travel video
But why have travel numbers at all?
Before we get to the numbers themselves, we want to share why we even do this.
We’re not country baggers, though we like to keep track so we have an answer when people ask us questions about where we go.
Of more value is simply that in the rush and go of life, it’s easy to forget just how much we do in a year.
The miles, countries, stays: All these things matter not for the number or the count.
They matter because they remind us of the choices we’ve made, the memories we’ve created, the new stories we can share. And our 2025 travel year has left us with so many.
The numbers help us relive special moments, whether our favorite egg-and-scallion-pancake breakfast spot in Taipei; Connor and Aster making new friends in Malaysia, Vietnam, and Colorado; or, the biggest highlight of our year, getting our condo in Japan.
And when we reflect back on what we’ve done, we find we’re even more motivated for the trips, memories, and stories ahead.
So let’s get to those numbers.
2025 family travels by the numbers
Miles Traveled
- Train: 73 miles (118 km)
- Car: 650 miles (1,046 km, and we’re only counting what we drove ourselves; with local rideshares, this is substantially higher, but too tricky to track)
- Plane: 20,684 miles (33,288 km)
A few other fun flight facts for our family of four for last year:
Our shortest flight was in Malaysia, from Kuala Lumpur to Penang, at 201 miles (324 km).
But our longest flight?
Coming back to the USA from Malaysia, for the first time we traveled west away from Southeast Asia, over the Indian Ocean and South Asia. We left from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, had a long layover in Doha, Qatar, in the Middle East, and finally touched down in Atlanta, Georgia, back in the USA, after flying 11,132 miles (17,915 km).
Combined, our wee family’s Total Travel Distance for 2025 was 21,317 miles (34,306 km).
Number of Stays
One fun thing Jodie liked to track for our 2025 travel year is the number of places we stay in. Even though we travel full time, we travel slow, preferring to cut down on transit time and instead stay longer in one area.
In 2025, we chalked up 24 stays, including some places where we stayed in at least 2 different accommodations in the same area:
1. Oita, Japan
2. Fukuoka, Japan
3. Taoyuan, Taiwan
4. Taipei, Taiwan
5. Da Nang 1, Vietnam
6. Da Nang 2, Vietnam
7. Kuala Lumpur 1, Malaysia
8. Kota Bharu, Malaysia
9. Perhentian Islands, Malaysia
10. Kuala Lumpur 2, Malaysia
11. Penang, Malaysia
12. Singapore 1
13. Singapore 2
14. Osaka 1, Japan
15. Osaka 2, Japan
16. Osaka 3, Japan… our home sweet Japan home!
17. Kuala Lumpur 3, Malaysia
18. Atlanta, Georgia, USA
19. Northern Alabama 1, USA
20. Northern Alabama 2, USA
21. Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
23. Colorado Springs 1, Colorado, USA
24. Colorado Springs 2, Colorado, USA
Along with our 24 overall stays, we added 2 new states to our count of US states: Alabama and Tennessee!
Countries
When we left Seattle for Yokohama on a cruise in October 2024, we started 2025 already in Japan. And we were bouncing around Asia until early November:
1. Japan
2. Taiwan (first time visiting, and definitely not the last)
3. Vietnam
4. Malaysia
5. Singapore
6. USA
What’s ahead for 2026?
With the holidays behind us, we are in Virginia for a little bit to take care of some personal matters. Along with some travels around the overall region, here’s what we’re considering for our 2026 travels:
- Virginia
- Washington D.C.
- North Carolina
- Tennessee
- Pennsylvania
- Delaware
- Japan (aiming for spring)
- “Baltic Summer”: possibly 90 days in Europe, split between Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland
- Kazakhstan: We’re big fans of the TBEX travel creatives conference, and they’re hosting a conference in Almaty this August
- And… more Japan (possibly fall and early winter)
We’re not sure yet how everything is going to work out. Much of our being in the USA for a bit is Jodie getting some work done for her prosthetic leg. Once we know more about when that’s going to be all done, then we are going to start booking flights.
But with us, you never know. Given a bunch of recent family discussions, here are some wild cards that might be in the mix:
- Shanghai Disney
- Hong Kong Disney
- Thailand
- South Korea
- Türkiye
- Georgia (as in the country, not the US state)
The fun thing about looking back at our 2025 travels is how much it reminds us of what we can do in 2026. We’re in the “messy pencil outline” stage of putting together travels. And as we move from squishy plans and we firm up one block of travel, such as to Japan, we know that more places to go will start making themselves clear.
Our 2025 travel year saw our family mark over 3 years of full time travel. We went to new places, and we even bought a home in another country.
Can’t wait to find out what happens this year.
