2023: The Year in Travel

Another year has passed and I’m just thankful I got through this one without injury. I cracked my tibial plateau while on my European trip in 2022 which meant I didn’t get to ski but for a few hours this year but I still went on the trips I had planned and had a very good time anyway.

The Year in Travel – 2023

January

My first trip of the year was a visit to Winter Park, Colorado, a place I hadn’t visited in nearly 30 years. I was so looking forward to it because I really couldn’t remember much about it and had only been skiing a year when I visited last time. Sadly I spent an hour each day rehabbing my knee instead of skiing though I did get to go tubing one day.

I enjoyed a quick non-stop flight from Memphis to Denver on United and we took a bus right to the lodge. We stayed slopeside at the Zephyr Mountain Lodge where the location of your room can make a big difference.

Zephyr Mountain Lodge Slopeside Building
photo from Planet of Hotels.com

February

In February I got to experience a new-to-me airport, the tiny 1-gate airport in Bishop, California, as I visited Mammoth Ski Resort for the first time. Baggage claim is a tiny hut but the pre-security restaurant is good enough that locals will come there to eat dinner!

Baggage Claim at the tiny Bishop, CA airport

The downside to an airport this small is that when you’ve got a lot of folks on a regional jet, not all of the luggage will make it and that only accumulates as each day progresses. I only had one checked bag and it came with me to Denver but someone then decided it should go to Birmingham, Alabama (BHM) instead of Bishop (BIH). With only one flight from Denver each day I was glad that it made it back to the airport the next evening. Unfortunately by then the van drivers had all timed out and I was unable to get my bag until the following morning. Thank you United Airlines for my new shirt, socks and ski pants. Even though I wasn’t skiing those ski pants came in handy as Mammoth had a truly mammoth amount of snow last season, 715 inches which is over 59.5 feet!

We stayed slopeside at the Juniper Springs Resort where some of the rooms on the first and second floor had plywood over the windows to keep them from getting crushed by the snow piled up outside. Yes, even on the second floor!

Juniper Springs Resort

I later took a long weekend trip to Crested Butte, Colorado with my Denver-based family in what is becoming an annual affair. While they drove up I was once again fortunate to find web specials on American through DFW for only 15.5K round-trip in economy – then I used my Amex Platinum airline credits to upgrade to premium economy. Unfortunately we were delayed getting in so I didn’t get to take photos or review our slopeside lodging. I did try skiing but only managed about a couple of hours on two days before deciding I needed more rehab and opting out of the third day. At least I got that one day of lift ticket reimbursed!

October

And that was all my traveling until my big trip in October. This year’s trip was a Mediterranean Cruise that began in Athens, Greece and ended in Venice, Italy. As my traveling companion had never been to Athens (I’d been on a Greek islands cruise in 2007) we went a few days early to see as much as we could cram into 2 days.  To reach Athens I flew a combination of American Airlines and Lufthansa.  On the trip from Venice I flew Iberia and United Airlines.

In Athens we stayed in the Academias Hotel, Autograph Collection where we were treated to a room with a view of the Parthenon.

Academias Hotel, Autograph Collection, Athens

We are veterans of river cruising with Viking but this was our first experience on one of their ocean vessels, the Viking Neptune, and we had a wonderful time and got to visit a new-to-us country, Montenegro, as well as some UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Viking Neptune

In the end

All-in-all it’s been another great year for travel and I feel so blessed to be able to go just about anywhere I want. I have three more ski trips lined up for next year and we’re already planning our 2024 international trip, quite possibly to Scandinavia!