We have been back for 6 months (already!) and this is the first time, I am sitting down with an urge to write and share my thoughts. While checking my last post about Plitvice in Croatia, I couldn’t believe so much time has passed since my last traveling story. Coming home was, the least to say, challenging and crazy. Our timing to come home was perfect, we thought. We came back just on time for winter, we thought. I was so excited to go up the Swiss mountains I had missed so much: my traveling backpack was hastily put away in the basement, swiftly replaced by my snowshoes. We were ready. But winter decided to delay its arrival and we waited, waited for snow to arrive. Even tho we had a non-white Christmas *dislike* and no time in the mountains, we were constantly busy: between job interviews, weekends spent with friends and family and settling back into the civilized routine, we didn’t see November, December, January nor February go by.

Being back home has been great: we both found a job we like, M finally moved to Luzern (he did survive my M&MS on the road: Moods, Mess and Sarcasm so we thought why not live together) and after a few months of focusing on our new jobs, it felt natural to ask each other our favorite question: where to next… I started traveling in 2005 and back in the days, this question would have been answered in the blink of an eye. Anywhere really I would have said?! Nowadays, this is a complete different story! Sharing my life with another passionate traveler has definitely made this question harder to answer! Namibia? Sorry done that! Myanmar? Oh right, you went there already! ? China? Yeah yeah yeah, let me guess, this country belongs to the long list of the countries you explored without me. Sigh.

Who would have thought picking a destination we both want to explore would be that hard? Especially since we are looking for a destination which is “friendly” in December (read: it must be warm) and possibly not that touristy. This, my friends, frantically shortens our options. After months of research and discussions, we have found a common continent we are really keen to discover: Africa! Namibia, Malawi, Botswana,  Zambia, Tanzania and South Africa are off the table as either of one us has been to those gorgeous counties already but we finally came up with our Top 5 for 2017: Sierra Leone, Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Liberia. Have you been to one of those countries? Any cool itinerary for a 3-week backpacking exploration you are dying to share with us?

Happy trails and remember: Carpe Diem!

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