2025 End of Year – Where Will We Go in 2026?

End of year 2025
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Meggan: [00:00:00] Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Travel Mug Podcast. We cannot believe it, but here we are at the end of another year, 2025. Where did you go? Where did it go?

Jenn: I have no idea, but here, here we are. It is winter yet again.

Meggan: I feel like I'll be talking, complain about is

Jenn: I feel like this is like, do you think this is a very Canadian thing to do? Do other people complain about the weather in other countries?

Meggan: Or, or make it like their entire personality.

Jenn: yeah, yeah. I, I know someone, um, who's originally from India and I was speaking with her and I was like, oh yeah, like it is getting pretty cold out. And she was like, this talking about weather thing is so weird to me because where I'm from, it's just, it's hot. Like you don't talk about it. It just is.

Meggan: What would we talk about here if we didn't

Jenn: I

Meggan: about

Jenn: know.[00:01:00]

Meggan: I mean, it it is, it is very, it feels very Canadian, but do let us know, folks if it's something that in your home country all you talk about as well. but it did feel like the year just started. But here we are, at the end with 2026 on the horizon and entering our sixth year of podcasting that's even crazier than the

Jenn: It is. It is like, I really can't believe that it's been six years since I sent you a message to say, will you start a podcast with me?

Meggan: The, and then it took me six years to respond.

Jenn: Not quite. Just three months. It's fine. Yeah.

Meggan: just three months. It's all, it's

Jenn: Yeah.

Meggan: a few exciting things about going into 2026 is that I think we are both possibly we'll get updates in a moment, going to make it out on international trips if all goes well. And I also turn 50. So a lot [00:02:00] to look forward to and be grateful for.

Jenn: Yeah, a big birthday. Yeah.

Meggan: I

Jenn: I'm gonna turn 36, which is like less of an exciting birthday, you know?

Meggan: I'd rather be turning 36 just just for the record, but I mean, 50 is better than the alternative, so.

Jenn: True story.

Meggan: I will take it. So looking back at our year in podcasting 2025, we continue to see positive growth with our top listener countries being the us, Australia, the uk, and Canada. Have I got that correct?

Jenn: Yeah. Yeah. Very exciting. Thank you, all of you. No matter if you're in those countries or not. Uh, thank you. Thank you for hanging out with us. And listening to us yap away about our travels. It's, it's been, uh, it's been really great and we've had some really fun and informative and special guests and some few, uh, trip reports.

We did, [00:03:00] we did get to do things, um, you know, we got to do some new things. I went to the Yukon. You went to Barcelona, and I think that we shared some really interesting and useful information for our listeners, and I hope that they were able to use that. I hope that you listening out there were able to use that when you were booking your trips.

Meggan: Definitely, and I think that that's the whole purpose of what we're trying to do here. A, have fun, um, b talk about where we're able to go as well, but c and almost really important, most importantly, is helping people with our little tidbits as well, knowing that we're not travel experts or travel, we don't, it's not our career, but just through experience and through research and through guests sharing some things to help people.

And I think that's, that's the

Jenn: Mm-hmm.

Meggan: And it's also really fun. I don't know about you, Jenn, but every once in a while I go through the list of countries where people are downloading and listening and then seeing places like. Tasmania, Vietnam and South Korea, like just to name a few. I [00:04:00] think sometimes, for me anyway, I don't know about you, but I lose sight of the fact that this little show, is enjoyed by people literally around the world, and I think that that's so incredible.

Jenn: Yeah. Yeah, that is super cool. For sure.

Meggan: So before we sign off for the year, which is mind boggling, what are your upcoming potential travel plans?

Jenn: Well, Meggan, I saved this for the podcast. We booked Copenhagen on the.

Meggan: Oh my goodness. Cheers and kudos to

Jenn: Yay. We're gonna leave Canada. Um, yeah, so we booked one week in Copenhagen, Denmark for uh, like end of May, beginning of June. So we've literally just booked the flights and we've just kind of started putting together like some stuff that we might wanna do and making a list of, uh, some potential like accommodations.

Uh, so that is [00:05:00] very exciting. So WestJet announced a direct flight, nonstop flight from Halifax to Copenhagen a couple weeks ago. And it, I, I felt really excited about it and it, to be honest with you, like it was the first time I felt like excited about planning something in like a really long time. So I, I had to like, grab onto that, you know what I mean?

So we definitely. Uh, are looking forward to that. I also have plans to go to Calgary in September for a wedding, and I'm really looking forward to that. My husband has never been to Alberta and I haven't been since I was like 15 or 16. So those are probably gonna be our two major trips for the year.

I'm hoping to squeeze in some more like short weekend trips as well. I really, really enjoyed our short Christmas trip to Toronto, which, um, you guys heard about in an episode, a few back or one back. So I'd love to pull off another one of [00:06:00] those to a different city in Canada, but we'll see. How about you, Meggan?

What do you have on the docket?

Meggan: Well, uh, we do have a few things planned and some things sort of in mind. So we do have a couple of local weekend trips booked for both January and February to get us out of the house during the winter. , We are hoping to get to Toronto ourselves, uh, in 2026, sometime in the summer, potentially to see a weekend of Blue Jay's baseball, but. We, it's not good over here. We haven't talked much about it yet because it is still a very sensitive topic in this house after their near miss at the World Series. Yeah, that was like a, a, a really bad weekend. So we're not looking to relive that part anytime soon. But I am hoping once the new year rolls around, uh, we can hopefully get tickets and accommodations and then just like watch for a seat sale.

That's kind of the plan. , Our big trip we have booked right now is. Portugal in early May. Like I said, I turned 50 in [00:07:00] March, but I don't really wanna travel then March isn't. Excellent most of the time for traveling, unless you're going of course, like, uh, to the Caribbean or something. So I did wanna wait a bit. So that'll essentially be to celebrate that milestone. Everything for that is already booked. Um, and who knows what we'll do in the fall of 2026. I know we'll be missing our annual trip to Bar Harbor, but not sure that will happen right now. So we'll really see what the rest of 2026 brings. Who knows?

Maybe I'll piggyback off you and head to Copenhagen in the fall. Who

Jenn: Who knows. Who knows? Yeah. Let me, uh, do it first and uh, try it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, very exciting. So yeah, I'm, I am was very excited to have, uh, WestJet and Air Canada announce, uh, some more nonstop flights from Halifax. So that gives us more options and we love. We love.

Meggan: We do indeed. And I think it's gonna be exciting, um, for you guys to get, for you to get back to Alberta and for Ryan to visit. , It is a beautiful [00:08:00] province once you get outside of like the major cities. I love it there. The, the mountains are just so gorgeous and it's, it's, it's a really interesting place. So that'll be really

Jenn: Yeah. Yeah. My like teenage dream was to move to Canmore. That was my like big

Meggan: Understood

Jenn: plan, which obviously I didn't do, but, um, I will be interested to go back there and see how I feel about it as 20 years later.

Meggan: I think you'll still

Jenn: I am. I'm sure I will. Yeah. Yeah.

Meggan: indeed.

Jenn: Very exciting. So, uh, listeners out there, please let us know what you have planned for 2026.

We love to hear from you so you can find us on social media. Uh, we're on Instagram and Facebook at Travel Mug Podcast. We're on YouTube. We have a website, travel mug podcast.com. There's lots of places to come hang out with us. Uh, and if you could give us a little [00:09:00] wee holiday gift. It would be to share the show with a travel loving pal so that we can have more travel friends. You can also support the show by leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or you could buy us a coffee. The link is in the show notes. That makes us very happy, and until next time, we'll see you in 2026. bye.

Meggan: bye, everyone. Happy New Year.