2012, more travels, more destinations…?

I was laying on my bed, staring into the ceiling, looking at nothing. But my mind was elsewhere, ruminating, pondering. Where will I go? What will I do? What new things to discover this year, 2012? Such wide open questions but not immediately needing answers.

Of course, I need to finish off all three provinces that I still haven’t visited: Zamboanga Sibugay, Apayao and Siquijor. That’s definite. To finally and proudly say I’ve done it!. How many Filipinos have just done the feat? Ivan About Town is one that I know of. And I’m very much confident that there’s a few more.

Last year, I was planning of traveling nonstop around the Philippines with no route being tracked back. However, Journeying James have already set forth his 100 days plan so I might have to go back to the drawing board.

Indonesia end to end was also one of the options. Let’s just see. But lately, especially in the last few months of 2011, I’ve been thinking of doing month long stays in remote places to better appreciate these less visited areas: Batanes, some small islands in Palawan, Sibutu…

While I had a great travel year in 2011, it is but natural to expect that this year will even be better. But does that mean more foreign destinations? More trips locally? Or go for something different? I’ve been to most places in the country, I think, a better mileage than many travel bloggers out there. But for me, most tourist places are becoming tourist traps and are boring and festivals are becoming templates of each other.

Well, let’s just see. The best travels I had were those that were spur of the moment than planned. Where the adrenaline rush was seeing a piece of beautiful architecture for the first time, swimming in a not so discovered strip of beach in some remote islets. Where the sense of awe was profound, like when coming face to face with the remaining four pillars of the oldest mosque in the country in far off Simunul.

Let 2012 just unfold naturally and I’m sure I will always be on the road to somewhere.