Father-Daughter Trip to the Belem District in Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

Unless you were busy being born these past few years (and I’m not talking about Bob Dylan’s “being born”, I’m talking about popping out of a womb), you know how much the COVID-19 Pandemic changed our lives. In a nutshell, it sucked ass. Among the death, fear, hysteria, depression and political division it left in its wake, it kept us from doing one of the things most of us love to do - travel.

I hadn’t left the country since a January 2020 trip to Guadalajara, Mexico with my daughter. And we love to travel. Not to mention my personal “Places I want to Visit Before I Kick the Bucket” list is pretty damn long. So with the cooling of the pandemic, it was finally time to get on a plane and go somewhere again. And after waiting so long, it had to be an epic trip.

Now my video production business pretty much drops dead after the first week of December which leaves me with an open month to plan a long getaway. The last one being an 18 day Christmas trip to Spain in December of 2018. I was considering a return trip to Spain (Madrid > Toledo > Cuenca > Valencia > Barcelona) but getting to my family in Galicia, Spain in time for Christmas was going to require an additional flight (and who really wants to be in an airport a day before Christmas Eve?). ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).