Our 2025 Review – Looking Forward Instead of Back

We have travelled to 45 new countries since we published our first bucketlist in 2021!

Therefore, this year we approached our annual tradition of writing a personal review a little differently. Instead of simply looking back at what we’ve achieved, we want to look forward – to all the adventures yet to come.

Travel has a funny way of evolving with you. Some of the destinations we hadn’t even considered have quietly made their way to the top of our list. And that’s exactly what makes updating our bucketlist every year so much fun: it’s not just about ticking boxes, but about rediscovering what truly excites us.

So this post combines our annual reflection with a fresh look at our ever-growing bucketlist – see where we’ve been, where we still dream of going.

• Our New Bucketlist
  • North and South America
  • Europe
  • Africa
  • Australia and Oceania
  • Asia

Our New Bucketlist

If you want to see how far we’ve come, here’s our 2023 bucketlist for comparison. Spoiler: We have ticked off 25 countries since then.

Behind the scenes

Our New Bucketlist (2023)

Reorganizing our bucketlist after 2 years of travelling and 25 new countries. We still want to do a road trip in the USA, go on a safari in Africa, see the South Sea, and enjoy the beaches of the Maldives!

Carina

07.06.2023 Last updated · 6 min read

Open blogpost

North and South America

We would still love to do a road trip in the USA: From California via Nevada to Utah.

In 2025, we finally made it to South America. We had to cut our trip short so we are still missing Bolivia and Chile.

Additionally, we would love to visit more Caribbean islands– maybe on a cruise?

Europe

We have ticked off the majority of our Europe bucketlist.

Norway is still missing and we can’t help but wonder if we should go on a cruise, travel by train, or go wild camping….

Our planned travels to Ukraine and Russia have still not taken place for the obvious reason.

Africa

This part remains mostly unchanged. We only managed to tick off Tunisia 😅

In Africa, we mainly plan to do two things: diving and going on safaris. We want to visit loads of national parks in Namibia before heading south to South Africa. There, we would love to dive with sharks (ethically and without encouraging a change in their behaviour and being in a cage). We would also love to dive in Mozambique as we have only heard amazing things about it. Additionally, we would like to visit loads of national parks in Tanzania and Kenya.

Australia and Oceania

We have not made it to this region of the world yet.

We have been dreaming about the paradise islands of the South Sea for the longest time – above all French Polynesia. Australia has only recently been added to our bucketlist – first and foremost the Whitsunday Islands on the east coast and Hamelin Bay on the west coast. We feel like we have to explain the last one: Hamelin Bay is one of the very few places in the world where you can see living Stromatolites. They are one of the first life forms in the fossil record and were extremely abundant 1.25 billion years ago (for your reference the dinosaurs evolved around 250 million years ago).

Another weird item on our bucketlist is Wellington, New Zealand. When we were young, there was a TV show called The Tribe which was filmed in Wellington. It was pretty popular in Germany so give us a shoutout in the comments if you know it!

Asia

Let’s end this blog post on a high note, shall we? We have ticked off a lot of our Asia bucketlist in the last two years.

India, Oman and the Maldives are the top contestants remaining. Which is wild because the Maldives have been at the top of our bucketlist for ages and yet we somehow never make it there. Maybe next year…

While ticking off the majority of our Asia bucketlist, a new set of countries appeared on our bucketlist: We would love to visit Central Asia because the region around Kasachstan, Usbekistan, Kirgisistan, and Tajikistan looks stunning.