A Final List & Some Interesting Results

An updated list of our travel agent's planned trips plus my family's favorites

I’m a little jealous.

One year ago, I wrote about my top travel tip (other than what you should pack): use a travel agent. I’ve recently given her contact information to multiple families, and I’ll admit I’m a little jealous of the travel they’re hopefully going to do with her expert guidance.

Why is travel so important to our family? I invite you to read my recent piece answering this question.

As my family continues to prepare for moving back to the U.S. next month after four-and-a-half years in Germany, I want to provide you (and myself) an updated list of the adventures that our travel agent has planned for us.

Recap & Update: Who is Our Travel Agent?

Alyssa is a Travel Consultant with TravelAble; she has a website and a Facebook page. One of the many things I appreciate about her is her clear, organized emails. She delivers an itinerary in a personalized link that includes any bookings (e.g. hotels, excursion tickets) and other recommendations for the places you’ll be visiting (e.g. restaurants). You can even download an app after booking a trip and get updates, such as flight delays, pushed to your phone.

I often hear that people prefer to have control over their travel plans, and I understand that. I certainly like to have control in many aspects of life. 😉 But I do tend to get overwhelmed easily, so when it comes to travel I appreciate having a professional help refine my requests and narrow down options - then I can dig in and do some of my own research before getting booking assistance.

From the beginning, Alyssa considered objective factors such as our preferred (or required) travel dates and driving tolerance to suggest stops connecting components of a trip. As she’s gotten to know us over the last four-and-a-half years, her activity suggestions have become a lot more tailored (for example, she knows how much my older son enjoys food tours, so that’s usually one of her first suggestions).

The first piece I wrote about our travel agent trips ended with Disneyland Paris in 2025. Here is an updated list of all 22 trips she has planned for us:

2022

• Summer Road Trip to Luxembourg, Paris, Brussels, Bruges, Amsterdam

• Fall Break Road Trip to Lucerne, Milan, Venice, Salzburg, Prague

2023

• February in Austria: Linz, Vienna, Hallstatt

• April in Disneyland Paris

• Summer in Cologne, Pairi Daiza, Cochem

• Summer in Spain: Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona, Mallorca

• Fall Break in Greece: Athens, Santorini, Crete

2024

• February in Italy: Rome, Bologna, Perugia

• Spring Break in London and Scotland

• Summer in Sicily: Syracuse, Palermo, Naxos, Taormina, Catania

• Summer in Ireland: Belfast, Galway, Killarney, Kilkenny, Dublin

• Fall Break in Croatia: Dubrovnik, Split

• November in Disneyland Paris

• Winter Break in Norway: Oslo, Geilo, Bergen

2025

• February in France: Lyon, Nice, Annecy, Colmar

• Spring Break in Lubeck, Copenhagen, Billund, Hamburg, The Hague

• May in Disneyland Paris

• Summer in Italy: Florence, Tuscany, Sorrento

• Summer in Crete

• Fall Break in Japan: Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka

2026

• February in Budapest

• Spring Break in Thailand: Bangkok, Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, Phuket

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Spring Break 2025 was the subject of my first travel-related Substack piece. As you can see, there is so much travel we did before that. I’d love to write about trips we took before I joined this platform. I’ll be returning to employment after a leave of absence, so I don’t know how that will affect my presence on Substack. But when I’m ready and able, I’d love to write about what you want to know. Let me know which of the above trips you hope I cover!

As you contemplate the list, consider my family’s favorites; as we sat in Bamberg last month (a last-minute travel agent-less trip), I asked everyone “What was your favorite trip of all the ones we’ve taken?”

My 7-year-old:

🥇Japan (“because of the stuffies” and it was just “really cool”)

🥇Thailand (“because of playing ping pong in Phuket and the resorts and hotels we stayed at”)

Left: Japan; Right: Thailand (apparently I don't have any pictures of them playing ping pong, but this was the same place.)

My 11-year-old:

🥇Greece

🥇Japan

🥇Thailand

When I asked, “Can you pick a favorite?” he replied, “No!”

Left: Greece, when S discovered his love of squid; Middle: Japan, where S enjoyed cooking ramen and many other foods; Right: Thailand, where S' favorite dish in Bangkok was this soup

My Husband:

🥇Scotland

Hiking in Skye

Me:

🥇Greece

🥇Florence/Tuscany/Sorrento

Left: Oia, Santorini, Greece; Right: Cooking class in Tuscany

Even though we had some non-overlapping favorites, every trip has had positive memories - and some stinkers - that brought us closer together and will remain part of the value of our life abroad.

Where will we go next?

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