2025 was a strong year, with a varied collection of trips covering many of my travel interests: an inaugural flight from a new country; an in-depth tour of rarely-visited islands; an international train journey as warm-up for a 2500 mile rail-and-sail epic; and a climbing competition via a new long haul business class experience. In fact, I spent so much time away that I’ve struggled to keep this site up to date, with coverage of the last trip still work in progress… As I chip away at that, I figured I should at least put together my usual annual summary. So here’s how the year looked from various angles.
Flights
After 2024’s relatively light schedule, 2025 saw a new record for my most flights in a calendar year, with 25. This was the year of the ATR72 – an aircraft I had never flown on until May, but have now logged a dozen departures on across three airlines (also all new to me). Driving this volume was a change in my work – I’ve become an aerial commuter, joining Aer Lingus on secondment and averaging a couple of days per month at their Dublin headquarters.
Unsurprisingly, these weren’t long flights: that first Exeter – Guernsey on Aurigny was briefly my shortest ever, at 97 miles; a Nordic Regional Airlines service covered just 63 across the gulf of Finland for the first leg of a Tallinn – Helsinki – London itinerary; and what should have been my last flight of the year technically went nowhere, diverting back to Dublin for repairs. I still managed a healthy total distance flown, however, at over 20,000 great circle miles – likely much further in reality, with another polar routing from Asia to Europe:
That was part of a six flight BA / Finnair epic to Korea via France and Finland which featured my most luxurious flight of the year: 11+ hours in business on an A350 is a vastly different experience to an economy hop on an ATR. Also notable was the inaugural BA flight from Tbilisi, another relatively lengthy business class stint. I came into 2025 hoping for a bit more variety on the aviation front, and with five new airlines and nine new airports, I think I found it!
Accommodation
Also reaching new highs was my total nights away, with fully eight weeks worth spread across 32 stays – all in hotels apart from a studio apartment on Sark. Obviously my trips to Ireland boosted the numbers, with 11 nights spent at Dublin airport.
Radisson properties accounted for 21 nights, as I had gained their top-tier VIP status late last year, and wanted to make the most of the upgrades, discounts and free breakfasts. I also spent ten nights in Accor properties, but other chains saw little activity: 2 stays with IHG, a single night with Hilton, and nothing at all for Marriott.
I can’t decide on a highlight between the Intercontinental Ljubljana and the Sofitel Ambassador Seoul – a nice problem to have, as these would both normally be well out of my price range. For once, I don’t have any unusual lodgings to report on – although I did spend a night at sea whilst travelling from Sweden to Finland, I count that as transport rather than accommodation.
Loyalty
I flew enough to earn silver status in Alaska’s Atmos Rewards programme, but frustratingly problems with getting partner flights to credit (or Alaska to help) means I’ll miss out, with only 17K points added to my balance. Proving that it’s more about credit cards than miles flown these days, I far more easily racked up 24K points with Virgin Atlantic, plus an upgrade voucher. On the avios front, I remain firmly in burn mode, with only transfers from Nectar adding to my stash. As well as some part-pay-with-avios, I put 8000 points towards a Club Europe flight to Verona, saving £146 against the cash equivalent (although, I’d likely have flown economy instead, so it’s not a true discount). A couple of weeks ago I dropped another 29K on what would otherwise be prohibitively expensive business class seats – but that’s a story for next year…
As mentioned, Radisson Rewards was the focus of my hotel loyalty, and although I didn’t officially meet the targets to renew VIP status, they must have deemed my efforts good enough (or taken pity on all those airport nights) as I’ve been gifted another year anyway. I also collected over 60,000 points, but where once that would mean a free night, these days it translates to less than £90 of credit. Radisson should continue to get the majority of my stays in 2026, although I have also signed up for the new Currensea debit card that confers status with Marriott, so they might get some attention too!
Systematic Travel
In 2024 I set foot in more countries than any other year – apart from this one, when I pushed my score to 15. Six were new – Turkey, Georgia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Estonia and South Korea – which is also a record, and keeps me comfortably on pace for ’50 by 50′. Whilst some of these were brief visits, I managed depth as well as breadth through my tour of the Bailiwick of Guernsey: Sark and Herm are both decidedly niche destinations.
Sadly I continue to sink down the Nomadmania rankings, with only 10 new regions added; and as I’m treating the US as off-limits under the current government, it could be a few years before my state collection grows.
