Travel Recap 2025 - Slow Roadtrips, Spontainety and Africa

They say all blog posts need to have a value for a reader.

Well, too bad, I just wanted to write a travel recap of the year 2025. You are welcome to join the journey to get yourself entertained, inspired or bored. 

Ps. I do recommend doing an annual recap, whether it’s about travels or life in general. It’s nice way to get an overview, and also nice to look back years later. 

Let’s go!

The 3 Hs referred to in the title would be: Helsinki, Hikes and Home.

I started the year in freezing cold Helsinki, and then flew back home to Alicante with a friend.

Manna was visiting in Alicante. She is my great friend from Finland. 

We had good times by hiking Penyon de Ifach (although I call it Penyon de Sini, as I hike it every birthday)

Anyway, the January travel highlights were staying in and around Alicante.

“Winter” in Spain is our hiking season. 

To be honest, when I am writing this post now in December, I can’t really remember what happened in February. 

But phone pics showed me hiking memories, for example from Puig Campana - highest little mountain nearby us here.

We finally set our home at Home Exchange, and did the first one in Javea. Also an area near Alicante in Costa Blanca.

We got to stay in a lovely place with a big pool and lots of hiking paths nearby for free.

Although we had our frictions about letting random people for free to our home with the HomeExchange, but it really paid off even as a first experience.

I mean we stayed for a few nights in a nice place, that would normally cost maybe 100€/night.

And the annual subscription of Home Exchange was 180€, so kind of worth it already with first exchange.

To be honest, during the beginning of the year I was not in a good place mentally.

To be very honest, I was very depressed and anxious.

So the main reason for the Javea trip was that I went to therapy nearby there.

It was actually weird to have a beginning of a year without going to Morocco, as past few year that has been a nice reoccurring pattern.

(Most of the times I went to LavidaSurf)

But this February was more about inner journey back towards light, than external journeys to explore the globe.

We thought this month would be the ultimate travel month of the year.

(And it definitely was, before we knew about the trips later this year.)

During the Easter time we had planned to finally go to Safari to Africa.

But after some comparison, destinations like Tanzania and South Africa were very difficult to fly to from Spain (or at least from Alicante) and also Safaris there were quite pricey.

So as we typically do, we decided to open ourselves for other experiences as well and giving more role for the universe to decide.

Practically, this means for us browsing Skyscanner with setting destination as Anywhere and checking flight connections from Flightconnections.

We discovered that we can get cheaply and with direct 4-hour flights from Madrid to Dakar in Senegal.

So just like that we switched the destination to Senegal, and to make it more interesting, decided to discover Gambia at the same go.

This was definitely a great 2-week adventure in these lesser-known and less-travelled African countries.

You can read my best travel tips to Senegal here: Senegal travel guide.

We arrived back to Spain from our Gambia and Senegal trip.

The night we flew back, was actually the national blackout in Spain - the whole Iberian Peninsula was out of electricity.

As we were in Africa, we didn't even bat an eye first, as we kind of got used to electricity cuts there (in Gambia electricity cut completely especially during football matches :D ).

So we thought it was something in Dakar Airport. Well, luckily our flight was not cancelled, and when arriving to Madrid, it was so awesome to see light pollution from plane in Madrid. The electricity had just been restored before we landed. :D

We spent a night in Madrid, just to spend one night at home before heading to next little nearby adventure.

We had a family from Madrid coming to our place via HomeExchange, so we decided to go to Xativa.

It’s another sleepy village between Alicante and Valencia with nice hiking paths and nature.

We stayed in a cottage (for free again via HomeExchange), did some hikes and stole some Nisperos from trees nearby.

I read again an entire book in a day, that I happened to find at the HomeExchange place, stayed offline and simply slowed down.

This was not all for May - we still travelled to a new country.

We got another trip via HomeExchange, at the end of May to Croatian Capital Zagreb.

I gotta say, it exceeded all my expectations.

The city was modern with cute cafeterias and book stores, but very cool, old buildings.

We did a long walk to a nearby lake and enjoyed local food markets, atmosphere and the cool vibe of discovering a new country.

I weirdly felt with Croatian people something familiar to Finnish people.

So it was an interesting feeling of being abroad, but I also felt at home there.

We even thought of relocating there at some point for a few months, as people spoke English so well, food was good and I loved the vibe of the cafeterias and botanic gardens.

This month was simply awesome. I got my cousin for a visit to our place in Alicante.

When having a visitor, it always lets you rediscover the nice stuff in your home town like a traveller.

We did a little day trip to Tabarca island, chilled at the beach and ate out.

In general, I just love June in Alicante. It’s not too hot yet, but it’s very warm and there are not that many tourists yet.

But we did not stay the whole month there; actually we still travelled to three countries during June.

First, my boyfriend Matt had a work trip to Hamburg and Bremen in Germany.

The awesome thing is, he got to rent a car during the time there, to make the client visits easier.

I was lucky to join him. I had earlier been to Hamburg, but this time I discovered much nicer areas and cooler, younger vibe of Hamburg with alternative places, vegan restaurants and tasty lattes.

We had an unfortunate event as well, though; the first day we started this over 1-month-long travel, I got a call from the Police in Spain.

Our car had been broken into, with the back glass completely smashed in.

This felt so unfair, as we had parked there many times before with no issues, and now that we will be gone for over a month, it had to happen during the first day.

Well, we had a friend who went to duct tape it a bit, and we had to postpone making the police report for later, as in Spain you can only make it by visiting a police station.

Oh well, I did some yoga, tried to let go although it was hard, and we moved on with our trip to next German city Bremen.

Bremen was a surprisingly positive surprise. I mean, I did not expect much from a small northern German city, I thought it’s just another uptight place with functional stuff and good Pretzels.

But it was actually cool.

I mean there was an impromptu rave party in front of a medieval church.

That’s a vibe.

Also, there was an awesome food market - I ended up having super good Ukrainian food.

From Germany, we continued by car to Netherlands.

Practically this means blasting Ausländer and Deutschland by Rammstein in rental car loudspeakers and accelerating through the German autobahns.

We went to Matt’s parents' place, as they were throwing a little birthday party, and just enjoyed the Dutch summer, meeting Matt’s family and cycling around.

My absolute favourite things in Netherlands everytime we visit are: borrowing Matt’s parents electric bikes and going for a long cycling trip through the flat lands and rubbing some donkeys and sheep on the way.

The other favorite is pancake restaurants.

They have awesome ones everywhere around Netherlands, and I make sure we visit one every time we go there, and this time wasn’t an exception.

Well what were the 3 fines and what’s the 4th country?

Well, somehow we managed to get 3 fines with the rental car.

One was from Bremen from parking wrong, although we paid special attention that it was free parking.

One was from driving too fast in urban area of Bremen.

(so far about me liking Bremen for not being uptight.)

And the third one; driving too fast towards Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands (I guess we got a bit too used to no-speed-limits-Germany.)

Oh well, we headed from Amsterdam to Helsinki - to spend the best month in the best place = July in Finland.

This year we fell in love with travelling by car again.

And well, in Finland my parents, many friends and family live basically in the middle of nowhere, so staying a month in Finland without a car was not an option.

So we mini-leased a car for a month to spend an awesome Finnish summer, finally with the freedom to travel anywhere with our own car, and enjoying the summer at its fullest.

This July in Finland really healed something in me.

It was so great to re-connect with old friends, go to local festival, do long roadtrips, enjoy the surprisingly warm Finnish summer, and join my friend’s Bachelorette party.

Honestly could not have wished for more.

Only thing I wish I could have changed is that I wish I did not worry about our car, that was out there with a broken window in Spain, and my friend did not actually find the car at all when going to look for it.

Well, later turned out, she was just looking from a wrong parking and all was fine, so once again, my worrying was for nothing.

Okay, this is so cool what happened in August.

Actually when we were in Senegal in April, we got a Home Exchange request from a couple to come for two weeks in August to our place.

We had no plans, but we thought, this is exactly the reason we installed this app; to have people who want to stay longer, so we can also get more points to travel longer.

Since we moved to Spain, I have wanted to do a roadtrip to Portugal.

And now we finally did it.

We travelled across the whole Iberian Peninsula in a day; leaving 6am from Alicante, arriving 7pm to Lisbon.

I had found a fantastic home exchange from Lisbon for a week for us with a big balcony and generally a great place with nice location. (Again, for free, due to home exchange)

It was actually very hot in Lisbon these days, but it would have been the same back at home in Alicante.

So we enjoyed the big city vibes with English stand-up comedy, cool rooftop bars, cozy cafeterias and pilates and reading at the balcony.

Once again, I found an awesome book at the Home Exchange; Mind Magic.

This turned out to be one of the best self help books I’ve read.

Btw, all of my Self help book suggestions here: 18 spiritual books to read

After a week in Lisbon and its surroundings, I had booked as a seaside place in a smaller town up north in Figueira da Foz.

The temperature here in August was awesome; around 24 degrees and sunny. We had a long beach with sunsets to enjoy, nice, simple place to work from and a rooftop to do yoga and breathwork at.

On our way back, we did the same as on the way to Lisbon; we drove back all the way to Alicante in one day.

During that time there were some forest fires in Portugal and Spain, but luckily our road did not get affected by that.

Actually, on the same day we returned home, we had my parents coming for a visit.

On September, after the travel-heavy months (of which I’m super grateful for), we just wanted to settle down at home and enjoy Alicante.

However, we had one of the most meaningful trips of the year in September.

It was a long weekend trip to Helsinki to my dear friend’s wedding, where I had the honour to be maid of honour.

It was a weekend full of love, and also a different experience of Home country capital Helsinki for me.

Normally, we would stay at friends or family, but this time for 3 nights and this special weekend we decided to book a nice hotel in Helsinki centre.

We enjoyed most importantly the wedding and everything around it, but also Spas and saunas and Finland’s oldest rooftop bar.

We were not planning to travel in October.

However, we did two awesome trips.

First, to our previous hometown Valencia, where I met with a fantastic person and Ayurvedic Doctor for a healing treatment.

We stayed in a nice hotel and overall, the little getaway was a heartwarming experience and showed us Valencia in a positive light, which it wasn’t always when living there.

The main trip of the month happened, once again due to home exchange.

We had people coming to our place for a week, so we were just looking where could we go.

We decided to do the most delicious trip ever: roadtrip to Italian Tuscany.

We flew to Rome and rented a car for a week, visiting vineyards, cute roads and the most delicious Italian restaurants.

I started calling myself an apostle, as I needed bread, wine and olive oil every evening. (How can something so simple taste so good?!?)

I will definitely write the best destinations and tips for Tuscany here to Slow Travel Repeat once I have time. (You'll find it here eventually)

Funny thing was, the day we flew back from Rome, we went almost directly to a Halloween house party with friends.

Well, not really related to travelling but it was also epic (although how come people did not know my character, Wednesday Addams?!?!).

They say “Don’t be surprised how quickly the Universe moves once you’ve decided.”

So, my passport was about to expire, so I knew I would not travel anymore before going to Finland for Christmas.

Well, I thought I could renew it remotely, or wait until then, but in the end I had to do it via the embassy in Spain.

This was quite expensive, so with my girl math logic, I said that if I manage to get my passport renewed still before Christmas, I am going to Morocco!

Morocco is a country I always love going back to (been there now 10 times).

And just when I got my new passport, I got a message from a friend from Morocco, if I would be available to come to help with some tasks at their retreat centre in Morocco.

I definitely took this as a sign from the Universe, and booked the next available direct flights.

And just like that, I got surprised by the awesomeness of the universe and found myself in rural Morocco doing acro yoga, taking deep inhales, photographing the vibe of the place and eating awesome, vegetarian meals.

This post is very much becoming an Instagram kind of writing, as I am just hyping up awesome things, but so be it.

Because I still got to also experience something new in Morocco; my boyfriend joined me in Morocco for my birthday, and we headed to an awesome luxury camp in Agafay Desert.

Honestly, I can’t think more of my kind of destination than Be Agafay.

The place, vibe, mood and everything was awesome and I got to switch to 33rd year of my life with Pilates, Pancakes and Pool in Desert.

So, coming back from Morocco was supposed to be a nice flight together, 1.12.

Well, there happened to be two direct flights from Marrakech to Alicante on the same day, and Matt had booked the later one. 😀

So I travelled home alone six hours earlier, and he came home 2am.

Anyway, we did not have many days home, as we went to Benidorm for a long weekend with a home exchange.

The goal was to hike my birthday hike.

Going up Penyon de Ifach (aka Penyon de Sini) is a routine I’ve done every birthday for the last three years.

Unfortunately, it did not happen as we both got sick with fever, and ended up just resting and admiring the seaviews and sunrises in our getaway accommodation.

The last trip of the year; is of course to winter wonderland and Santa’s and Sini’s home country, Finland.

Christmas in Finland consists of traditional, warmhearted activities, like christmas sauna, rice porridge, board games, meeting families and friends and eating lots of chocolate.

That was my 2025 travel recap - what a year to be grateful for! Let's see what adventures 2026 brings.

I, of course, have some dreams where I would want t end up, but as always, I don't set them in stone, in order to leave room for spontaneity and spiritual interventions. :D