Well, wasn’t 2020 a funny old year? We had probably planned more trips prior to 2020 that we had for a long time. We had saved up some money for short holidays throughout the year and had dreams of visiting the USA and spending time in Europe. As well as a lovely cruise around the Bahamas (swimming pigs will have to wait for another year) and starting to do some Caribbean island hopping.
That being said we still had some good times in 2020 even if we stayed in the smallest country in the Western hemisphere for the whole year! Here are our reflections on 2020, a look at what we got up to and our plans for 2021!
2020 Statistics
Number of trips taken: 1
In September we decided we needed a break from St Kitts. But with the borders being closed and most places requiring a quarantine on arrival we went with our only option for travel, the sister island of Nevis for a staycation.
Number of trips cancelled: 6
We had planned to go to Miami in March and spend 2 days exploring and shopping before boarding our Bahamas cruise. In April, we had booked a lovely layover in Barbados for 3 nights en route to the UK for my Mum’s 60th birthday. We were going to have a week catching up with friends and family. We had then planned to hop over to Italy in late April before flying back to St Kitts.
All these plans were cancelled so we didn’t arrange anything else until December when we had planned to go back to the UK and spend Christmas with our families. Unfortunately they went into lock-down again just before we were going to fly out. We made the decision to stay in St Kitts because it would have been a stupid idea to spend all that money to travel there and not be able to see anyone anyway.
Number of miles travelled: <200
We have only travelled around St Kitts and Nevis by can and by boat and across the narrows between the 2 islands.
Number of zoom meetings: 46953 (may be a slight exaggeration)
We have had weekly zoom meetings for work, a weekly zoom catch up with the family, and 3 times a week zoom workouts since September. That’s a lot of time on zoom.
Number of times on a boat: 16
This is a record for us because we both get really seasick! We have taken 2 catamaran trips. One sunset cruise around St Kitts for my birthday and one random Saturday of drunken antics going to Nevis.
We went 2 times on a dive boat. It would have been more, but the dive centre wasn’t allowed to operate until the end of the year. Finally, we had 6 round trips to Nevis on a water taxi. Once in January, February, March, June, August and September.
Highlights of the year
Being in a COVID-19 free country for the last 6 months of 2020 has been a blessing. Also knowing my friends and family are all being safe in the UK has alleviated some of the stress of living through a global pandemic.
Being able to socialise with friends and our island family and having some fantastic parties, bonfires and beach barbeques. We have made memories that will last forever.
Our wonderful staycation at The Hermitage on Nevis in September.
Getting our Instagram post about our stay at the Hermitage shared by the Nevis tourism board.
Having a few awesome weeks where friends and family came to visit in January and March. It was nice to play tourist with them around the island.
Discovering a fitness program that I actually enjoy and getting fitter, losing weight and being stronger than I have for years. I cannot recommend Kirbie enough.
Getting a puppy! Our little Roo came to us at just 2 days old. We spent weeks bottle feeding her every 2 hours day and night until she grew big and strong (and naughty).
Egg Day! A highlight of being in lock-down for 3 months was our weekly egg day. One of our friends has her own chickens so once a week we would go over to pick up a dozen eggs. If other people happened to be there at the same time, we would stand socially distanced and drink cheeky beers. Egg Day by the end of lockdown was kinda an excuse for a mini party but with a 7pm curfew we only had a few hours. It was great to see people though.
Meeting some great new friends and having lots of fun times with them, even if it’s only temporary we will definitely keep in touch.
Lows of the year
Being stuck in a 3-month total lockdown confined to our house/garden. From March to June we had nightly curfews from 7pm to 6am and designated shopping days. It was not fun spending half a day of queuing in the heat to get into the shop for a 20-minute dash. Added to this were the restrictions around the island, with police roadblocks asking where you were going every time you left the house. I think everyone struggled during this time and realised island fever is real.
Starting my new job in February but not actually getting to do it until August. I shifted from clinical practice to a teaching role but because of the lock-down ended up still helping out with emergencies and inpatients while we had no students.
Not being able to make it home for my Mum’s 60th birthday in April. We were going to go as a surprise but St Kitts closed it’s borders and we couldn’t leave.
Both of our mental health took a beating this year but we are doing much better now.
Cancelling going home for Christmas to see our families for the fear of being stuck in England. It sucked but it was a good choice.
All our cancelled trips.
Favourite blog posts of 2020
A Year on the Rock- 15 Things We Learnt in Our First Year Living Abroad– This post was fun to write looking back at what we learnt in our first year living abroad. Let us know if you want to see a part 2 in February!
Tsavo National Park Safari: Complete 3-day itinerary.– It was great reliving our best trip so far, the safari we did in Kenya in 2019. What an incredible time we had and we can’t wait to go on safari again.
25 Top Restaurants on St Kitts For All Budgets– We are massive foodies and writing this post of the top places to eat made us appreciate how much choice we have on our tiny island. We just hope some of the places that have been closed since Covid-19 make a come back in the new year.
Let us know in the comments which of our posts was your favourite this year!
Plans for 2021
Hopefully go home in April 2021 to finally visit family and friends. It will be 19 months since we last went back to the UK if we manage to make the trip.
As far as trips go, we have nothing else planned. We are hopeful that as the vaccine is rolled out, we can go some of the places we had planned to visit in 2020. Also to finally do some island hopping around the Caribbean!
Explore more of our little island while we can’t travel anywhere internationally. We have plans to do some hiking, scuba diving and another staycation on Nevis.
Get the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as we are able to.
Keep practising gratitude everyday for the little things in life we can appreciate.
Work on more kick ass content for the blog! If there is anything you would like to see here please let me know. Also any feedback is appreciated, and it makes all the time and energy I pour into this blog worth it 😊
Thanks for following our journey so far, here’s hoping 2021 will bring great things! What are your plans for 2021? Let us know in the comments!
