Category: Reflections

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Setting Intentions for a New Year: 2024 Edition

The sun rises over San Francisco

3… 2… 1… Happy New Year! Although it was just yesterday that I shared my Year in Review post for 2023, it was also last year. Much like celebrating a birthday, the dawn of a new year isn’t an instantly transformative experience – we’re all still exactly the same people we were yesterday. But as …

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2023: Year in Review

A collage of photos taken during 2023

Reflecting back on 2023 through the lenses of life, travel, and this blog. This again? I know the “this year went by so fast” schtick probably feels a little tired, but man, it feels like just yesterday that I was reflecting back on 2022. This post contains a few affiliate links – if you decide …

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How I’m Approaching Travel Differently in My Thirties

Alyssa looks out over Mexico City

I recently celebrated my thirty-fourth birthday by doing the thing I love the very most: traveling. This number doesn’t signify a major milestone by any means, but it does mean I’ve just entered my mid-thirties – and it made me stop to reflect on how traveling at 34 looks far different than traveling at 24. …

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2022: Year in Review

Four images of Alyssa and Michael in 2022

Although time marches on, (almost) as evenly as always, I feel as if I’m sitting down to write this post sooner each year. If you’re new around here, at the end of every year I like to sit down and reflect on the past twelve months in an exercise of gratitude and growth. Before moving …

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Blogging Organically: Five Year Check-In

A bouquet of flowers sits in a straw backpack

I can’t believe it has been five years since I published my very first post on Wayward. (really, you don’t have to click the link and read it – it’s… not great). Back then I didn’t know what to expect from beginning this adventure. I certainly didn’t have a five-year plan in place to guide …

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Setting Intentions for a New Year: 2022 Edition

Alyssa holds a bottle of wine that reads "pet nat"

*pops cork* Happy New Year! If you stayed up to watch the clock turn from yesterday to today, I hope you were able to sleep in a bit this morning. I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling pretty grateful to be alive and well today in this new year. And I’m also thanking my …

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2021: Year in Review

I think we can all agree on one thing: it’s been a year. As I reflect on 2021, it’s easy to get lost in the bad. Between the continuation (and mutation) of COVID-19, still-unresolved social justice issues, and disastrous effects of climate change, there is a lot to be frightened and angry about in the …