Walking in the Waves, Providenciales, TCI by Patrick Bennett

Experience a Year of Caribbean Travel in 3 Minutes (or Less)

Three hundred and sixty five days, fifty two weeks, twelve months—I’m always struck around this time of year by how this particular span of time is at once a lifetime and also so surprisingly fleeting. For me, 2015 was the perfect example of these opposing perspectives.

On the one hand, I traveled a lot—by our standards.

Here’s a rough look at the whole year condensed down to three minutes (or less).

Around the Caribbean in a Year - 2015

That’s a lot of travel, but the video still doesn’t capture everything! My complete list looks more like this: Anguilla, Trinidad, Providenciales, St. Vincent, Bequia, Union Island, Canouan, Carriacou, Tobago Cays, Petite St. Vincent, Ronde, Grenada, Playa del Carmen, Great Abaco, Elbow Cay, Man-O-War Cay, Great Guana Cay, Black Point, Bitter Guana Cay, Nassau, Staniel Cay, Barbados, and somehow I even managed to close out the year in Grand Cayman. Phew!

But besides just stepping foot on these many beautiful destinations, it was the experiences that really set 2015 apart from other years. I finally feted til I was falling down at Trinidad Carnival. I was pampered in the lap of luxury at Malliouhana. And I went sailing for a week… Twice! The first time through my (now) old favorite, the Grenadines. During the other, I tried my hand at skippering myself in the stunning Abaco islands. Before the year was out, I even flew around in a helicopter over the famous Cayman wall!

One consistent thread through 96% of the time was my attempts at being a good dad. Trying to teach my two boys to be strong swimmers, to fish, the basics of sailing, to open themselves up to new lands and new people, to eat real food and understand where that food comes from. (One of my fondest memories of the year is my son Trinidad “helping” fishermen clean conch in Staniel Cay—eating every conch pistol they offered him!)

It wasn’t all care-free fun and games, but it was a pretty epic year.

All that said, there were so many things I didn’t do.

Write more in these pages to inspire you to make my adventures yours (as Steve dutifully pointed out). Expand the business of Uncommon Caribbean. Accomplish more. Create more. Make clear, quick decisions. And so on, and so on…

But there are only 31,536,000 seconds in a year, right?

And unfortunately (and contrary to what most travel sites might tell you) there’s no pithy Instagrammable piece of inspiration that’ll magically change our lives and allow us to effortlessly manage the infinite demands others ask of us, plus the demands we ourselves heap on top of those—or vice versa.

I guess, in 2016 I’ll just endeavor to stick to my two-part method of accomplishing anything: decide to do it, then do it.

In the meantime, back to planning our next Caribbean adventure—one I promise to share (sooner rather than later) to inspire your own travel!

Last updated by Patrick Bennett on .

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