25 Hopes & Goals for 2025

Welcome, welcome 2025! (Or maybe you’re not welcome, I don’t know.) As I do every year, I’m posting all my hopes and goals for the upcoming year.

If you had asked me about midway through 2024, I would’ve told you this was a pretty great year! I was finally writing my first novel, traveling and visiting friends, hanging out with tons of cats, work was doing really well, and I’d just gotten my first apartment in the city.

Sitting in 2025, I’m filled with a lot of dread, resentful anger, and grief with glimmers of hope and positivity. Also coping with a LOT of humor, dark and otherwise. It’s a weird in-between feeling exacerbated by the winter season and early sunset times. I’m not going to lie November 2024 was probably the most aggressive depressive episode I’ve had in a long time, and (spoiler), a goal I have is to sit down with a therapist to talk through it this year. Truly thankful for my parents and my friends because, my God, what a fucking end to the year.

Anyway, as always, let’s take a look back at 2024 before diving into 2025!

Where I Went in 2024

• JANUARY: Lots of cat sitting. Watched friends’ cat at my parents and also went up to Brooklyn to watch Baby Boris and Furtasha for Megan and Scott.
• FEBRUARY: My sister got married and then I watched their cat for them. Lots of little visits to Philly and then the first big trip of the year – skiing in Kitzbühel with Sher and Silvia!
• MARCH: I finally went to the Flower Show in Philly! Alyshia and I spent her spring break in Copenhagen , and then I flew to London. In between, I cut my bangs (poorly) celebrated my future SIL’s birthday, pulled out of the Love Run due to a calf injury that mysteriously only popped up if I tried running over 2 miles, and went to the most godawful baby shower I’ve ever been to in my life. (It was so offensively bad, I do not care if anyone related to the baby sees this. Do better!!!!)
• APRIL: Spent most of April visiting Caitlin in London and watching Mellie for her a bit. I also went up to Birmingham for a few days to see one of my favorite podcasts, Staying Relevant, live. Got home and went to a Phillies game last minute, reconnected with a college friend, shot a little video for Visit Philly, and did an interview with the Traveling with AAA podcast! I was supposed to run my marathon this month but see aforementioned calf injury :(
• MAY: Went up to watch Baby Boris and Furtasha and then flew to Bergen. Was there for 17.Mai, which was a lot of fun, before we flew to Stockholm for the Eras tour. Quite literally hours after the concert, I flew home for my brother’s wedding. Wound up also getting last minute Laufey tickets with Nicolette! By the end of the month I was flying back to Bergen for the month of June.
• JUNE: All of June, I stayed in Bergen watching my friend’s cat while she tour guided (RIP bub). I actually made the decision to delete all social media off my phone for the month and buckle down to get most of my book written. It was just a nice, peaceful month with lots of cafe dates. Heng came to visit right at the end too!
• JULY: Literally on July 1st, I flew to Amsterdam to meet Kerry for a few days before Caitlin joined us for the Eras tour. I also worked with Avani’s newly opened Museum Quarter hotel. After, Caitlin and I visited the cute town of Delft where I came up with a whole book idea I’ll write some day. I wound up staying an extra two days for flight credit and was back long enough to officially sign my lease. (Also got sick from a couple on my plane). Went to Costa Rica to work on Samantha Brown’s “Places to Love” show and then had about a week back at home to recoup and prep for my next bout of travel. I also got Kerry to come along with me for “A Very Laufey Day” which was adorable. Ended the month driving the long ways up to New Brunswick, Canada!
• AUGUST: The first two or so weeks were spent bouncing around Atlantic Canada with Alyshia. We drove from New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island and then to Nova Scotia. Somehow not enough time!! I then drove back home for literally three days before flying back to London. Celebrated my birthday with Caitlin and Silvia at the Eras tour! Caitlin and I did a little trip up to Bath, and then I stayed longer to watch Mellie for her.
• SEPTEMBER: Spent the first week in London where I had the most random call with the New York Times. I also went and walked a bit of the Seven Sisters Cliff, which is probably one of my favorite places ever now. I was home for a bit, and Nicolette and I got some last minute tickets to see Griff in concert. I then flew to Vancouver for Maggie’s wedding and got to catch up with her and my other friend Nathalie! I also got to practice some photography thanks to Nathalie’s dancing. From Vancouver, I flew back to Vietnam, starting with my beloved Ho Chi Minh City. I mostly bopped around cafes finishing my novel’s first draft and met up with my friend, Rose.
• OCTOBER: From HCMC, I flew up to Hoi An to work on my book and wound up meeting up with Raquel who came down from Hanoi. I then worked with Asagna and Banyan Tree Lang Co for my last two days before flying to Korea. I stayed with Hallie and her family in their new place in Jeju before going up to Suncheon to visit Stacey, and finishing off in Seoul, seeing everyone. I even got myself to finally hike Bukhansan. I flew home right at the end of the month.
• NOVEMBER: Got THE coolest invite to Kamala Harris’s rally the night before election day. Pretty much the last solid day of the month lol. Spent November cat sitting and moving into my apartment with the help of my parents and began the process of settling into Philly! I did cheer on some friends at the Philly half and went to this cool Taste of Fairmount event where I accidentally chugged alcohol. Thanksgiving was complicated but I wound up having three dinners with my parents, Kerry’s family, and then a later one with Meghan’s family. No complaint on my end – I love turkey.
• DECEMBER: Drove up to Toronto to visit Alyshia for the weekend and mainly leaned to enjoying Christmas in Philly. I also went up to NYC for the day because Jamie was in town from Korea, and then spent the last bit of the month cat sitting Rhee for Ashley and Jash. Rang in New Year’s at Meghans!

Lol remember when I thought 2023 was busy, this year was insane. Even before the depressive episode, I knew this was my last year of intensive travel.

I’m tired and old, man!! Plus I feel like so much travel starts bleeding together, and I don’t enjoy it as much because I have to spend so much time recovering. There’s a lot of potential things happening in 2025 that I’ll get into below but I’m excited for a bit of a lifestyle shift!

2024 Hopes & Goals REVIEW

Okay, let’s take a look back at my hopes and goals from 2024!

1. 10 New Destinations Abroad ✓ – Kitzbühel, Copenhagen, Birmingham, Doylestown, Queens, Delft, Costa Rica, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Bath, Seven Sisters, Lang Co, West Chester… Probably forgetting some!
2. 5 New Places in Pennsylvania – Hmm… I think I got close: Doylestown, Wissahickon, and West Chester. Definitely going to have to do better!
3. 5 New Landmarks in Philly – Do restaurants count? Nothing brand new, though now that I’m here, I’m making a list!
4. 5 More New US States – I fully planned to stop off places going back and forth to Atlantic Canada but my time wound up being limited!
5. 52 New Blog Posts – Actually no… Between writing the book, declining revenue, other work, and all the travel, it was hard to bring myself to write with the same frequency I have in the past.
6. Meet my income goal – You know what’s funny? This year ended pretty poorly income wise thanks to Google changes and whatnot, but when I sat down to do my taxes, I was less than $2k shy of this goal which is kind of crazy. I had some of my most “financially successful” months at the beginning of this year followed by some of my lowest income months since maybe the pandemic.
7. Master the art of budgeting – Actually… No but I’ve been pretty good towards the end of the year! I started off making myself a whole spreadsheet and proceeded to not update it after January lol.
8. Save at least $20,000 USD. ✓ – Shock to me and you both but I did somehow manage this.
9. Limit any brand new clothing or shoe purchases to 10. Yeah, no, I didn’t do this at all. Pretty sure I went over 10 in what I had maid in Vietnam alone.
10. Run a marathon – Nope. Calf injury!!
11. Run at least a 5K in every new destination – Also no. Again – calf injury. But I did run a fair amount! I mostly spent this year recovering and working on strength.
12. 3-4 days of exercise when traveling – No but I walked a lot. Like in London, sometimes I’d just walk 2 miles back instead of taking the bus or Tube. I walk a lot in Philly too.
13. Get really good at planks – I promptly forgot about this Taylor Swift song challenge! However, I can hold a plank for a solid minute so… half a success?
14. Hike Jirisan’s peak – I wound up not hiking Jirisan because my friend Stacey could no longer hike it, and I didn’t want to go alone. However, I finally hiked Bukhansan’s peak!!
15. Learn to meal plan regularly – I did not do this mostly because I never had the same schedule for more than a week. But I’m doing better with my apartment!
16. Read one Spanish book – Nope. I started re-reading La sombra del viento, though.
17. Re-vist a Spanish grammar book – I did not do this. However, I got to practice it a decent amount in Costa Rica, which was a surprise trip. I definitely need practice!!
18. Watch one TV show in Spanish – also no, but maybe this year will be when I finally do it.
19. Capture more photos and videos ✓ – Actually, I made an effort to take a ton more photos and videos and I’m really happy I did!!
20. Read 52 books total. I actually failed that this year! I was on track and then didn’t read at all in October and November. Normally I speed read in December but I was surprisingly busy with friends so… a loss on reading but a win on me being more social. Also I did still read 46 so not too bad.
21. Read at least 26 physical books – I have to recount but I read a lot on my Kindle and listened to a lot, so I don’t think I actually met this goal. It’s hard to travel with physical books!
22. Finish the first draft of my novel ✓ – Winner winner, chicken dinner!
23. Find a literary agent – I submitted end of November to a bunch and it takes ages to hear back. I’ve got one rejection so far at least!
24. Spend at least 15 minutes on a dating app in every new location ✓ – I mean… kind of so I’m counting this as a win. I tried in Norway and in Philly, so far nothing has ended in a first date.

2025 Hopes & Goals

Travel

1. Get to know Philly inside and out.

This feels like such a vague goal, but I do intend on living in this city for a little while, so the scope is pretty broad! Back when I first started getting into travel blogging, I genuinely did not know what Philly had to offer outside of the classic landmarks. These days there are SO many accounts that specialize in what’s new and happening, and SO many cool, small businesses opening up left and right — it makes for a really fun place to call home. I’d love to just really get to know every nook and cranny of this place!

2. Visit at least 10 new places near Philly.

Since I’m majorly scaling back on international travel (she says with a trip booked abroad for spring lol), another small goal I have is to visit as many places near Philly as I can. You can fully expect a Philly day trip guide this year ;p! Since I’m so used to riding the regional rail, I’ve noticed all sorts of random towns and spots worth checking out, so my goal is to take advantage of see them. I think 10 is a solid goal, and in the past few weeks I’ve already popped into a few cute spots.

3. Take 2-3 intentional trips.

Again – in line with my scaling back on travel. Looking back at 2024, the trip that I felt like I got the most from was my week in Copenhagen. I think because we had such limited time and it was a new place, we really focused on covering as much ground as we could. I’ll have to write a post explaining what “intentional travel” is more because the way I approached a week in Copenhagen was so different to the way I approached the total of four weeks I spent in London or the three weeks I spent in Korea.

Business

4. Publish 52 new blog posts.

Third year’s the charm? I’m not going to lie – between the chaos of Google’s changes, writing for my other jobs, and writing my book, I have truly not had as much energy or desire to write travel blog posts like in the past. Call it ~laptop fatigue~.

I’m going to try to keep myself focused to catch up on all the drafts I have and get some guides and tips up this year!!

5. Work with 3 brands/companies this year.

I swear every year I tell myself I’m going to be better about reaching out to brands and tourism boards and every year I literally never email a single person. This year, I’m making an intentional goal to work with three brands and companies on some sort of campaign (not just one off videos or sponsored posts). TBD on what that will look like, but I feel like not having to worry about moving and planning trips has given me a LOT of extra brain space.

6. Complete my There She Wears Again challenge.

If you don’t follow me on Instagram, you may have missed the challenge I gave myself for 2025 (and beyond!). The goal is essentially to get dressed every single day and record it on @thereshewearsagain. I’ve posted on the rules here. It’s mostly because I love fashion and getting dressed just makes me feel more productive. I feel like even just getting dressed on the days I want to rot in bed will help. Plus fashion is my first love, and I want to work on my style creativity again!

7. Update my Substack monthly and seasonally.

I really enjoy writing on Substack in a way that feels different from blogging. I don’t know! But I committed to writing one substack for TSGA seasonally and then one monthly for There She Wears Again. I have a lot of random, fashion-y things I like to write about, so I’ll save it for that newsletter!

8. Finish the first edit of Meet Me in Hoi An.

I 100% meant to do this by the end of 2024 but it’s bled into 2025, so my goal is to finish editing my first novel in full by the end of the month! I’m still not 100% sold on the title but I also haven’t figured out anything that clicks better. I’m really excited for this book to become a reality though and just happy that I actually sat down and wrote a whole damn book last year.

9. Get a literary agent.

My next/current goal. I sent out a few queries in November and have gotten one rejection so far! I’m going to make a list of more agents to query and just give my goal of querying 2-3 every month until one agrees to represent me. Idk how this works honestly; I’m going off a lot of podcasts and online guides.

10. Get a book deal.

Of course the next goal is to get a book deal with my literary agent. EEP! Manifesting that I’m well into marketing Meet Me in Hoi An this time next year!!

11. Finish the first draft of my untitled fantasy novel. 

My goal for myself is write a book a year to get into the habit and just keep those creative writing skills going. I’ve actually had a LOT of book ideas, but I really love the idea of not pigeon holing myself into one genre (thanks Rebecca Yarros and RF Kuang!!).

Basically, I’ve struggled a lot this last year with feeling utterly helpless against everything happening in the world. I, frankly, do not have all the money in the world to help the causes I care about, and my government leaders are pretty good at digging their heads in the sand.

One thing I can try to do? Tell stories.

I started coming up with this fantasy idea on my drive home from Prince Edward Island. It’s going to be a major allegory for the way colonial powers destroy cultures through systematic oppression and then outright genocide. Before I really, really dive into writing, I have a ton of research to do on the real life events I want to reference.

Finances

12. Get into a more budget-y mindset.

I would love to be better at budgeting. Every year I say I’ll do better and somehow I… lose steam a month in. If you have any tips on being better, I’m all ears! For now I’m trying to be mindful about eating out, keep an eye on grocery prices, and cooking more. Right now I’m just trying smaller changes like walking 30-40 minutes instead of taking a 20 minute bus ride or choosing water instead of soda or mocktails…

13. Save another $20,000 USD.

I really want to keep getting better at saving. This year might be a bit rocky financially but this is still a goal.

14. Meet my income goal.

Third year’s a charm, right?!

Health & Fitness

15. Get back into running and run a half by the end of the year.

Ideally I’d like to run a half marathon by the end of 2025. I took a long break in 2024 with my calf injury but I’m ready to start up again! I want to take it a little more slowly than I did in the past, so right now I’m focused on getting back into a workout routine and mixing in running 1-2 times a week. I really want get my strength up, especially in my core, before I start running more than 3 miles at once.

16. Plan and do at least 5 hikes.

Forever trying to be a better hiker! This year I’d like to plan and do at least five decent hikes (as in it’ll take me the better part of a day). I’m not sure what those hikes will be but I’ve got a whole Pennsylvania hiking book to peruse.

17. Get in the best shape of my life.

Once thing I said this year is that I just really want to be in the best shape of my life. It’s a vague goal, but I just want to feel and look really strong. Like if someone tried to attack me, I’d be able to punch them to the ground and if they tried running, I could chase them down for another round of punches, ya feel? Also when I go for my next doctor’s appointment, I’d like a clean bill of health and to be out of the pre-diabetes danger zone.

18. Learn 10 new recipes I can meal planning with.

So I think my problem with cooking at home is that I can learn to make recipes pretty well but I’m not great at learning recipes I can make into a regular meal plan. My goal this year is to get really good at 10 different (healthy) recipes that I can just reach for when I need to plan a week’s worth of meals or need to make dinner and I’m not sure what to make. I told myself before I can buy another cookbook, I need to do this first!

Language

19. Begin studying Irish.

Getting in touch with (one of) my roots! Ever since I visited Inishimore in college, I feel like I’ve wanted to learn the Irish language. I still dream of being able to go to a rural part of Ireland to do an immersive Irish program. I’m speeding this wish up because I’m incorporating the language into my fantasy trilogy (both in an ode to my roots and as a symbol of oppression in the books) and I want to make sure I not only can understand it on at least a basic level but that I can also pronounce everything properly.

20. Complete ONE Spanish language anything.

I gotta keep up my Spanish for hell or high water!! My goal is to just complete something, anything in Spanish. A program, a TV show, a movie, a book… the point is I need to put in effort this year instead of just saying I want to practice and never doing anything concerted.

Just for Fun

21. Read at least 52 books.

You know the drill – I list this as a goal every year without fail!

22. Learn to knit a sweater.

I’d love to learn to knit a sweater. I know how to knit but I’ve never tried knitting anything more complicated than a scarf in like the most basic knitting pattern. I just downloaded this Daly knitting pattern, so first thing is to learn how to knit it and then the next is to learn how to knit a sweater!

23. Finish my cross stitch project.

Maybe two years ago I ambitiously bought this intricate cross stitch project from Michael’s and told myself I’d finish it by the next year. I have touched it exactly twice lol. So… maybe this year’s the charm!!

24. Take ice skating classes.

This is another thing I really want to learn again – ice skating. I just want to be comfortable on the ice. The goal here is to be able to rent some skates and enjoy one of the rinks in Philly next year.

25. Go on at least 5 in-person dates.

UGH. I’m trying, okay?!