As COVID restrictions slowly began to ease around the world, I was grateful to be able to travel more often in 2022 than I had in the previous two years, although I'm still not back at beforetimes levels. This year, I visited six countries across four continents, including four new-to-me countries — Kenya, Uganda, Indonesia and Greece — as well as a long-awaited return to my beloved New York City. Closer to home, I enjoyed a great city break in Bristol and spent far too much time watching Wolves fail to score, consoling myself with speciality coffee stops in Wolverhampton and Brum.

Keep on reading to find out the five stories I've picked out to sum up my travel highlights of the year (you can also check out my 2021 and 2020 editions).

As 2022 draws to a close, it's time for the 12th edition of my annual speciality coffee and food awards, where I share my favourite coffee shops and eateries from among all of those that I visited for the first time this year. Over the past few years, I've tweaked the geographical boundaries of some awards to reflect my travel schedule, which has changed somewhat as a result of COVID.

I was sad to bid farewell to my old passport this week — not just because it was an EU one (*sob*) but also because the stamps inside remind me of the travel experiences I've enjoyed over the past decade. To highlight some of these wonderful memories, I decided to pick one photo from each year, and boy was that hard! (I cheated because the header image features an 11th photo!)

After two years of travelling abroad only twice and to short-haul destinations — Malta and Porto — I had the opportunity to travel to East Africa with work in January. Planning a trip that required visas and vaccines on top of the COVID requirements was a little overwhelming at short notice, but it was all worth it. I've never been to East Africa before and although I didn't have a lot of free time, I got a real taste of both Kenya and Uganda and can't wait to go back for a longer holiday.