Happy New Year to you and I hope all of you had wonderful celebrations wherever you were. One year ago I made an important new year´s resolution - to travel more. And I actually achieved it. My never ending bucket list is a bit shorter again, my heart is full of memorable moments and my Facebook friends list happily welcomed new buddies from all around the world. While there were many moments from the last year travels I could talk about for ages, there are still top seven highlights which totally deserve to be mentioned above all of them. 

I was dreaming about going to Kenya since I had been a little girl. I have always been so fascinated by African nature, people and their life. When I got a chance to volunteer in Kenya, there were no excuses, I just had to make it happen. And I did so, It was really strong experience and very touching one as well, even 5 months after I still get chills when thinking about some moments from there. What I can say that if you consider volunteering or simply visiting Kenya, all I can say is - go! You won´t regret it.

Being raised as a Christian in church where we have Franciscan priests, I always hear many stories about life of Saint Francesco over and over again. It was my priest who came with the idea to make a trip to Assisi to follow "life of St. Francesco" and I just couldn´t refuse such a good offer. Our group had a chance to spend some days at various places not only in Assisi or its surrounding, but also we visited other places which are somehow connected with this Saint. Many friends had a chance to see Assisi so it was my turn to get there and see it for myself. Another place from my bucket list is done.

It was my first layover ever, so it was such an experience I just can´t simply forget it. Yes, yes, I know that probably most of you already have experienced layover at least once in your lifetime, but I was always traveling only around Europe, so I never had had to change plane. However, during a flight to Africa, it is needed to use connecting flight, so I stuck in Turkey for quite long time. But I don´t complain. I had several hours to discover at least small part of Istanbul and I saw some beautiful sights over there. Additionally, while flying back from Africa to Czech republic, I was supposed to stay there over night, so booking a hotel was my only option. There was one hotel near the airport and I thought about it that it would be simple and typical airport hotel with like three stars. What was bigger surprise for me was the fact, that it was actually very modern, clean and luxury hotel with probably four stars. It was such a great treatment after weeks spent in Kenya slums.

Do you know what is really special? When you get in contact with animal. Really close contact. And suddenly you realize their and your own vulnerability. This is how I felt while feeding giraffes at their special built center in Nairobi.

As I mentioned above, I used plane, bus, car and other transportation to travel around Europe and while I did some solo trips, it was never out of Europe. So going through all these passport checks, changing flights and just being that "responsible" person while waiting with all documents in queue for check in, boarding gate or visa on my own learned me how to be much more independent. Thankful for this experience. And if you are asking if my parents were worried about me - yes, they were, who wouldn´t be worried about their teenage years daughter to fly to Kenya all on her own? But they somehow trusted me and believed in me and they knew that people would be waiting there for me in Nairobi.

Forget about ZOO, plan a safari trip. If you are animal lover, you will love it so much. But warning - choose days wisely, if you catch rainy or cold days, most of animals will probably stay hidden in their lairs. I had a great while doing safari in Nairobi National Park and I can´t wait to try another safari when I get back to African again.

When you can join locals in doing some activity, it´s always beautiful moment, because you actually learn something from them. This happened to us while we did a short stop at San Damiano. We did a small tour around and suddenly our priest announced that we had been invited to join prayer session with locals. It was all in Italian and I felt a bit sorry for my fellow friends who couldn´t understand anything, but I give them props for trying. Only negative thing - there was a big group of students from some school who also joined the prayer session and then there was a small problem with fitting to a chapel, so some people were sitting also on ground. Despite the fact that the chapel was overcrowded , it was really beautiful moment.

What were your top highlights from your travels in 2015?