My 2023 Goals, Resolutions, Dreams, and Plans

Wow! 2022 felt so normal! Now that our 2022 recap is complete, it’s time to start planning our 2023 goals. We did quite a bit of exploring this year! The kids took their first cruise, visited their first 2 new countries, hopped on their first flight, and added new places to their list of places they’ve been.

Table of Contents

A Condensed Version of our 2022 Recap

We spent some more time exploring Florida springs- one of our favorite things to do! This year we visited Silver Springs State Park and Salt Springs.
We took a handful of daytrips down to Gainesville. During our visits we explored Paynes Prairie Preserve, Florida Museum of Natural History and the Cade Museum. We also hunted for fossils and shark teeth in the creeks with Mudslinger Tours.
The boys birthday cruise kept getting postponed due to the virus. This year, we were finally got to go! We cruised to Amber Cove, Dominican Republic and Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos.
For Smiley’s birthday we visited Legoland Florida and Peppa Pig Theme Park.
Over the summer, we spent a week in the NC mountains at Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park.
We hopped on a flight and spent 4 days exploring Washington, DC.
We spent several days at the Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg, Virginia for our Christmas trip.

Our 2022 Goals, Revisited

Last year we sat down and mapped out our goals for 2022. These included travel goals and goals for 5 Suitcases.

Visit a theme park (Smiley) – Smiley’s goal was to visit a theme park. For her birthday trip, we went to Legoland Florida and Peppa Pig Theme Park.
Go to the beach (Scoop) – Scoop’s goal was simple, he wanted to go to the beach. As Floridian’s, we do this frequently. We amped it up a little by going on a cruise to Grand Turk (Turks & Caicos) and Amber Cove (Dominican Republic).
Visit the mountains (Stinky) – Stinky wanted to go to the mountains. We kicked off the summer with a trip to Jellystone in North Carolina. We spent 5 days enjoying the great outdoors by swimming in lakes and pools and splashing around in creeks and zooming down waterslides.
Visit at least 3 new springs- Unfortunately we only made it to 2 springs this year; Salt Springs and Silver Springs. We had plans to visit spring #3 the week before Christmas but we had a sudden change in our schedule so we had to take a raincheck.
Spend some time in Gainesville – We took a handful of daytrips down to Gainesville. In May, we booked a shark tooth hunting tour with Mudslinger Tours. We also explored Paynes Prairie Preserve, the Cade Museum and Florida Museum of Natural History.
Visit at least 2 National Park Sites – This year we went to Fort Caroline, National Mall, Presidential Park and more.
Add a new state to our list of places we’ve been – We visited Virginia and Washington, DC in 2022. In addition that that, we also added 2 new countries to our kids list of places they’ve been: Turks & Caicos and Dominican Republic.
Plan our Christmas trip – Our 2022 Christmas trip took us to the Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg, VA. I have no clue where our 2023 trip will take us…honestly.
Accrue airline miles – We accrued over 55k airline miles this year. We spent 140k miles to fly our family of 5 to Washington, DC.
Increase Instagram Followers by 10% – We achieved this goal and got to connect with some pretty incredible people. We’re looking forward to connecting with more people in 2023. Be sure to give us a follow and say hello!
Increase blog traffic by 50% – The goal was to reach about 30k visitors this year. We actually reached double that this year!
Create 12 new YouTube Videos – Videos for Silver Springs, Paynes Prairie, Grand Turk, Amber Cove, Peppa Pig Theme Park, Mudslinger Tours, & a tour of our Legoland Hotel room were created. We also created a video of our 2022 trip to Jellystone in addition to a cabin tour, How to Pack for a Road Trip, and a tour of the new obstacle course. Be sure to check out our videos of the Florida Museum of Natural History, the Cade Museum of Creativity & Invention & National Children’s Museum (14)
Optimize old posts – Although not all posts have been completely re-optimized, quite a few have, so we’ll call it a win.
Diversify blog income – This year we may have scaled back on our Etsy shop however, we have diversified our blog income by monetizing our Instagram and Facebook Pages in addition to Google Adsense and our Amazon Affiliates.
Add content for at least 2 more states and 2 other countries- This year we added pages about The Dominican Republic and Washington, DC so we missed the mark here. However, we published over 50 new posts to the other states and countries on our page.
Create an email list – I know I know…this is one I should have done, but it didn’t happen.
Visit a New Place Each Month – Nailed it! Each month during 2022 we made a point of visiting somewhere new. Some months, this was easier than others since we tend to keep a pretty busy schedule, but we managed to make it happen.

2023 Goals and Plans

We started planning out our 2023 trips during the summer of 2022. So far we have a few things on the books and WE ARE SO EXCITED!

Iceland

During the summer, Mom and Mama are dropping the kids off with their grandparents and heading to Iceland to celebrate Elle’s 40th birthday.

Hitting the High Seas

We had so much fun on our 2022 cruise, that we booked another cruise the day we got back! For the twins 6th birthday, we’ll be cruising to Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, St. Maarten, and Dominican Republic. The kids have been dying to cruise again.

Day Trips

One of the great things about living where people vacation is there’s always somewhere new to explore!

Visit at least 3 new springs. Our family loves spending time on the water. We enjoy kayaking, paddle boarding, swimming, and snorkeling so the springs make for an easy, enjoyable day trip for us.
Visit at least 2 National Park Sites- This year we’ll be visiting Puerto Rico, which will give us an opportunity to mark off another National Park in the Caribbean. I’d also like to explore at least one other site, perhaps Fort Matanzas?

The Kids 2023 Goals for Travel

Smiley

Scoop

Stinky

Smiley’s goal is to visit a theme park.

Scoop’s goal is to go on a cruise.

Stinky’s goal is to head back to the mountains.

More 2023 Goals

Add a new state to our list of places we’ve been. Last year we added Virginia to our list of states visited. This year we may venture off to Alabama or Tennessee.
Plan our Christmas Trip. The last couple of years, we’ve been gifting the kids experiences for Christmas. I have no idea where we’ll end up this Christmas…
Accrue airline miles. This year we’ll continue to rack up airline miles. Last year we cashed in our miles to fly the family to Washington, DC.
Increase followers by 10%. (4719 followers)
Increase traffic by 50% (85,417 visitors)
Create 12 new YouTube Videos
Add content for 1 state and 2 countries

Resolutions

My resolution of the blog is to increase traffic and continue to grow 5Suitcases. To do this I will:

Obtain at least one partnership
Write more guest posts
Build on our most popular posts
Optimize all posts

Follow Along to See How We Do With our 2023 Goals

We hope that you’ll join us as we explore the world around us and continue to give our 3 littles a broad view of the world. Our plans for 2023 include the land of fire and ice, sandy beaches, and spending lots of time in nature.

If you aren’t already doing so, be sure to follow us on our socials! We use Instagram to share pictures, Reels and Stories about our day-to-day life. We also use Facebook and Twitter to share our new content.

We look forward to connecting with you and sharing our adventures with you in 2023.

My 2023 Goals, Resolutions, Dreams, and Plans

A Condensed Version of our 2022 Recap

Our 2022 Goals, Revisited