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January 18, 2025 4 mins

A new year brings new opportunities to travel and experience the world - and one expert's curated a list of locations to check out in 2025. 

Thailand's Koh Samui, the Italian city of Florence and Mexico's Los Cabos are among the destinations BloggerAtLarge.com's Megan Singleton recommends for the new year.

Read more about Megan's recommendations here. 

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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks, EDB Travel with Windy Woo Tours Where
the World.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Is Yours for Now, and Meghan Singleton, Blogger at large
dot com joins us. Good morning, good morning, and happy
new Year and to you too, lovely to have you
back with us. A lot of people are probably back
from holiday and going gosh, that was good quite like
that break? When is the next one? And of course
we've seen some sales I've seen obviously in New Zealand's

(00:38):
head of sail on, Jetstar's got a sail on Good
Time of the Year to book of flight somewhere. What
are some of your favorite destinations for twenty twenty five?

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Yeah, well I've gone through gosh, that's a hard question, right,
and people always ask me where's the best place you've
ever been? It's super super hard. So I've but I've
pulled eight together destinations that I think will be great
for twenty twenty five. And I haven't just plucked them
out of my hat. New York Times has got them
all their list, CNN Traveling Letter and Blogger at Large,

(01:10):
So yeah, all those lofty Publications a good company. Yes,
So my top eight I'm just going to whip through them.
I have written up a blog post explaining why I
think people will like them and why I like them.
I'm going to put Kosamui on my list. Kastamui, Thailand
on my list for this year. It is actually where
season three of The White Lotus was filmed, and while
I haven't got up to that far yet, I know

(01:32):
that a lot of people have and they've got the
most idyllic and beautiful resorts with infinity pools, and to me, Thailand,
I'm moving into a more of a phase where it's
it's infinity pools and rooftop bars and a bit of
markets and a nice little river, cruisy tours and things

(01:53):
like that, not so much the backpackering. So that I've
put Kostamur on my list, and that'll be fantastic. Florence, Florence, Italy,
that was my most favorite city that I've ever seen
in Italy. And this year there's a new orient Express
train that is being launched. La Dulce Vita. Orient Express

(02:14):
is going to do eight journeys from Rome to Venice,
so that'll be a sleeper train and it'd be all
the glam of sixties and seventies Italy. So if you're
into that, that will be cool.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
You can't sorry, and I'm just going to say, you
can't go past four once. It is extraordinary. It's just
this incredibly cultural place. But it's just gets so busy
at certain times of the year, now, doesn't it.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yeah, so the trick for me and fortunately we know
we're on the crazy time zone, right, so we wake early,
get out early, take your camera, go your phone, go
and watch as the sun rises up. I've got a
photo in there that I took. I crouched right down
on ponte Vecchio Bridge and I took a picture of
across the cobblestone ground and up into the bridge. You

(02:57):
can get so much fun. No people in it, and
there's one lady and I'm looking at it now, perfect
time of day. And then you know what they say, Oh,
don't sit down in the cafes in this because they'll
charge you. Well, they charged me eight euros for a
croissant and a cup of coffee and I sit down
at their table outside right beside the cathedral. That was
priceless to me. Eight euros. That was no problem. I

(03:20):
thought that was the best thing I ever did actually
in Florence, was to a biling sit there and spend
my eight euros. Yeah, so we've got time to go
through the reason.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, Look, Mexico's on the list.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Love Mexico. Going back March with a small group tour,
We're going to whizz through Mexico. But I've put Carbo
on my list, at the bottom of the Baja Peninsula.
And there's two little towns there. One's more busy and
lively and got the marina, do boat trips and whale
watching and nightlife and stuff. And one is more historic
where there's artisans and you can go and watch them

(03:53):
paint and sculpt and they have art walks every Thursday
that are free to just walk around. And so I've
put that on my list, and I think more Kiwis
should go down there. It's two and a half hour
flight from La down to Carbo, so we need to
be getting there.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Pick one more from your wonderful blogger.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
All right, one more I'm going to pick because it's
on my heart. It's Santa Monica. Now. I just got
a press release from Santa Monica Tourism this week. Obviously,
very close to those dreadful fires, but not affected by
the fires. So they're actually saying, look, we are here,
we are well and good. We would love your custom,
your tourism, your business, locals and visitors are like, please

(04:32):
come back. They've got a whole lot of new hotels,
they've got the beautiful sunsets on that Pacific beach. It's
my favorite Los Angeles place to stay. And then there's
a reason for that because it's got everything. So yeah,
Santa Monica would be my final pick for this year.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Wonderful. Thank you so much, Meghan, and if you want
to read Megan's full list. If you want a bit
of inspiration, just head to blogger at large dot.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Com for more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin.
Listen live to news Talks there'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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