My 2025 and 2026 resolutions

Looking back on 2025 as it came to a close. I think 2025 was a good year for me even if I failed on a number of resolutions.

You can read through the 50 posts I have made throughout 2025 on this blog or view my 2025 YouTube Video Playlist that is most of the videos I have published in 2025 to know what I did over the year.

It was not all good I had a case of the shingles which put me out of action for about a month and was not something I enjoyed or want to repeat but I recovered and am back to enjoying life.

I have done a yearly resolution on the number of books to read in a year starting the year after I retired. In 2025 I added a number of other resolutions for the first time. I did this really just to try and keep me busy doing some new things and not so set in my normal day to day life.

I started to take some Thai classed at the end of 2024 so set the goal of taking at least 40 lessons in 2025. This resolution I failed. I took 15 classes and then decided I needed a break and would start again after Songkran but never ended up starting again. I am not sure what I will do with this resolution for 2026 but need to get back to sometype of daily study.

I kept the book reading resolution but reduced it from 50 books a year to 40 in 2025 and finished 43 within the year. I am keeping this resolution at 40 books for 2026.

I made the resolution to visit 10 provinces in Thailand that I had not seen in the past. I had passed through a number of this in the past but had not spent any time in them looking around. I visited the following to complete this resolution and posted about my travels throughout the year.

1 Uthai Thani

2 Tak

3 Kamphaeng Phet

4 Phichit

5 Nakhon Sawan

6 Chai Nat

7 Nan

8 Uttaradit

9 Lamphang

10 Phayao

My 2026 resolution will be to visit the remaining provinces so I can say I have seen all 77 provinces that make up Thailand. I will post about these new provinces if and when I travel to them within 2026. All these new provinces in 2026 are in the south of the country so will require a long motorbike ride.

I decided I wanted to move from near the center of the city of Kanchanaburi closer to what I call the tourist street. I made moving a 2025 resolutions. I talked a little bit about the move in the post All Good in Kanchanaburi back in March.

I am very happy with were I am currently living so have no plans to move in 2026.

I made visiting the Rocket Festivals a resolution and posted a number of blogs on my time there this year. I will keep this resolution for 2026 but have made the resolution to visit two specific locations that I have not seen the Rockets at before. I think I will also visit a number of the rocket festivals I visited last year as well in 2026.

I had the 2025 resolution to go to one of two different festivals I had not attended. I visited the Ghost Festival and have added the other festival as a 2026 resolution.

I made a 2025 resolution to visit a country I had never been to before. I failed this resolution never leaving Thailand in 2025. I have made this also for 2026 but think it may also be a fail, as it is a low priority for me. I look at going to a new country and it sounds like fun but I am happy zipping around Thailand. My last new country was Nicaragua back in 2018. I traveled around the US with a car and have had a motorcycle for most of my time in Thailand. If I visit a new country it will mean using public transport again and that is just not as appealing as it once was.

I seem to get in rut of always going to the same places for meals or coffee. I find a few places I like and just go to those same places all the time. In 2025 I made the resolution to try 2 new places a month to help get me out of this rut. Sounds like something really simple to do but I think I sort of cheated to mark this as completed. I had one month where I visited 2 bars I had not been in before and counted those as my new places for the month. The month I was sick with the shingles I only visited one new place and made up for it the following month with 3 new places.

I am not sure the new places resolution has really accomplished what I wanted it to do. I have tried a lot of new places so that is good and a few of these have become my normal go to places but I think I have dropped some of old normal go to places. I will just have to keep trying to add new places in 2026 but will not say it is a resolution.

I have not made any major changes from my 2025 list to my 2026 list of resolutions. I did add the Plow Field Good Buffalo event to the list just as a reminder to keep looking for when it is happening. I was traveling in the North of the country when it took place in 2025 and would like to attend it in 2026. This event is a bit hard to find out details so adding it to my list will make me check for event details as I update my resolution list monthly.

Thanks to all of you that follow me on my boring blog and watch my crappy videos on Youtube. I hope you find happiness and health in 2026.