2023 in a Nutshell

21st December 2023

2023 has been an eventful year for me! In this blog post I'll summarise my hobbies and goals this year and share some key statistics.

Adventuring

Adventuring is an umbrella term I use for hobbies that take me to adventurous destinations. regardless of why I'm there. I typically break this up further into: holidays, hiking, day trips, and travelling for work.

Holidays
- Defined as 2+ consecutive days away from home.
- 16 total holidays - 13x Scotland, 2x Wales, 1x England.
- 26 days of work leave used on holidays (only made possible through changing jobs).
- 3 days of remote working while on holiday.
- 10 different people I adventured with, not including solo adventuring.
Day trips
- 5 visits to the Cairngorm Reindeer Herd, 4 as part of holidays.
- 4 concerts.
- 3 aurora sightings.
- 3 steam train sightings.
Work
- 5 days out from work for scheduled medical treatment.
- 3 work events across 2 companies.

Photos related to each of my trips this year can be found on my trips page.

This year I set myself a goal to go on holiday every month in 2023, which I achieved. The most holidays I went on in a calendar month was 2.

I also set myself a goal to go outdoors each weekend, somewhere different, for at least 1 hour. Picking up hiking as a hobby and getting into photography typically made this trivial, though there were 2 technical successes along the way and 2 of my weekends in December lacked outdoor activities. In all 50/52 is a strong result and has had the desired effect: building a habit of casual adventuring over sitting indoors.

Hiking

In February I set myself the goal of hiking all 214 Wainwrights over 4 years, averaging at 54 per year. I set myself goals for this year as I started building fitness, scrambling skills, and habit:

Hike all of Wainwright's Book 7 (33 summits) before a self-imposed summer break: completed on 1st July with Great Borne & Starling Dodd.
Summit 50 Wainwrights in 2023: I have summitted 51 Wainwrights this year. Summit 50 was Wandope on 11th November.

This view of my photo gallery contains one photo of each Wainwright summit that I made this year.

Across all my hikes this year I covered 307km and ascended 17.7km.

Photography

This year I pursued photography as a hobby as fully as I could. In June I bought a Sony ɑ7r V mirrorless camera as a significant upgrade to my iPhone 14 Pro Max. Since then, my lens collection has grown, and I've began to pursue astrophotography.

Some numbers:

29,000 photos taken:
- iPhone 14 Pro Max: 15,000.
- Sony ɑ7r V: 13,700.
- Sony ɑ550: 230.
12,665 photos kept (44%).
1,163 photos added to my gallery.
122 photos selected for my annual shortlist. This list is the best way to flick through the best of my year.

Rankings

What's a retrospective without a list or two?

Top 10 Holidays of 2023

I ranked all 16 of my holidays on the following criteria: travel, accommodation, scenery, activities, and company.

10: 🦌 Cairngorms & Loch Rannoch • 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 January
9: 🌄 Isle of Skye • 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 May
8: 🦌 Cairngorms & Aberfeldy • 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 December
7: 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Wales • 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 September
6: 🌌 Durness • 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 October
5: 🦦 Isle of Mull • 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 May
4: 🛥️ Skye, Raasay & St Kilda • 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 August
3: 🏔️ Glen Etive Schoolhouse • 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 February
2: 🏖️ Outer Hebrides • 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 June
1: 🚗 North Coast 500 • 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 April

Top 10 Photos of 2023

From my shortlist I've selected my favourite 10 photos of the year. These were ranked on the following criteria: technique, composition, subject, timing, and emotion.

Click each photo to find out more about when and where it was taken, or to view similar/related photos. Alternatively, view this year's top 10 (unordered) in my gallery.