Peter's Travels: 2025 Year In Review

2025 has been an interesting year for me in terms of travel. I focused mainly on Europe since it was my least travelled continent. Here's a "Year in review" post for all my travels in 2025.

First of all, here's the tally:

• Countries visited (including repeats): 10
• NEW Countries visited (not counting repeats): 7
• Cities/Towns/Villages visited: 21

Timeline

April 2025: Turkey

Buffer does a whole-team retreat once per year and in 2025 we went to Turkey.

It's always a lovely time when the whole team gets to meet once per year in person. You suddenly realize that the people you've been seeing on your screen are ACTUAL humans, not AI avatars and [secretly in their minds] everyone plays our favorite game "Yeah but how tall is this person, REALLY?!". (the answer is always taller than you imagined).

We also had a critical incident during the retreat. Turns out our biggest internal service was suffering from the NodeJS event loop being blocked longer than it had to for some operations.

Before meeting the team, I also did a short and sweet trip with my best friend and travel partner (who also happens to be my mum 😂), Mona.

This was our second time to Turkey so we decided to skip the touristy spots we've been to the last time we were here. Instead, we rented a car and visited places that we wouldn't have visited the first time around. The highlight of this trip was when we hit Bursa for a day trip.

The highlight of this highlight was when we tried the OG Iskender Kebab from the restaurant it was originally created at İskender Efendi Konağı; they even had an Iskender Kebab museum!!

Pro tip: If you decide to visit this restaurant, visit their branch in Bursa which was ABSOLUTELY lovely. Avoid visiting the Istanbul branch which couldn't be more different in every negative way.

June 2025: Cyprus, Czechia, and Hungary

Prague, Czechia is TRULY a fairy tale place. It's one thing to see photos of it. But it's a completely different ordeal to be there in person. As of the time of this writing, I've been to 70 different cities around the world and have never seen anything like it.

I travelled to Prague in the past with my friends, but Mona hadn't seen it before. We needed to fix that. So let's take a flight to Larnaca, Cyprus 🤩😒!!

Wait, what? Cyprus?!!

YES! Life is too short to do a single-city trip and a friend told me that the relics of Saint Lazarus are there. Being coptic orthodox christians ourselves, we couldn't pass up the opportunity 😄

My first impression of Larnaca was that it's so serene and peaceful. I felt inner peace just strolling in the streets doing nothing.

After Larnaca, we took a flight to fairy tale land (AH sorry, I meant Prague, Czechia)!!

Prague is literally the only place where Mona would agree to walk instead of taking a ride without me needing to negotiate it 😂 It's simply, stunning!! My photos do it no justice but I'll try!

If you find yourself in Prague, here's my personal DO NOT MISS mini-itinerary for your first day.

• First go to Old Town Square, take in the vibes and keep an eye out for Prague's Astronomical Clock.
• Take the narrow streets down to Charles Bridge. If you need a drink or some food before you get there, stop at The Irish Times Bar. I had the burger and fries and was genuinely surprised with their fries. It was one of the best I've had in a long while 😋🍟.
• Be sure to take your time and don't rush anything.
• Cross Charles Bridge to the other side and if you find that you still have energy, make your way to Prague Castle. Otherwise, you can also go on another day.
• When you're in Prague Castle, MAKE SURE NOT TO MISS Saint Vitus Cathedral. Don't, just DO NOT miss it.

What else you do in Prague is entirely your business, I'm not judging 🤷‍♂️

After we got bored with fairy-tale level architecture and extreme beauty of Prague, we hopped on a train headed for Budapest, Hungary. Upon arrival, we took the subway and this was the first thing that we saw right outta the subway 😍.

Budapest has a special vibe to it that is simply: fun 😄!

We took it a bit easy this time around and didn't do a lot of fancy stuff 😀

...

(except have the best Black Truffle with Ricotta Ravioli money can buy in 2 Spaghi as well as the best Chimney Cake with Ice Cream at Gelateria Pichler).

September 2025: The Netherlands

I attended the GraphQL conference in Amsterdam with the Buffer team to exchange experiences with the community ahead of Buffer's Public API release.

After the conference, I also spent some time solo-traveling to explore Amsterdam on foot. Nothing too hard-core, just casual strolling ... (sarcasm, I walked to EVERY last inch of that city)

Even found some time to hop on a train to Utrecht for a quick change of pace + a glass of wine on a double-layered canal while it was raining everywhere 😌

Food highlight of this trip: Passion Fruit Tres Leches from Casa Perù in Amsterdam, one of the best I’ve ever had!

Late September - Early October 2025: Hungary, Sweden, Denmark, Romania, Italy

Did you know that deer 🦌 burger is a thing? 🤯

I personally didn’t! Here‘s the full story …

It started when Mona and myself were planning out a trip to Sweden and Denmark. It started simple but we then discovered cheap flights that would allow us to add 4 days to our trip (including accommodation at no extra cost); it’d be foolish not to take it!

So what started as a simple, let’s visit Stockholm and Copenhagen morphed into let’s visit Budapest, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Bucharest and Rome 😂 It was an exhausting but well-worth it trip.

During our time in Stockholm, I discovered that deer burger is actually a thing and had to try it. Honestly, it was really good! It reminded of Egyptian Buftek my grandma used to make. Even though Buftek is a fried food and deer burger is grilled AFAIK, they somehow had the same taste!

It was really good though but I’m not trying it again because deers represent the spirit of Christmas to me and eating deer burger felt like I was the grinch devouring the spirit of Christmas which is a bit uncomfortable for me.

Highlight in Stockholm: Vasa Museum, Incredibly well preserved ship that sank on its first sail; the ship and the story of how it got to the museum is super interesting!!

Food highlight in Stockholm: I'll have to pick 2 cause I'm having a hard time choosing between them.

First: Traditional Swedish Food in Gamla Stan at Restaurang Tradition. As someone who didn't try swedish food outside IKEA before this trip; I'd say this was a MAJOR upgrade and I really loved it 😄

Second: Creative food at Restaurang Eld (Did I mention it also has a soothing view ☺️). Unfortunately, the food was REALLY GOOD AND creative (which is a rare combo) so we were doing more eating than photography 😂 It's hard to believe that this restaurant is a museum restaurant. It felt like the chef prepared the food with love of her craft and our waiter (I regret not remembering his name) did a fantastic job with presenting the food. His recommendations were spot on and the stories behind it all were enticing!

I do have photos of the food, but my photos butcher the presentation since it was already half-eaten by the time I took the photo so I'll just post a photo of the view + the desert we got.

Pro tip: if you go there, ask for the mead tasting menu, put your headphones on, and play the vikings theme-song ("If I had a Heart"). If you don't feel like Thor re-incarnated, then I don't know what I'm talking about 😉

Next Stop: Copenhagen, Denmark 😍

Highlight in Copenhagen: Rosenborg Castle which had really interesting artwork that I still remember in vivid detail!

It also had the funniest(?!) moment where I learnt than a past danish monarch had a “mechanical wetting chair”.

If a noble wasn't on good terms with the monarch and they wanted to embarrass them, they'd invite them to court and they'd sit on this chair (which looked like any other chair).

Upon sitting down, two iron arms activated mechanically by the weight of sitting down that locked the seated person in place. Once the target was trapped another mechanism fires that produces …. questionable sound effects 💨 …. .

The chair would then empty its hidden five-liter water tank under the chair and on the target's trousers… Just a quick primer on what the danish court’s pranking scene looked like so let's leave it here 😂😏

We finally wrapped up this trip with a quick visit to Bucharest, Romania 🇷🇴 where we got to visit its oldest church (Saint Anthony of Egypt) and the Romanian Palace of Parliament.

Then a final quick visit to Rome, Italy 🇮🇹 where we saw the beautiful architecture (and a lot of Egyptian obelisks)!

Note: If it's not immediately obvious, we like plugging Egypt (somehow) in any trip and it's not like Egypt makes it hard; in-fact: it makes super easy, barely an inconvenience (pun intended for Pitch Meeting fans) 😂

Fun Fact: A lot of celebrities got confused SHOUTING: HELLO BUDAPEST! (while in fact they were in Bucharest) 🤦‍♂️ This started with Michael Jackson's 1992 "Dangerous World Tour" but it didn't stop there.

Somehow the contagion spread which eventually led to a big ad campaign "Bucharest, not Budapest" 🤣 I have to respect the commitment so thought it was worth the plug ❤️!!

December 2025 (Christmas Time): The UK (England and Scotland)

I did this trip with Mona as well. We were on the fence on doing a Christmas time trip in 2025. Our original thoughts were Switzerland [mainly] + Either Southern France, Northern Italy, or Munich (very different destinations I know but that's what we were considering 🤷🏻).

I wasn't very excited about this trip since I couldn't get the budget to fit in with my other financial commitments UNTIL I accidentally stumbled on a very rare deal for a roundtrip ticket to the UK; to the point that it felt unethical to leave it on the table 😂 So London HERE WE GO 😍!!

I must say that the Chirstmas markets in London are simply beautiful. The lights, the holiday cheer, the food (OMG the food, I ate so much I don't want to think of how much weight I gained in this trip).

We also hopped on a day trip to Oxford and the cotswolds and it was very fun exploring the english countryside.

Afterwards, we headed to Edinburgh, Scotland and jumped on a trip galavanting around the EXTREMELY BEAUTIFUL Scottish highlands fully taking advantage of Scotland's right to roam and doing our best to avoid obstructing the king's highway while we try to take it all in. Even saw a hairy coo at some point in there 😉

Introducing 🥁 Peter's 1-line tutorial to the Scottish accent 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🥁: Don't say "yes". Instead, say "aye". You're welcome 😉

Back in Edinburgh, we climbed up Calton hill and casually strolled along the Royal Mile and Victoria Street where J.K. Rowling is believed to have gotten the inspiration for Diagon alley; I could smell the Harry Potter vibes in the air!

Food highlight of Edinburgh? Many Scotts would [jokingly] tell you to avoid Scottish Cuisine at all costs 😂; but going against the advice of locals, we found Howies Waterloo Place at the foot of Calton Hill to be ABSOLUTELY PERFECT!

Side Note: Did you know dear reader ...

Dogs can be very faithful animals; I told this corgi right here 👇 one of my secrets

and to this day ... it hasn't uttered a word to anyone! Thank you for staying true ❤️.

Conclusion

Going on these trips in 2025 reminded me how much of the world I haven't seen yet (and also how much good food I haven't tried 😆). I'm grateful for every dish, every kind stranger who made my day, and every city that surprised me in ways I didn't expect!

Most of all, I feel grateful for having Mona as an amazing travel partner [in crime] and a close friend!

I also love having this blog to share it all on, so if you've read this far, WOWW! Thank you dear reader ❤️ and if you'd like any tips/tricks on any of these places, just drop me a comment and I'll let you know what I can.

Happy 2026 everyone (better late than never 😂).