A new year is upon us. After my very busy December, I didn’t leave the city of Prague once in the month of January. And it was excellent.
Also this month, Adventurous Kate turned sixteen years old. WOW.
Let’s take a look at the best of January 2026!
Table of Contents
Destinations Visited
- Prague, Czech Republic
Fighting ICE
Before I get into the usual recap, I want you to help me raise money for immigrants in the United States who are being terrorized by ICE.
I’m giving away four 45-minute consult calls to people who make donations to organizations fighting ICE: specifically, legal aid and mutual aid organizations helping immigrants.
I charge a lot for these and NEVER give them away, but this seemed like a very good reason to do so.
You can choose between the following:
- Travel consult, where I help you plan a trip
- Blog consult, where I help you with your blog
- Social media consult, where I help you with your social media
- Or just a call where we talk about anything (within reason)
I chose organizations that help immigrants with legal support and mutual aid in Minnesota, in Maine, and nationwide.
Step 1: Make a Donation
Here are the five places where you can donate:
- Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota https://www.ilcm.org/donate/
- CoPal Minnesota https://copalmn.org/donate/
- Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project Maine https://ilapmaine.org
- Maine Solidarity Fund https://www.mainesolidarity.org
- National Immigrant Justice Center https://immigrantjustice.org/ways-to-help/
You will get one entry for every $5.00 you donate — so feel free to donate $20, $50, or even more!
Step 2: Email the Receipt
Forward the receipt to care [at] adventurouskate.com by February 13, 2026.
I will draw four random winners and follow up by email.
THANK YOU for making a big difference. So far we have raised several hundred dollars for these organizations! Let’s keep it up!!
Highlights
I’ll be honest — this was a very quiet month. I did not do much, and that was very much by design. We all need time to winter properly.
Seeing Raye in concert. I’ve been a fan of Raye ever since she appeared on SNL two years ago, and I had to snap up tickets when she came to Prague.
She put on a beautiful concert that was both a throwback and something super modern. I loved how she had a giant big band on stage, how she wore a red sparkly dress for most of the concert, and how she went from big band to stripped down songs sitting behind the piano (she called it the “musical therapy section”) to a big dance party at the end!
Cooking lots of tasty things. Winter is the time of year I cook a lot, and this has been a good month for sauces, soups, and other hearty dishes!
Marcella Hazan’s bolognese, which takes at least four hours to cook, was so good, I made two double portions this month. It’s also great reheated with some nduja stirred in!
Challenges
Nothing much, but it was SO, SO COLD THIS MONTH! It snowed quite decently, but beyond that, we’ve had temperatures below freezing almost every day, which makes it the coldest winter since I’ve been living in Prague.
Every day, I take a 45-minute walk — but with temperatures like these, I’ve been gritting my teeth through the whole ordeal.
Post of the Month
What’s it like to travel to Curaçao? — Everything you should know before traveling to Curaçao, and why it quickly became one of my favorite Caribbean islands!
Most Popular Post on Instagram
It was actually this post about why I talk about politics as a travel blogger — and exactly where I stand on many issues.
I talk about politics frequently, on all platforms, but I know that not everyone sees all my content due to algorithms and whatnot. This is a chance to be crystal clear about my values.
Oh, and if you’d like to never miss anything I post, sign up for my newsletter! I try to put together a fun newsletter with links and personal updates and cool stuff I found on the web a few times a month.
What I Watched This Month
I have been working my way through Better Call Saul this month. And yes, I know I’m MANY years late on that. It’s weird that I never watched, as Breaking Bad is my favorite TV drama of all time. But after getting into Pluribus, I decided to dive deep into the live of Saul Goodman.
And what a surprise — it is SO good, so deep, and full of what made Breaking Bad so good. If you’ve never watched it, I highly recommend it. But make sure you watch Breaking Bad first. It’s more rewarding to see the Easter eggs and thematic parallels of Better Call Saul.
Also, The Pitt is back! Brilliant, brilliant show. I’ll probably talk about that more next month.
Movies-wise, I really enjoyed Bugonia this month. Dark, funny, brilliantly acted, and a lot of fun. It’s on Peacock if you want to stream it.
What I Listened To This Month
I’m listening to all 500 of Rolling Stone‘s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, which I am enjoying immensely. I am loving discovering new artists and listening to albums I’ve somehow missed my entire life until now!
And I’ve noticed a change lately. As I get below number 150, the albums are having a huge uptick in quality. They’re some of the best. This is also the month with the most albums I had listened to in full.
In January, I listened to albums number 162-136.
Favorite Discovery: Grace by Jeff Buckley. All I knew about him was that his version of “Hallelujah” is known for being far better than Leonard Cohen’s original, that he died young, and that people who love him really, really love him.
Then I listened to his album, and I was absolutely spellbound. His beautiful voice, his deep songwriting, and the perfect 90s alternative sound (in a good way). Just magnificent, start to finish.
I’ve listened to the album several times and I think it will be going into my rotation regularly.
Jeff Buckley died by accidental drowning at age 30. He will forever be a one-album artist. What a loss for the world.
Other Favorite Discoveries: Mama’s Gun by Erykah Badu, The Black Album by Jay-Z, Pretenders by The Pretenders.
Favorite Revisited Album: Channel Orange by Frank Ocean. This has long been one of my favorite albums of all time, and I’ve listened to it consistently since it came out. I love the diversity of the songs on this album, but how it all has a very strong point of view throughout.
In the decade-plus since it came out, I’ve come to realize just what a big impact this album had on alternative R&B (it’s up there with Kanye’s 808s & Heartbreak in terms of influencing genres).
Not to mention how revolutionary it was at the time for a hip-hop artist to be openly queer and sing about it.
(Also, Frank…if you ever wanted to make more music, that would be great!)
Other Favorite Revisited Albums: 21 by Adele, The Immaculate Collection by Madonna, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? by Oasis.
Favorite Songs: SO MANY THIS MONTH!! “Forget Her” by Jeff Buckley, “The Wanton Song” by Led Zeppelin, “Kiss Me On My Neck” by Erykah Badu, “Hand to Mouth” by George Michael, “Encore” by Jay-Z, “Guinnevere” by Crosby, Stills & Nash, “Stan” by Eminem, “Sweet Life” by Frank Ocean, “King of Pain” by The Police, “Into the Groove” by Madonna, “Cast No Shadow” by Oasis, “Turning Tables” by Adele, “Atlantic City” by Bruce Springsteen.
Get the playlist: I’m creating a playlist of my favorite songs from the 500 albums — maximum one per album — on Spotify. You can listen to it here.
Random Music Thoughts: Just like The Slim Shady LP, I hadn’t listened to The Marshall Mathers LP in decades, and yet when I put it on, I remembered every word.
I find it interesting when I have starkly different opinions on different artists’ albums. That been the case for Tom Petty (love Full Moon Fever much more than his others) and Big Star (love #1 Record much more than their others).
This month it was PJ Harvey, whose album Rid of Me didn’t do anything for me, compared to Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, which I ADORED. Conversely, this month I enjoyed Blondie’s Parallel Lines significantly more than their self-titled Blondie, which I found to be an incredibly annoying album.
What I Read This Month
I started the year off strong with six books read. I’ve decided to stop recapping every book in depth in the monthly recap (mostly because I just DREAD writing them all), but I’ll include a sentence at least.
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka (2022) — During the Sri Lankan civil was in the 1980s, a photojournalist is murdered and ascends to the in-between. He has seven nights to find out how he died and get his world-changing photos into his friends’ hands.
This book reminded me so much of George Saunders’s Lincoln in the Bardo (one of my favorites the year it came out), which is also about the place where spirits dwell between life and death, and has a similarly chaotic atmosphere among the spirits. Turns out that Karunatilaka lists Lincoln in the Bardo as one of his top inspirations.
This book is different in a lot of ways. It’s about living in a politically corrupt atmosphere, becoming detached from reporting on violence constantly, being gay and hiding half in the closet, and creating a found family. A really interesting book, and my first by a Sri Lankan author.
All Fours by Miranda July (2024) — A somewhat famous artists decides to drive across the country from California to New York. Instead, thirty minutes from home, she checks into a hotel and immerses herself in a very different adventure with a younger local man.
This book got a lot of accolades, and I get it. Just make sure you’re ready for an incredibly unlikeable protagonist and lots of cringing throughout. Some good books are like that! I thought it was worth it.
The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren (2024) — A romance that asks the question of “If we pretend to be married around my rich family for a weekend, I’ll receive a $100 million inheritance, but what if we fall in love for real??” It’s entertaining and moves pretty quickly with a lot of action, though I wasn’t a fan of the manic pixie dream girl cliché.
The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins (2024) — Like many pop psych books, this could have been a blog post. Let people do what they want to do. Stop caring about it and be free. WAY too much filler otherwise.
The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control by Katherine Morgan Schafler (2023) — This book started very strong with redefining perfectionism, completely with several different kinds of perfectionism, but unfortunately lost steam soon after.
Coming Up in February 2026
Um…absolutely nothing is coming up in February. This is going to be another quiet month at home.
Only two things are on the calendar: my friends amusingly signed us all up for a zabíjačka on February 14. A zabíjačka is a pig roast tradition that takes place each winter in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. They butcher a pig, hang it upside down outside, and cook it in a million different ways.
So yeah, nothing says Valentine’s Day like pig carcasses dripping blood in parks all over the city!
Other than that, I’m on the waitlist for tickets to see Sombr (he’s literally performing a five-minute walk from my apartment!) on February 16. Hopefully those come through.
And that is it. Taking it easy.
What are you looking forward to in February? Share away!
The post AK Monthly Recap: January 2026 appeared first on Adventurous Kate.
