Year in review: 2025
Simon Thompson
As 2025 draws to a close, I'm taking pause to reflect on a whirlwind of a year. It's been my busiest travel year so far, and I've been able to continue working on things I find rewarding and challenging in equal measure.
#Music
Below are my top artists of 2025 ranked by number of streams11Excluding 'sleep soundtracks' which were skewing the data heavily.. I pride myself on the breadth of my music taste, so it's nice to see that things aren't getting stale - with half of the top 10 being new discoveries.
| Artist | Minutes | Streams | New? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Oxis | 2,304 | 1,076 | ★ |
 | Clairo | 2,583 | 805 | ★ |
 | Laufey | 2,100 | 673 | |
 | ANAVITÓRIA | 2,026 | 664 | ★ |
 | Taylor Swift | 2,019 | 596 | |
 | Pomme | 1,309 | 400 | ★ |
 | AURORA | 1,299 | 354 | |
 | Carla Morrison | 1,310 | 309 | ★ |
 | Chappell Roan | 919 | 268 | |
 | Wheatus | 811 | 232 |
I was fortunate to see a few of these artists perform live too, with a particular highlight being Laufey's concert at the Chautauqua Institution in New York state.
Some other favourites not captured here:
- Olivia Dean
- Hudson Freeman
- SOFIA ISELLA
- boygenius
- Maddie Ashman
#Travel
This year I've been fortunate to travel widely, covering 7 countries in total (+ the UK) and visiting Asia for the first time. Looking at my Flighty data, I've spent 7d 17h on flights - journeying between 23 airports with 10 airlines.
| Month | City | Country | Timezone |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feb | Honolulu, Hawaii | United States | UTC-10 |
| Feb | San Francisco | United States | UTC-8 |
| Apr | Lisbon | Portugal | UTC+1 |
| Jun | Copenhagen | Denmark | UTC+2 |
| Aug | Portland | United States | UTC-7 |
| Aug | San Francisco | United States | UTC-7 |
| Aug | Buffalo (Chautauqua) | United States | UTC-4 |
| Sep | New York | United States | UTC-4 |
| Oct | London | United Kingdom | UTC+1 |
| Oct | Copenhagen | Denmark | UTC+2 |
| Nov | Manila | Philippines | UTC+8 |
| Nov | Tokyo | Japan | UTC+9 |
| Nov | Singapore | Singapore | UTC+8 |
| Nov | Bangkok | Thailand | UTC+7 |
| Dec | San Francisco | United States | UTC-8 |
| Dec | Portland | United States | UTC-8 |
This amount of timezone hopping is beginning to take a toll on my sleep and overall wellbeing, so looking forward to 2026 I'm planning to slow down and focus on deeper travel. Specifically, this will be longer stays in fewer cities - likely in Europe (or at least within UTC +/- 2 hours).
#Looking forward
Each year I choose a broad "theme" which can guide my decision making. For 2026 this will be Health & Wellbeing. Whilst travel has been beneficial for personal growth and life experience, it's come at the cost of routine - so my sleep, fitness and diet have suffered. In 2026 I need to make decisions which prioritise overall health and wellbeing, wherever I am in the world.
Having rebuilt this site this year, I also hope to get into a more consistent writing habit - likely for topics outside of software development and martech.
Thanks to everybody who's been a part of my journey in 2025.
Happy New Year!