Everyone seems to have a Bucket List, it might not be travel related, it may be about a reading goal, a career goal, gym goals, visiting different sports stadiums, the list goes on. Of course this list or set of goals tends to take a lifetime to come up with, and perhaps even more than a lifetime to complete, or we don’t finish it at all. Still, it’s a fun thing to think about. It is certainly something I’ve been thinking about for a long time, and things get added as time goes on. Sometimes things come off the list only to be added back on, or forgotten about entirely. It’s nice that none of it is essential, and so we can have fun with it, without unnecessary pressures put on us.

That being said, lets discuss some travel goals, or bucket list items. Please feel free to share yours as well! I love to hear people’s dreams, sometimes they’re eye-opening, and other times you find another connection with someone.

1. Visit all 50 of the United States: This has been on my bucket list for a long, looooonnnnggg while. It goes through ebbs and flows of importance, but it’s always lingering there in the background somewhere of things I really want to do in my lifetime. Every time I cross a state off, the accomplishment of checking one off increases this desire with more vigor for a while, as I focus on the next state on the list.
2. Go to New Zealand: Ever since I watched Lord of the Rings and saw all the sheer beauty of this country I have wanted to go. It’s definitely one of those “eventually’ places, it’s decently high on the list, if places I want to go. If I go someday, seeing Hobbiton is an absolute must. I think of this trip as a big birthday, like my 40th or 50th or something.
3. Go to Japan: Again, definitely one I have wanted to go to for a while, especially with my adolescence years of being into certain areas of the culture, anime, food, video games, those kind of things. It’s not as high on the list as New Zealand, but it’s definitely at least in the mid range. This is one I don’t plan on accomplishing for a while, and that’s totally okay.
4. Go to different pockets of Europe I haven’t explored. This one goes without saying, Europe had always been high on my priority list. It continues to be so even to this day. With my over a dozen years of traveling Europe, there are definitely some areas I am very lacking in. I have often hit some of the same places multiple times, either with different groups of people, or just because I love it so much, or I know people there.
5. Go whale watching: I absolutely love whales, and now that I live on the West Coast, this does seem like an activity that could be accomplished sooner than later. I remember the first time I had the opportunity on the East Coast, over a decade ago. It still hasn’t happened yet, but it seems highly obtainable.
6. Go on an African safari: This one seems more of a pipedream than anything, but I’ve been joking about it for years. It’s low on the list because it’s something I want to do when I’m older, a lot older. Why you might ask? Well, just in case something weird happens like a lion attack. I always say I’m going to do this when I’m 85 and I don’t care if a lion eats me. So that’s why it’s so low on the priorities list.
7. Go on a cruise: This was something that wasn’t really on my radar for most of my life. It was only fairly recently that this became something I was really interested in. This is something that’s again in the mid-range of priority, in fact my husband and I almost booked one recently.

Most of these are long term goals, things that will take years, but some of them can have progress made on them fairly easily. Do any of you share these same goals? Are there ones that are similar? Or ones that are entirely different? In the end this is all just a bit of fun, and hey if one of them gets accomplished than that’s cool. One that was on the lower side of priority that I have accomplished was seeing the Aurora Borealis. With all the magnetic storms, and surges they’ve been much more visible in metropolitan areas like I’ve always lived in, and further south as well. Last year we managed to see them twice, and it was something I never thought I’d actually see. So things can be crossed off, they aren’t all lofty or long planning goals, sometimes it’s just a happenstance that makes it happen.

Hope you all enjoyed reading this post, and I hope to post more frequently in this new year coming soon!