What’s on Your Real Travel Bucket List?
How many things are on your travel bucket list? Mine is about 10,000 pages long & includes so many amazing destinations. My bucket list has literally outgrown any chance at being feasibly achievable.
This got me thinking, since I can’t do everything on my bucket list, I need to prioritize and create a real travel bucket list. I need a bucket list where everything on it feels like an absolute must.
Do you know what those things are for you? What’s number one on your list? What would feel like a completion of something deep inside of you? What can you not bear to imagine never doing in your life?
Here’s how I made a better bucket list
When it gets down to it, I can do without a lot of things on my travel bucket list. In fact, as I started thinking about this I realized that most (not all) were more about something I wanted to feel rather than somewhere I wanted to be. For every item on my travel bucket list, I can work backwards to a feeling I want to have. This is how I am coming up with my true travel bucket list, by working backwards. When I stopped being so specific, I started opening myself up to new possibilities and, I believe, a more doable list that isn’t about achievement but is about experiencing.
To make your better bucket list simply take each item on your list and ask why until you can’t answer anymore. The final why is your true bucket list item. If you feel strongly about a specefic item on the list just skip that, your heart knows what it wants. I’m keeping a visit to the blue lagoon and Prince Edward Island on mine. Some things are more about the feeling and a few are truly about the place.
Here are a few of the things on my new, more true, bucket list and where they came from:
- I want to feel alone yet connected. <– I want to stand somewhere where all I can see is nature, no hint of anything man made. <– I want to hike in the Tongass National Forest.
- I want to experience self sufficiency <– I want to feel what is like to walk for so long with nothing more than a backpack <– I want to walk the Camino De Santiago de Compostela
- I want to be touched by beauty <– I want to see a sky full of lanterns <– I want to experience Yi Peng, the floating lights festival
- I want to trust in the world <– I want to be spontaneous <– I want to throw a dart at a map & travel to where it lands
- I want to be amazed <– I want to see a sky full of stars <– I want to stay in an Official Dark Sky Location
So those are just a few that came up, but the cool thing is that now I know the why behind the where, maybe I’ll never see the Yi Peng festival in person, but there are so many other ways I can be touched by beauty. It’s kind of a cool thing to do, to think backwards, explore yourself, get to know a little better what your true happy is.
What’s on Your Real Travel Bucket List?
About the Author
About the Author: Kate is a travel junkie at heart. She lives for exploring cultures, food, history and local life and is currently scheming ways to get enough time free to walk the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. Get Trip Logic Updates by Email.
My entire blog is all about my travel bucket list: I only have about 100 items, and only add more once I’ve achieved something on the list. That way it doesn’t grow so far out of proportion that I get overwhelmed. When I read other travel blogs, I see things that I’d love to do, see, or experience – but ponder over them a bit before I decide if they are ‘list-worthy’. (Most things end up being list-worthy to be perfectly honest.) It is all about balance and prioritizing, I agree – but there’s nothing wrong with aiming high, either!
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I don’t have a bucket list – I’ve got arthritis, so one day I’ll have to take my rucksack to the charity shop and look at other ways to travel. When that time comes I don’t want to look back at the things I didn’t get round to doing, but to revel in memories of all the wonderful things I’ve done.
Wholeheartedly agree! Some people HATE travel bucket list, but I have Travel Bucket List Wednesdays series on my blog and I express that it is all about making sure you don’t WAIT to cross off items. Like you said, so long the places have some meaning to you…
As for why I LOVE them: I like lists because I’m absent-minded and would hate for gorgeous places to escape my mind once I hear about them. So I add them to my travel bucket list. These lists aren’t bad so long you don’t have the mentality of “oh, will start doing these when I’m close to dying” you know?! Otherwise, they are great!
-Maria Alexandra
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