My Travel Bucket List

Someone has once said something that has inspired me to choose a life of uncertainties and adventures instead of comfort and certainty:

“One day your life with flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching

Having an interesting life has been the key motivator that has kept me going. It gave me the courage I needed to leave from my steady life in Finland and travel to Australia. It made me to say yes and spontaneously move to Malta. For a couple of years, those two sentences have been my guiding principle, and they keep influencing the decisions I’ve made recently.

“Having a life worth watching” is a good principle. As a goal however, it is far too vague and abstract. Any great principle needs concrete goals and detailed plans to make it meaningful and interesting for you. So for the past days, I have been browsing different travel inspiration sites and others’ travel bucket lists, while trying to build my own.

Here it is:

Step foot on Antarctica

Visit Machu Picchu

Experience Trans Siberian Trailway

Go on a hot air balloon ride in Cappadocia

Visit New York

Go on a safari

Visit The Hobitton in New Zealand

See Petra, Jordan

Go to Paris in a spring

Party the whole night on full moon party in Thailand

See Taj Mahal

Go zip lining

Move to New Zealand for a year

Go on a girls’ weekend getaway

Stay overnight at a castle in Ireland

Experience Rome

Climb to Everest Base camp (if I am ever in a good enough shape)

Walk the Camino de Santiago

Get food overload in Morocco

Listen fado in Portugal

Experience the Killing Fields in Cambodia

Visit Barcelona

Sleep in ice hotel in Sweden or the iglu hotel in Finland

Drink (my first) beer in Octoberfest in Germany

See the Berlin wall

See the pyramids in Egypt

Visit Cuba

Walk on the Great Wall of China

Visit the Alps

Spend a night in a lighthouse

Attend Indian wedding in India

Swim in the Dead Sea

Sleep in a desert

Stay in a Japanese capsule hotel

Stay in a super fancy 5-star hotel

Visit every country in Europe

Visit a space observatory

See the statues Easter Island

Rent a villa in Tuscany

Do a multi-day horse riding trip (preferably in Iceland)

As you can see, my travel bucket list is still quite traditional and Europe and Asia oriented. Making this list has made me realise, how little I have actually seen during my 30 years of existence and travelling. It is never too late to start however, so I will first start with these more conventional destinations and activities, before moving to more unique ones (well if I can experience everything on this “conventional” list, it is quite spectacular, isn’t it?). Also writing this list has made me to ask myself, why some people accomplish these amazing things, while others settle just to browse inspirational pictures on Pinterest or to write lists similar to mine? What is the driving force that separates the doers from the dreamers? Is it willpower, courage, or even fear? Fear that your life will not take your breath away, when it flashes through your eyes?

Keeping that thought in the back of my mind, I will start to plan the first experience on my list.