A Wanderer's Bucket List

A seemingly obvious fact about me is my love of travel. If you haven't realized that, perhaps you should skim through some previous blogposts from the past 2 years. I'm always on the lookout for a new adventure and get myself into situations where I can take advantage of seeing as much of the world as I can (ie. moving overseas three times). That being said, I've never actually taken the time to sit down and figure out where exactly it is I'd like to go - and what I'd like to see - on this great Earth of ours. I've always got ideas in mind, either from my own research or hearing about other people's tales of travels. No doubt I've got one hell of an ambitious itinerary in my mind of places to go - South America, Asia, Australia, the South Pacific, all around North America - but the world is large, and I'm little, and unless I had access to unlimited funds and no responsibility for anything whatsoever other than my own selfish need to explore everything the world has to offer, I'm going to have to be choosy.

So, I decided it was high time I come up with an actual physical list of places I'd like to go and travel experiences I'd like to have. Some inspiration comes from a new book I got, one very large "The Travel Book: A Journey Through Every Country in the World", which (rather obviously), features in full colour photos (and a wee bit of text) every country...in the world!

what have we here?

exploding with information!

hey, I've been there!

ooh la la!

Kudos to Cigdem for this one, who, after some 23 years of friendship and knows me extremely well, very lovingly bought me Breakfast At Tiffany's: The Official 50th Anniversary Companion, 
a beautiful coffee table book devoted to my favourite movie, actress and my overall idol/role model. The perfect gift. Unfortunately for her, my aunt got there first, and had already given me the book on Christmas Eve. Sorry Chee! (Hey, it's the thought that counts, right?) So, armed with my Chapter's gift receipt, I spent a good deal of time humming and hawing over what to replace it with. I figured since she had picked out a perfect coffee table book about one of my true passions, I should replace it with something similar: hence, a coffee table book about my passion for travel! (Mille grazie, mon amie!)

Thus begins my list of places I most want to see in the world. I think top 50 is more than enough - an exhaustive list would be closer to 500, but I should focus on those places that I really have my heart set on seeing - the rest is icing on the cake. There are, of course, plenty of places I've been to that I want to revisit or explore more extensively, but that would have to be a list of it's own.

So here goes, in alphabetical order, the top 50 destinations I'd most like to visit:

1. Albania
2. Argentina
3. Australia
4. Bosnia and Herzegovina
5. British Columbia (Canada)
6. Bruges (Belgium)
7. Bulgaria
8. California (US)
9. Cambodia
10. Chile
11. Colombia
12. Corsica (France)
13. Costa Rica
14. Croatia's Adriatic coast
15. Denmark
16. Easter Island
17. Estonia
18. Falkland Islands (UK)
19. Faroe Islands
20. Finland
21. Galápagos Islands (Ecuador)
22. Greenland
23. Guadeloupe
24. Indonesia
25. Kenya
26. Lappland (northern part of Norway, Sweden and Finland)
27. Latvia
28. Lithuania
29. Morocco
30. Newfoundland (Canada)
31. New Zealand
32. Normandy (France)
33. Northern Ireland
34. Nunavut (Canada)
35. Peru
36. Petra (Jordan)
37. Romania
38. Russia
39. Scottish Highlands
40. Serbia
41. Shetland & Orkney Islands (Scotland)
42. Stonehenge (UK)
43. St. Pierre and Miquelon (France)
44. Svalbard (Norway)
45. Tristan da Cunha (UK)
46. Turkey (lookin' at you, Chee!)
47. Ukraine
48. Vienna (Austria)
49. Wales (UK)
50. Yukon Territory (Canada)

Hopefully I'll be able to cross of a couple of these this year (ie. the highlands, Wales and Denmark, at least). As for the rest...well, I've still got a few years, eh?