Friday, April 12, 2013

Open Mic Night—Travel Bucket List

 


travel 4-12-13

Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono at FreeDigitalPhotos.net


Tonight, while I was scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed, mindlessly browsing (likely an unnecessary redundancy; who is ever fully engaged while browsing Facebook?), I happened upon an interesting status update.  Someone had posted a link to a ProBlogger article suggesting kind of a community-building idea of a “discussion post”—just something simple designed to get folks talking.  And, even though my readership can’t compare with the discussions being generated at a site like ProBlogger, I still thought it sounded like a fun thing to do.

Of course, that meant I had to think of some sort of question that accommodated two needs:  something I’d like to know the answer to and also something many folks would be willing to give an answer to.  I thought about a few, but given that I just recently returned home from a mini-vacation and have been thinking ahead to when the next one might be, travel has been on my mind.  And, when thinking about travel, my mind always turns to the big stuff:  dream vacations and bucket list destinations. 

In my very early years, my bucket list destination (though I hadn’t yet learned the term “bucket list”) was England.  I don’t even really know why, but I’d always wanted to go there, as long as I could remember.  Maybe because I thought the English people had wonderful accents. (Confession: I still think that.)  Or maybe it’s because that’s where the Doctor was always showing up, though I’m pretty sure my fascination with the country pre-dated my fascination with the wandering Time Lord.  At any rate, I was very fortunate and got to visit London when I was 18, so cross one travel dream off the list.

Of course, there are lots of places I’d gladly visit, and a great many items on my current bucket list have to do with travel.  One of the others was not so much a destination as a mode of transport; I wanted to take a cruise.  A couple of years ago, I got to check that one off the list, too.

But, ever since I visited England, one place has remained at the top of my Places To Go list:  Australia.  It’s a big place, of course, but I’ve never really narrowed it down any more than just “Australia”.  Take me to the city and show me an opera house, or the outback and show me a kangaroo, or take me out in the ocean and show me the Great Barrier Reef.  Honestly, I don’t care.  Heck, just get me to the continent, and I’ll take it from there. 

One of these days, I’ll get there; I’m sure of it.  Until then, it stays at the top of my travel bucket list.

And what about you?  Where’s your number one travel destination?  Tell me all about it in the comments below.