My Shrinking Bucket List: Camino, China, and Places Not Visited
by Robert McGarvey
Do you have a bucket list?
Most everybody I know has one. Antarctica is on a lot of bucket lists (personally I open my freezer, look at the ice for a minute and the thought of traveling there vanishes). Tibet is on some lists and it might be on mine except it ceased to exist a long time ago. Moscow and St. Petersburg are on a few lists but, pending regime change, I won’t visit either. Ditto Tehran. Rome, Paris, Berlin are on some lists but I’ve been to all and, yes, would happily return but have nothing planned.
Here’s the deal. As I have aged my bucket list has decidedly grown smaller. There are many, many places that I know – although they are desirable – I almost certainly will never go. New Zealand is a case in point – just too far. The Baltic Republics are another for instance – which shouldn’t be confused with the Balkans where I also probably will never go although I admit Albania tempts me (with a gorgeous shoreline and also Roman ruins) as an add-on to a Greece vacation so maybe I will go to the Balkans, just not the Baltics.
With age there also comes a realization of diminishing time. I just don’t have a month to spend poking around South America and, yes, I have been, perhaps 25 years ago, to Chile (lovely country, by the way) and I am tempted by both Peru and Argentina (an odd couple if ever there were) but I sincerely doubt I will want to put in the time to know either and the idea of a quick, check the box (done that!) trip to either holds no appeal to me. Too much wear on the body for too little benefit.
Look, it’s not just countries that aren’t on my travel to do list, it’s around 24 US states, too, that I have never visited and I doubt I ever will, from Idaho to New Hampshire and Kansas to Alabama. Some states make the no go list because they are culturally unacceptable to me (just as I probably am culturally unacceptable to them). Others make the list because they, well, offer no reason to want to go. I have some friends who are determined to check off all 50 states for a bucket list goal but I am satisfied with the 26 or so I have been to and am doubtful I will check off any further states. (Note to state tourist boards: this means you. I ain’t going, don’t ask.)
What about Iceland? Yes, it scores high on the travel lists of many friends but not mine. There’s a hot tub in my backyard I never use and if the idea of going to Iceland popped into my mind I’d go sit in the hot tub until the idea vanished.
What about Tanzania? Possibly. What Baby Boomer who grew up watching Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom wouldn’t have curiosity about the Serengeti, the big five animals, and all the rest? If ever there were a prime bucket list trip this is it.
Ditto Egypt and the pyramids. Leading edge Boomers grew up watching a lot of TV horror movies about mummies and pharaohs and pyramids and just about all of us got an implanted idea that Egypt was a place to see – and the idea sticks with me. Even if not a one of those movies was shot on location.
But probably the second biggest possibility of a bucket list trip I might take is China, where I have never been (unless you count a 1997 trip to Hong Kong a few months after the handover). If there is a nation that is charting a specifically 21st century it is China and that is not to ignore its human rights abuses and its fast and loose relationship with facts and truths. But Shanghai, Chengdu, essentially instant cities of over one million in population, what’s soon to become the planet’s biggest auto industry (say good night, Detroit, Tokyo too), a huge tech sector, a rich intellectual, artistic and spiritual past – if ever there were a nation that deserves to be on a bucket list it’s China.
But China ranks second. What’s first? A 2027 500 mile walk of the entire Camino Frances. I slot it for six weeks when it will be probably my final Camino. This trip already has a place in my calendar.
Will I get there? That’s the question, isn’t it? Bucket lists are inherently aspirational, that is, things to live for. And I am all in with that idea.
What about you and your bucket list?
Nailed it with Tanzania and Egypt, McGarvey. I’ve done most of the others you mentioned, and Tibet is coming up this fall for me. But yes, with each passing year and each new destination, one’s bucket list invariably grows smaller. I like to think it’s an acceptance of reality and a satisfaction with what we have rather than a diminishing desire. (Although 18-hour plane rides are strictly UNdesireable anymore, even in the front of the plane.)
I’m still adding new countries at age 70 but agree with you on many. Australia and NZ- Business Class airfare is extortionate and I won’t fly Coach for that long. Antarctica- I don’t do cold very well. China- no to their human rights violations and Big Brother surveillance. Very glad my late husband and I visited St. Petersburg in 2003.
Plenty of beautiful and interesting places in this world to visit, including possible returns to some I’ve visited multiple times and loved.
Age 87….. might return to Siem Reap if I can avoid Bangkok to get there. My heart rests in South Africa…specifically Londolozi. Would love to go back (the seventh time) for my 90th but 40 hours of travel each way from Honolulu! I am reluctantly removing Londolozi from my still shrinking bucket list.
Any flight over five hours must be BC with lie flat seats so cost is also a factor. Hamba kahle.
Just visited the pyramids last month on a 13 day around the world trip (Paris, Cairo, Dubai, Phuket, Tokyo), and they are well worth the visit. The around the world thing was a bucket list item for me, but I had to do it a little quicker than I would have liked due to getting time off from work. I’m going to suffer through the cold and visit Antarctica since that’s on my list and it will be the last continent for that bucket list item. I’ve done all 50 states, but mostly as part of my job, not really a bucket list item. Being of that age, the Serengeti is definitely still on my list to see as well. One other bucket list item that I did that I think is well worth it is flying on the Vomit Comet. (https://www.gozerog.com/) Did that 10 years ago and it was well worth the price.