There is a fair chance that this post is going to make me unpopular amongst the travel blogging community. You see there is one phrase that is bandied about on travel blogs and by the travel marketing folk that I hate. Hell, even some otherwise lovely travel blogs that I follow have the phrase in their title. Bucket List.
Okay, okay, I get it. Having a Bucket List is meant to inspire people to get off their buttocks and explore the world. It is meant to encourage people to explore beyond the regular destinations, to think of places they would love to visit, or activities they would love to experience, and to go for it. The thing is, it simply doesn’t do it for me. Bucket List in no way describes the way I think about travel or my life. With that in mind and throwing caution to the wind as I anticipate the scorn that will be heaped upon me by my fellow travel bloggers I am going to tell you why.
It is not relational
I remember in university a friend told me he had ‘Done Paris.” What exactly did he mean? Rather than alluding to his sexual conquests in the French capital he meant that he had been there, seen the sites, completed the act of visiting it. It was ticked off his Bucket List. My own perspective of both everyday life and travel though is is relational. It is about my relationships with people the environment and place, and it incorporates spirituality. If for example I lived in Paris my entire life I would never consider it “done” or ticked of a list as I would not have experienced the entire potential of relationship that exists there. By removing the relationship element from travel we risk our travel experiences being superficial.
Travel for us is about exploring surprise opportunities.
Thursday Island, Dili, the Thai Burma border, Irian Jaya, Cameroon, Darwin, Newcastle, Cairns, Nashville. These are some of the places that I have traveled to not because they were on a Bucket List but because a surprise opportunity arose. They are also places that through visiting contributed to my evolution as an individual. Admittedly opportunities have usually been a consequence of either mine or my husband’s work but as mother traveling with kids I also embrace surprise travel opportunities. These opportunities may come in the form of a super cheap air sale to some previously unconsidered destination, or a blogger invitation in my inbox, and sometimes they come as a result of one of my children expressing an interest in an activity beyond my own interests. Local case in point, my son loves mazes so I find myself being dragged by my six year old around Victoria’s mazes much more than I ever would have envisioned or desired. In this case the activity is both a surprise opportunity and relational – the activity being about my relationship with my son.
It makes the destination the objective.
Yes, I know, long haul flights are not one of life’s most pleasurable experiences, particularly when accompanied by my own pet monkeys – I mean kids. Solely focusing on the destination, as a Bucket List item to be ticked off means you are more likely to miss the travel gems as you get there. I know I am harping on but once more this has to do again with relationships. Precious time talking to my husband as the kids are asleep in the car on road trips, the potential for kindness, both given to and received from fellow travelers and previously unknown towns and places that can be discovered during stop-overs or lunch stops are a few examples.
We are never satiated as travelers.
Ticked a place off your Bucket List? Then it is time to move onto the next item on the list.
We don’t know when we will kick the Bucket.
As I age I am increasingly reminded of how we truly never know what tomorrow will bring. While I hope and pray for a long and healthy life for my family we hear stories every day of others that shared the same hopes but who have faced tragedy or illness. If I were to kick the Bucket tomorrow I don’t want to be disappointed that I haven’t seen and done what I wanted. I understand that this is the reason the term Bucket List exists, to inspire people not to waste their life. It just doesn’t work that way for me though. Instead I wish to be thankful for each individual day, in my belief having a Bucket List will by it’s nature, almost invariably lead to disappointment.
Thanks for sharing with me in my existential travel rant. Love to hear your own thoughts on the most overused travel term in history. And just to give you inspiration to scrap your own Bucket List, here are a few photos of places that would never have made it to my own Bucket List but that surprised me on our own life journeys.
Organ Pipes National Park off the Calder Highway near Melbourne
The Derwent River from Mount Wellington Tasmania
Stained glass depiction of the Great Barrier Reef in Saint Monica’s Cathedral Cairns. I wandered in one day with the kids after a Mainly Music class.
With the grandparents in a sleigh near the Chinese northern city of Harbin
The lighthouse at Cooktown in the Cape York Peninsula
Snorkelling while pregnant with our first child and hubby catching cray in the Torres Strait
I know the Colosseum is on many people’s Bucket List but we visited there on a crazy round the world trip with our first newborn because I was invited to speak at a meeting in Italy.
This is one of those “travel style” issues, like how some people want to see the big sights and others need to get far off the beaten track. Some like it lux, others prefer it rugged. Some like single-stop holidays based around relaxing, some want to go at breakneck speed to fifteen different places. Etc. We could go on.
I’m not big on bucket lists for pretty much all the reasons you mentioned. At the same time, I think a lot of people who have bucket lists probably want a lot of what you’ve listed from their travels and bucket list or no, they probably arrange their trips to suit – in other words, they have one, but it isn’t the be-all and end-all of their travel philosophy. Conversely, I do sometimes refer to “my list” (not an official list but a mental pile of cool places I heard of and have yearned for) – so there’s probably less practical difference in the philosophies than it sounds.
And you know at the end of the day, if people want to scoot around Paris ticking off hastily-seen sights like they’re on a kind of scavenger hunt, well, that’s up to them. A good friend of mine actually did a super-intense version of that when he ended up with a group of fellow travellers for a day in Venice and it sounded fun. They literally made a game out of sprinting around snapping each sight as fast as possible before they had to be back out of there in the evening (for logistical reasons I’ve forgotten – I think the group met up at a hostel in the morning because none of them had booked ahead on a popular weekend). I wouldn’t run my whole holiday like that (neither would he) but it’s no skin off my nose if anyone else does.
Unless you expect me to come with you of course – then we might have to talk! 🙂
I am sure you are right Bronwyn. Ultimately I think it is the use as a marketing ploy that bothers me. Also, I am all for taking advantage of cheap airfares, invitations from friends etc and visiting previoiusly unthought of places with an open mind, rather than having my own agenda.
I also love the idea of a scavenger hunt, but I would say that it was relational, being about the relationship between the travellers themselves.
I’m with you, I don’t have a bucket list at all… and I when I travel I never dash around trying to see everything because I always reckon I will be back again one day and I want to enjoy myself… and sit around in cafes watching people by by… I often have one travel fever, somewher I must get to… and it’s currently East Timor… had hoped to get there this year, but now it’s put off until next year when my husband comes back to work in Sydney, will be much easier. I’d love to go with Teen15 and would see it as a recce….
Also… I am not a person who knows how many countries she has been to, nor cares…. what does it matter? I’m not ticking off numbers… And I so much prefer to live in other countries really than to visit… but we seem to have accidentally been in Sydney for 16 years… we’d have been expats all over the planet but for my eldest’s special needs.
Anyway, I am with you… bucket list is a great marketing term… having said that, I do sometimes got to check out the Bucket List board of yTravelblog on Pinterest, so many cool shots there.
As a newlywed my husand was posted to East Timor doing UN doctor stuff. I was in Darwin and I would head straight to the airport on a Friday after work, still in my work clothes and 90 minutes later be in Dili. Monday morning I’d catch an early flight back and head straight to work from the airport. I never would have dreamed East Timor is so close to Australia – but also a completely different world. We went back and worked together there for 3 months just before I became a Mum. A beautiful place, and a country that has so much to draw tourists. Security as I’m sure you know can be an issue there though so if you do decide to go register with the Australian embassy. They were really good at sending SMS messages to Aussie visitors (not sure if you have Aussie citizenship?) if security was compromised, as well as giving advice.
Gah! I’m just so uncool and out of touch again. I am guilty of counting countries, there are lots of way to slice the cake. Do you count Vatican City? Yes but it’s a cheat, though standing at the DMZ between North and South Korea does not count as having been to North Korea.
It’s a bit of fun and it does make me giddy going to a new country and mentally checking it off. What does it matter? Not a single bit.
I do prefer living in countries as well, you do get to be part of the fold rather than an onlooker.
I hope we can still be friends.
xo 😉
I seem to be the odd one out this week on Bron and your posts. This is by no means scorn… I feel like the uncool kid that missed out on the memo that bucket lists are so 2007 (incidentally when the movie with Morgan Freeman was released).
I have a bucket list and totally keen on the idea, I found if I don’t have a few destinations to aim for, being the poor planner with my head in the clouds. I just don’t get around to it when there was actually a window to go see, explore and make it happen. It’s by no means check it off and done, I can go back to Italy time and time again. It’s a mental list of inspirational places that I’d like to see.
You’re right wanderlust it is never sated? But a bucket list helps to set goals and make travel part of life.
I do like the thought of going to the airport and just taking the next flight anywhere in the world. Seeing where it takes us. But I much prefer to check off top of my list Bora Bora 🙂
Hope we can still be friends?
xoxo
Oh Rene, I thought I was uncool for NOT liking bucket lists. Seems like nearly every site I see has them/mentions them. Of course we can still be friends 🙂 Perhaps we should meet in Bora Bora? If only the Bora Bora folk would invite us for a family travel blogger famil !
Well…..I obviously DO have a Bucket List but mine isn’t about destinations but centred around experiences for my kids. My ‘Kid Bucket List’ is very fluid and changes all the time. Whilst we have checked off things like ‘ride a camel’ or ‘catch a yabby’ (only recently 😉 ) it by no means we can’t do it again. It helps me to think about new experiences I can offer my children when planning trips BUT also when we reflect on a spontaneous weekend adventure we can say “oh wow, that was a first”.
Having a Bucket List doesn’t mean I will race around and try to check a whole bunch of stuff off my list so I can complete it either nor does it really make the item on my Bucket List the objective. The adventure is the experience, isn’t it?
BTW _ I’m a huge cheat. Sometimes something pretty awesome comes up that we experience and I add it to our Bucket List so I can check it off. I’m naughty like that.
Hi Leah. While I don’t like the term Bucket List I do love your own bucket list because it is opportunistic – exploring around your own town and discovering hidden gems as well as sharing with others.
I absolutely love this article. I have always had a problem developing a bucket list; it always feels wrong, though I could never lay out specifics why. This article has helped clear up my thoughts, and I am grateful for it. Life is not a checklist; to see it such a way is not only superficial but arrogant. Not that bucket-lists are the devil itself, but I do have many of the listed reservations. Great article!
Thanks very much Al. Always nice to get some words of encouragement on something I’ve written.!
https://janesblog19.wordpress.com/2015/08/02/bucket-list-schmucket-list/