# 50 Things to do before you die...(amend this list with your favourites)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-things-to-do-before-you-die-amend-this-list-with-your-favourites/202575
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [September 19, 2003, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-things-to-do-before-you-die-amend-this-list-with-your-favourites/202575 "2003-09-19T10:06:33Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Super\_Gnat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Super_Gnat)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2003, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-things-to-do-before-you-die-amend-this-list-with-your-favourites/202575/21 "2003-09-19T18:55:31Z")
Well, I’ve um _cough_ been to Disney World, but that’s it. Oh yeah, and experienced a (small) waterfall.
The only things on that list that I’d _really_ like to do would be to swim with dolphins and watch a sunrise/sunset at Uluru.
My list, in no particular order(starred are the things that I’ve done)
–swim with dolphins
–watch sunrise/sunset at Uluru
–walk around in Pompeii \*
–visit the Alps \*
–have sex (what?)
–visit Cedar Point USA (I’m a freefall junkie)
–own my own island in the South Pacific, or maybe Caribbean
–see the Himalayas
–surf in Hawaii (would have to learn to surf, first though)
–become fluent in another language
Gee, I’m sure there’s other stuff I would like to do, but I just can’t think of anything else. I would like to go bungee jumping and whitewater rafting, among other things, but I don’t consider those to be must-dos.
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### Author:  [@sultana\_of\_slash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sultana_of_slash)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2003, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-things-to-do-before-you-die-amend-this-list-with-your-favourites/202575/22 "2003-09-19T22:42:07Z")
Get a black belt. I mean honorably.
Make one person you’ve never met explode with laughter, so hard that they get so much coffee into their keyboard, that they have to get a new keyboard.
Write one thing, one really good thing, and see it published.
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### Author:  [@hanza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hanza)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2003, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-things-to-do-before-you-die-amend-this-list-with-your-favourites/202575/23 "2003-09-20T00:06:37Z")
My list:
Visit India- anywhere in India- this is definately my number 1
also: Tibet, Japan, Mogolia, New Zealand, Iceland, Brazil.
Other ambitions: Go Scuba diving, and see a sea turtle (been scuba diving, in an area where there were sea turtles- didn’t see one ☹ ). Explore a ship wreck. Hike through a rainforest. Stand on an active volcano. Learn Falconry (inspired by a recent trip to a Franch theme park with a falconry show). Learn how to play the bongoes REALLY well (trip to france to blame for that one too). Climb a mountain- any mountain. Write a novel, and get it published
Heck, I’m gonna be busy…
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### Author:  [@umop\_ap\_sdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/umop_ap_sdn)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2003, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-things-to-do-before-you-die-amend-this-list-with-your-favourites/202575/24 "2003-09-20T02:02:26Z")
See a UFO.
(I was in Phoenix in 1997. I didn’t see the Phoenix lights because I was inside watching TV. Now I’m still kicking myself in the ass… :()
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### Author:  [@Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hey_It_s_That_Guy)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2003, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-things-to-do-before-you-die-amend-this-list-with-your-favourites/202575/25 "2003-09-20T02:43:43Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Scumpup \*
> \*\*Get in a brawl and win.
> Hunt dangerous game.
> Get loaded on (real) absinthe.
> Take part in an orgy.
> Learn a 2nd language.
> Write a bad novel.
> Dig a grave for a friend.
> Teach another person a useful skill.
> Make a complete ass of yourself in an expensive restaurant.
> Fire a machine gun.
> Visit a 3rd world nation.
> Be an extra in a movie.
> Forge something out of metal.
> Bury your face in a famous woman’s cleavage and make motor boat noises. \*\*
I don’t know how serious you were, **Scumpup** , but I think that’s a pretty fantastic list. I’d pass on the dangerous game hunting, but I really like a lot of the others.
A few more of mine:
Drive across America like in _On the Road_, and visit real-life friends and Internet friends I’ve never met before along the way (and preferably crash at their places).
Visit a professional dominatrix (or two) and really “get the works.” Seriously! Or she doesn’t even have to be a professional!
And I’d love to get married one day and have a kid and be there to see the kid be born, but that’s a long way off, and I don’t want to think too hard about it right now.
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### Author:  [@Angel\_Heart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angel_Heart)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2003, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-things-to-do-before-you-die-amend-this-list-with-your-favourites/202575/26 "2003-09-20T03:07:03Z")
My list, some more plausible than others:
Visit all seven continents.
Climb Mount McKinley.
Learn to ride a motorcycle.
Get really, really drunk/stoned.
Take US 50 all the way from Ocean City to Sacramento.
Hike the entire Appalachian trail.
Watch the sun set…in Tahiti.
Ride a horse on the beach.
Visit all fifty states.
Audition for a movie/television show/play…just for the heck of it.
Ride along with someone in a small (as in 4 seater or less) plane.
Swim nude.
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### Author:  [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2003, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-things-to-do-before-you-die-amend-this-list-with-your-favourites/202575/27 "2003-09-20T03:18:15Z")
I’ve only done a handful of things on the BBC list, but I’ve done a lot of things on the SDMB lists. The one BBC item that worried me the most was “fly a jet”. So _everyone_ should, at least once, fly a jet? Are they crazy? Time to start digging that cave.
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### Author:  [@Eternal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eternal)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2003, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-things-to-do-before-you-die-amend-this-list-with-your-favourites/202575/28 "2003-09-20T04:46:27Z")
#1: Destroy Them All
#2: Two women at the same time
Probably not in that order
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### Author:  [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2003, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-things-to-do-before-you-die-amend-this-list-with-your-favourites/202575/29 "2003-09-20T06:04:27Z")
Paint a self portrait
Build my own house
Make love with a beatiful woman
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### Author:  [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2003, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-things-to-do-before-you-die-amend-this-list-with-your-favourites/202575/30 "2003-09-20T06:50:00Z")
As the British composer Sir Arnold Bax once said "you should try everything once , except incest and folk dancing " 🙂
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### Author:  [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2003, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-things-to-do-before-you-die-amend-this-list-with-your-favourites/202575/31 "2003-09-20T07:10:20Z")
I want to be **scumpup** ’s friend, if he doesn’t mind a Gay guy tagging along.
I would say:
Have as much sex as you can have.
Travel as far away from home as possible, as long as possible, on as little money as possible.
Learn a musical instrument, even if you aren’t good at it.
Write…a book, a diary, letters.
Be a part of a theatrical production…paint sets, whatever.
Make friends with someone your father’s age, and if possible, your grandfather’s age.
Buy land. Even if you don’t build, you own a piece of earth and the value won’t go down.
Try all foods…even the really strange ones.
Invent something.
Learn to juggle…always good to make someone smile.
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### Author:  [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2003, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-things-to-do-before-you-die-amend-this-list-with-your-favourites/202575/32 "2003-09-20T07:13:24Z")
Things that I’ve done that should have been on a list of things to do:
1. Seen the midnight sun. (OK. It was the 11:00 PM sun. I was sleepy.)
2. Had lunch in Vienna with the man who was the palace chef for the Habsburgs
3. Danced with the head of the New York City Ballet Company
4. Walked a plank across the highest waterfall east of the Rockies
5. Sailed on a Windjammer on Penobscot Bay
6. Traced on foot the paths of the first flights at Kitty Hawk
Things I want to do:
7. April in Paris (coming in the spring!)
8. Take the Orient Express
9. Take the train from Oslo to Bergen
10. See Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater
11. See the Taj Mahal
12. Go to Tiffany & Co. NYC
13. Go to London for Christmas shopping
14. Go to Dublin and Derry to search for the ghost of Conor Larkin
15. Go to Dryburgh Abbey in Scotland and then on into the highlands and on to the Hebrides.
16. Find the prettiest place in the Alps (any suggestions?)
17. Play 'Meditation" from _Thais_ on the violin
18. Wear a long white lace dress and dance a waltz with my husband.
19. Spend two weeks in the fall at Sundance, Utah
---
### Author:  [@Largo62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Largo62)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2003, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-things-to-do-before-you-die-amend-this-list-with-your-favourites/202575/33 "2003-09-20T10:39:20Z")
There are no “must do” things on my list, but some I’d like to do before I die.
1. See _all_ of the Smithsonian (when I have at least a month to spend)
2. Visit Yellowstone
3. Drive coast to coast across the US right down the middle (I’ve already done I-40 over and I-80 back)
4. See Catalina Island (I’ve been to Japan and Sri Lanka among other places, but living in Southern California for the better part of 60 years, I’ve never made the 26-mile boat ride to Catalina)
5. Spend some real time in NYC (only visited overnight once to watch my brother graduate from Juilliard)
6. Skydive
7. Learn to scuba-dive
8. Visit Mamoth Cave in Kentucky (I’ve seen Carlsbad Cavern a couple of times and the Oregon Caves once)
9. Explore the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings
10. Lose 100 pounds (I might then live long enough to do the other 9)
I’ve already done some interesting stuff.
I’ve:
Acted on stage (Equity Waiver and Non-Equity dinner theater…mostly musicals)
Been an extra in a movie (okay, a student film…but it had a “name” actor, [Kurt Kazner…only you older folks will remember him])
Flown in a Ford Tri-motor
Ridden an elephant and a camel (not at the same time 😉 )
Flown in a hot air balloon
Marched in the Tournament of Roses Parade with the official Tournament Band (I played trumpet one time, baritone horn twice more)
Given a piano recital (I was just a kid)
Had dinner with Prince Mikasa of Japan, brother of the late Emperor Hirohito (and no…he wouldn’t know me if he fell on me… if he’s still living, which I don’t know)
Sung tenor in the Pasadena Chorale (performed Mendelssohn’s “Elijah” at the Pasadena Civic)
Gee, I always thought my life had been dull. Maybe not. 🙂
---
### Author:  [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2003, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-things-to-do-before-you-die-amend-this-list-with-your-favourites/202575/34 "2003-09-20T12:58:52Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Angel Heart \*
> Ride along with someone in a small (as in 4 seater or less) plane.
You’re on.
Live anywhere near northwest Indiana? You have your choice of a two-seat Cessna (If you weigh 220 lbs or less) or a four-seat Piper Warrior. By the way, in this area it’s traditional when getting a free ride to buy the pilot breakfast. There’s a decent cafe about a mile and a half down the road from my home airport or, if you want more of an adventure, there’s there really great breakfast spot in Fulton County where the parking lot for airplanes is bigger than the one for cars and trucks…
Actually, since you don’t know me (and you really _should_ be cautious who you trust your life to in an airplane) you may prefer to go to a small, local airport, enter the main building, and say “Hey, I’d like a ride in a small airplane”. Such places are happy to arrange such things with a professional pilot, and the pilots are typically more than willing to explain what will happen and answer any of your questions or concerns.
For a real thrill ask for an “intro-lesson”. They’ll pair you up with a flight instructor and you’ll be able to take the controls for part of the flight.
I see these lists and I always think it would be easier for me to make a list of meaningful things I’ve _done_. Such as (in order of accomplishment):
Learned to ride a horse
Learned to speak a foreign language
Two week backpacking trip
Acted in a play (extra in a production of _Jesus Christ, Superstar_)
Sold my artwork
Visited Niagra Falls (yes, that would be “experiencing” a waterfall)
Visited Europe (BTW - April in Paris is usually very wet and rainy)
Visited the Louvre
(_Somewhere right about here I turned 18…_)
Got my first apartment and paid for itself myself (eventually - needed some help the first six months)
Earned a college degree
Worked in the comic book industry (a bit disillusioning, that was…)
Performed in public as a musician
Buried a loved one (my sister - and yes, I really did help dig the grave)
Learned to fly an airplane (not just ride in one)
Bought my first car (I got tired of bumming rides to the airport and the bus service wasn’t that reliable)
Saw a desert in person
Rode in a hot air balloon
Got some writing published
Bought my first pick-up truck
Sailed a boat
Rode a motorcycle
Still to do (in no particular order):
Scuba diving
Hang gliding
Skydiving (maybe)
Learn a second foreign language
Publish some _fiction_ (my published writings have all been non-fiction so far)
Learn to use a gun properly and safely
Visit Washington D.C.
Wade in the ocean
See the Grand Canyon
Find more interesting things to do (don’t want to ever run out of cool stuff!)
---
### Author:  [@gluteus\_maximus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gluteus_maximus)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2003, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-things-to-do-before-you-die-amend-this-list-with-your-favourites/202575/35 "2003-09-20T15:08:21Z")
Brag, brag, brag…
I’ve accomplished a lot of some of your wishes already, **plus** I’ve stopped making lists!
---
### Author:  [@professorbiscuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/professorbiscuit)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2003, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-things-to-do-before-you-die-amend-this-list-with-your-favourites/202575/36 "2003-09-20T15:22:24Z")
Get the train between Anchorage and Fairbanks
And between London and Singapore
Give away a million dollars
Own a tea-shop
Jump a freight train
Become friends with a monkey, fight crime
Find an uninhabited island, start up a country
Think of a great question for the perfect master to answer
Buy a 80 year old vintage death ray machine
Never own a car
Spend some time in a barrel
Build a perpetual motion machine
---
### Author:  [@sirtonyh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sirtonyh)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2003, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-things-to-do-before-you-die-amend-this-list-with-your-favourites/202575/37 "2003-09-20T15:30:19Z")
Things I’ve done significantly more interesting that a lot of the crap on the BBC list;
Visit a proper waterfall; Victoria Falls
Ride on the Star Island Ferry in Hong Kong
Have a 3some (although the BBC may collectively have an instantaneous heart-attack if the printed that one)
Attend Mardi-Gras in Rio
Attend Mardi-Gras in N’awlins
Ride a skim boats in New Zealand
Walk across the bridge of the Petronas Towers
Sit in a Jacuzzi, outdoors, while it’s snowing
Do the above with an attractive lady
Do the one above the one above this with a naked attractive lady
Attend Queens Day in Amsterdam
Attend the Cannes Film Festival
Attend the party at the casino after the Monte Carlo Grand Prix
Walk up the Sydney Harbour Bridge
Drive a Ferarri
Go to the Burning Man festival in Nevada
Go to a film premiere at Mann’s Chinese Theatre in L.A.
Stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel
---
### Author:  [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2003, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-things-to-do-before-you-die-amend-this-list-with-your-favourites/202575/38 "2003-09-20T17:02:07Z")
Get really, really old.
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### Author:  [@umop\_ap\_sdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/umop_ap_sdn)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2003, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-things-to-do-before-you-die-amend-this-list-with-your-favourites/202575/39 "2003-09-20T18:53:15Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Angel Heart \*
> \*\*Swim nude. \*\*
I’ve done that.
---
### Author:  [@Already\_in\_Use](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Already_in_Use)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2003, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50-things-to-do-before-you-die-amend-this-list-with-your-favourites/202575/40 "2003-09-20T19:45:08Z")
My list, ranging from the mundane to the ridiculous to the mundanely ridiculous, in no particular order:
1. Have nasty dirty sex on top of a huge pile of money in large denominations, using religious paraphernalia for lewd purposes.
2. Do a Larry Walters and fly in a chair tied to hundreds of balloons.
3. Run for President and win.
4. Fake my own death.
5. Learn to play the guitar better than Jimi Hendrix.
6. Learn to paint better than Salvador Dali.
7. Get married.
8. Have children.
9. Write a book.
10. Direct a movie.
11. Become fluent in at least 10 foreign languages, including at least one ancient one. Live in several foreign countries for a while.
12. Hunt my own food.
13. Learn to drive, maybe.
14. If I ever have a car, paint it all psychedelic.
15. Have a swinging bachelor pad.
16. Fall deeply, madly in love.
17. Develop a cult following.
18. Have a threesome… or foursome… or fivesome…
19. Go skinnydipping in a coed group. Regularly.
20. Eat fried grasshoppers.
21. Visit the moon. (I hope this becomes possible in my lifetime.)
22. Live to be 120 or older.
23. Clone myself enough times to create an army.
24. Start an experimental rock band.
25. Learn to compose painfully beautiful music.
26. Visit Mars.
27. Work out enough to look like Michelangelo’s David.
28. Change the world for the better.
29. Begin having regular lucid dreams again.
30. Start my own country.
31. Cross-dress and actually look good. Eh, maybe not, I dunno.
32. Learn to meditate. I can’t seem to get my brain to stop thinking.
33. Design an origami model.
34. Get rich.
35. Give it all away to charity.
36. Have a job that I would do anyway even if I weren’t getting paid. (I’m hoping this isn’t a long shot, because I’m 19 and I feel like life isn’t worth living if I’m going to be doing boring crap for most of my waking time.)
37. Engage in sexual activities with another man. (I’m a straight guy, but I don’t really have an aversion to it, so why not try to see if it’s fun?)
38. Own two pet pigs and name one Jesus Christ and the other Voltaire.
39. Have sex with a hyperintelligent alien life form that has shapeshifted into the form of the hottest woman conceivable.
40. Buy a top hat.
41. Laugh in the face of imminent death. Surviving it would be nice too.
42. Drink cow milk straight from the udder.
43. Do something that will make teenage girls scream when they see me. I’m thinking in a Beatles way, not in a John Wayne Gacy way.
44. Wear a suit with tails for everyday activities.
45. Learn to fence.
46. Start a mariachi band.
47. Write an opera that uses the dialogue of “What to Do on a Date,” the 1950s educational film.
48. Build a robot.
49. Liberate a billboard.
50. Make arrangements for a Viking funeral.
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