I have been to New Zealand and Australia!
…but nowhere else. So I would like to go to the Northern Hemisphere and particularly Europe. I never had the opportunity or funds to make such a journey, and the older I get the less likely it seems to ever happen, especially as I become more introverted and solitary.
FCM, if I gave you a tourist-class ticket to visit Australia, would you take it? Here, I’ll sweeten the deal: your seat is on the aisle. You can visit the lavatory, or go for a walk, anytime you like. Now what would you say?
“Yes,” I hope, because Australia is absolutely worth the effort. I’ve been a few times (always in tourist); and no, not every kind of wildlife is out to kill you. Sadly, I cannot get you such a ticket, but I hope that you reconsider, despite the long flight. Go to Sydney, enjoy Manly Beach and the ferries across Sydney Harbour (a roller coaster ride at times). Get out west, enjoy Perth, and take the train to Kalgoorlie. Montana calls itself, “Big Sky Country,” but there’s no bigger sky than in Kalgoorlie.
As regards the OP, I wished I had been able to get to Hong Kong before the Chinese takeover in 1997. I’d like to see Vietnam and India and Egypt. Cape Town, South Africa. And I’d like to see the Panama Canal.
That must have been an exhausting trip. Rome is about 150 miles from Pompeii. It is just about possible to go there and back in a day, but I wouldn’t enjoy it.
I’ve toured Italy twice. Pompeii is a fantastic place.
My daughter took the train, and it was under two hours including waiting between trains.
Bus tours are ridiculous. Six hours on the bus, two hours (at most) at the destination.
Actually, I’ve been looking at some trans-Pacific cruises either to or from Australia. That way, there would be a single flight, so I could afford an upgrade (I think.) I just need to persuade the spousal unit. Oh, and plan for a couple of weeks touring apart from the cruise. Some day…
We did take a cruise that went in and out of the Panama Canal on the eastern end, plus we took a train across to the Pacific (and a bus back - ugh!) Another item on my bucket list is a complete passage - that will involve two much shorter flights - between Baltimore and LA or San Diego, and between Baltimore and Fort Lauderdale. Doable. Some day…
Sante Fe, NM
Baltimore
Arizona in winter
Vermont in summer
Ireland
Israel
Poland
Two things about the Sistine Chapel:
The Vatican as a whole though… in the top 2-3 highlights of my trip to Italy.
Where am I looking to go? (neither dead nor incapacitated in any way yet)
Australia, New Zealand, South America, China, Central Europe (Germany, Poland, Austria; been to Hungary & Czech Republic), France (for a real trip, not just a couple days in Paris), Spain, Sicily, Egypt, Vermont, hiking in Alaska (been, but didn’t go hiking), a proper California trip, proper Colorado trip, Great Lakes trip. And probably more I’m not thinking about at the moment.
Egypt is worthwhile for some of the archaeology sites. The pyramids and sphinx, of course, are just outside Cairo. If you go up river to Aswan and Luxor, there are some good ruins. Otherwise, Cairo is a crowded, noisy and dirty place. Watch your wallet at any tourist places and don’t accept anything handed to you, as you’ll be expected to pay for it. The hawkers do a neat little trick of handing something to you and then refusing to take it back. I just set it on the ground when I happened to me. The guy yelled at me a lot but I just walked away. Oh, and don’t take any one-on-one tours with a “guide”. A favorite trick is to get you out of sight of people and then strong-arm you for money.
ME ME ME ME ME ME ME!!!
I joke, I would never elbow FCM out of the way to get free tickets to Australia, if only because I’d still have to buy the wife a ticket or she’d kill me. 
Totally worth it, but finding the gems and avoiding the touristy stuff can be hard at times. Then again, I grew up in Las Cruces NM, and lived in Albuquerque for over a year on two separate occasions, so it was always something of a “Yeah, Santa Fe is awesome… -yawn-” that visitors from out of state didn’t get.
I was there 10 years ago at the trailing end of the LAST shooting war (and would have been there this summer, if, well, duh) and it was and is amazing. Although I don’t think you’d get the experience of being at a place like Masada with a grand total of a dozen non-local tourists including 4 of my family.
Absurd aside.
FCM, I thought - what the hell does that mean? So I googled it. First hit: FCM travel. Ah, I thought to mysel, and returned to your post.
Even armed with this new knowledge, I was still struggling to parse your first sentence - when it dawned on me that, actually, you were replying to @FairyChatMom…
Duhhhhhh
j
There are a number of places I’d like to visit, and I’m sure I’ll never see any of them because each one I’d like to see I’d like to really immerse myself in – staying a month or more, exploring and learning and relaxing.
I’d like to visit Australia, staying in Sydney for a week or two, doing a tour of the Great Barrier Reef, then spending a couple of weeks in Tasmania.
I’d like to visit the UK, spending a week or two exploring Scotland, visiting my wife’s family, then spending a month or so in London.
France. I don’t speak a word of French and the language barrier would be daunting but there isn’t much in France that I wouldn’t want to see.
I’d like to visit Africa, going on a safari, perhaps in Kenya. Drink some local coffee. I haven’t researched this much so that bucket list item would likely change a bit as I learn more about my options for visiting game parks, going on hikes, and exploring Victoria Falls (which I know is not in Kenya).
I’d also like to visit the US. I’d like to spend a week or so in LA visiting the various spots where my dad grew up, I’d like to visit Chicago for a spell, I’d like to visit NYC over Christmas. I’d like to spend a month island hopping across Hawaii and then maybe spend a summer traveling across Alaska in a pickup with a camper shell, sleeping in the back.
But all of the above are basically fantasies. LA is doable, I’m a day’s drive away. Maybe for the Olympics in 2028.
If you’re from Australia that doesn’t count, lol. Though - Australia is a big place. Is there anywhere in the country you haven’t been that you’d like to go? I haven’t spent much time on the west coast of my country, so I want to get out there more if I can.
Channeling Liz Lemon, there are many places that “I want to go to there!” Topping the list are Angel Falls and Ngorongoro and Treetops Lodge in Africa. I wouldn’t mind standing atop a Tepui or maybe Devil’s Tower either.
Huh, guess I’m lucky… I have things I’d LIKE to do if I got the chance. But if I don’t, I’m fine with that.
Never planned to go to Slovenia, and since I knew nothing about it, it certainly wasn’t on a bucket list. But I got to go, and if I made a list now, I’d put Lake Bled and Ljubljana on it, then check them off!
Oh yes. I’ve not been to Brisbane, or Uluru, or Kakadu, and would definitely love to go to each of them. I expect I will in due time.
I have been lucky enough to have worked thru most of my bucket list.
At present Saint Petersburg, is the highest remaining item.
I would like to think it is viable option in the future. But it may not be.
I’ve been to most major destinations in the continental US. Sure, there are tons of places still to visit - but we’ve been to all 4 corners of the US and driven cross-country. We’ve been to Hawaii; Alaska is very much still on my to-visit list (hell, if we retire when we still have enough health, I want to drive there).
But everywhere else… I’ve never even been to Europe. There’ve always just been other priorities for my time and/or money. So, I guess I’d start with France, then see where the mood takes me. Not a terribly focused list, I know.
A close friend has been a little bit of everywhere (just got back from a trip to Scotland/UK, went to Egypt last year, going to Japan next year, has been to various places in southern Africa, and South America…). If I had the money, I’d see if I could tag along on one of those jaunts.
The past.
The only places I really want to see are those that are gone forever. California before European conquest, for one. The vast teeming ecosystems there. I used to dream about them. The prairies, ditto. A thousand species of plants in an acre of land. The vast buffalo herds, the passenger pigeons so numerous they darkened the skies at noon. The enormous trees of the indigenously managed forests of the eastern US, dominated by the elms and chestnuts no one will ever see again.
I’m only a tourist of loss.
I’m not really the bucket list type, but if I were, a Hot Air Balloon Ride in Cappadocia, Turkey is really near the top of the list. (The sad part is, I had a plan for how that was going to happen, but I’m pretty sure I’m not actually going on the Church Cruise to the Journey’s of Paul next year. The money is not the obstacle, the amount of time, and degree of disconnection from my usual responsibilities is, also, I think if I go, my mother wants to go, too, and I don’t think she’s up to it.).
Alaska is not far behind.
And I’d love to see more of the Rocky Mountains and the Desert Southwest than I got to as a young teen.
None of these are out of the picture, although all of them require more travel time than I can easily finagle at the moment.
I probably have missed my moment to do a camping trip in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota.
I did manage a trip to the Renaissance Festival of Minnesota this Fall, which was a ridiculous amount of logistics to fun, and yet still worth it.
On summer Friday evenings they offer entrance to the Vatican Museums for a limited number of people. You get hours to wander around the museum and the Sistine Chapel for a few hours with a relatively small crowd; it’s really worth it.