The wife and I have traveled a lot and feel our traveling days are winding down. Not a lot of places left we want to see but rather revisit old favorites a time or two more such as New York City.
We plan to do Las Vegas properly next year. More than 20 years ago on a visit to my parents, we rented a car in Texas and planned to turn it in at LAX before our flight back home to Bangkok. The Grand Canyon was a stop, and the morning we got up to leave from there, we were supposed to be at my uncle’s house in Glendale that evening. But then we thought, “Hey, Vegas is not that far out of the way.” So we shot up there – stopping briefly at Hoover Dam – and spent maybe three hours in Circus Circus that afternoon before heading to Glendale. This time, we’re going to stay a week or so in Vegas. (I did leave Vegas $50 up that time, but then later on I lost $50 in Macau, so I have broken even on my worldwide gambling.)
Hokkaido. We both love Japan and plan at least one more visit, with the focus next time on Hokkaido, the northernmost island. Not been to Hokkaido before.
I would still like to visit the terra-cotta warriors in Xi’an, China. Bangkok Airways used to have direct flights from Bangkok to Xi’an, and we always thought we’d do it, but then we never got around to it. I think those flights have stopped.
At one time the gorillas in East Africa was on my list, but then I read how much hiking you have to do to get to them, so forget it.
I’ve been to most of the national parks, and seen and done a lot of my “bucket” list. I’ve piloted a B-17. Seriously, where do you go from there?
The remaining stuff is more travel-seeing instead of individual sights (if that makes any sense).
The intra-coastal waterway.
The Alaska-Canada highway.
Route 66 (I’ve seen some of it, and even found an “orphaned” section while hunting out west – it was eerie, driving it at night past ruined buildings).
The Blue Ridge Parkway (I’ve seen a little of it, wife hasn’t).
Retrace the route my grandparents took during the depression. If Steinbeck had simply written an account of their lives back then, the *Grapes of Wrath *wouldn’t read much differently. I know where they started and ended, but I’m trying to canvas remaining old relatives to learn what I can about the route.
Retrace (to the extent I can) my grandma’s grandparents route along the Trail of Tears (the Fort Towson route).
Retrace at least some of Steinbeck’s route* from his book: Travels with Charlie. As I understand it, this was his “last hurrah” when he discovered he was dying. The only individual “thing” on my list is Rocinante – his truck. IIRC it’s on display in Salinas.
*Yes, I’m aware there are lots of questions about the accuracy of his book. I still loved it and don’t care.
I have been to 5 or 6 Mardi Gras over the years, and while I always enjoyed it for what it was, for what the average tourist is likey to experience, there probably isn’t a single worse day of the year to actually experience the “Real” New Orleans.
(of course if you had an “In” with a local and could somehow finagle an invitation to one of the various “Old Line Krewe” private balls, some of which have been held annually since before the Civil War, you probably couldn’t do better at seeing a little slice of authentic Crescent City culture, albeit a very specific and exclusive slice that even most lifelong New Orleanians never get the chance to experience)
ETA—By far the best day to see the Mardi Gras Indians in all their splendor is “Super Sunday” the Sunday closest to St. Joseph’s Day, NOT Mardi Gras.
The only specific place I can think of is Rome, and maybe the valley of huge waterfalls in Hawaii. I’ve already done all the bucket list places in the continental US (having been to exactly half the National Parks here), and I’ve already seen the Prado with its collection of Hieronymus Bosch paintings, and I’d like to see more ruined castles and abbeys in Europe and/or Britain, but I don’t have any specific ones in mind.
ETA: same thing with Stonehenge. I’d like to see it but I’d be just as satisfied with the various other henge sites around England.
Been to six continents, so thinking about seeing the 7th (Antarctica) for my 70th birthday (sooner than I think). Unlike some others, 14-hr plane rides don’t faze me as much as it does others, so everywhere is in play.
Plans for next year is to see Central Europe, which except for various airport terminals I have not seen.
Siam Sam, go the X’ian if you can–it was the highlight of my China trip, even more than the Forbidden City or the Great Wall.
And since I’ve seen the Southern Cross, I should add the Northern Lights, along with so many others. in this thread.
I’m at 49 states so I’d like to get to Alaska next summer. I’d like to be far enough north to see the midnight sun.
I’ve been lucky enough to travel a great deal both inside the US and Internationally. But there’s a few things I’d like to see. Ayers Rock. Animals on the serengeti. Antarctica.
A desire to “see” Auschwitz (really more to pay my respects as a human being) led me to decide to visit Krakow, explore, sightsee and just generally experience Polish culture for a week back in the winter of 2015.
That was nearly 4 years ago, and I am still here, my life completely changed, (all of it for the better, in every possible way) but even though I will spend the rest of my life here, there isn’t enough money in the world to ever make me go back to Auschwitz again, as the memories of what I saw there still haunt me to this day, and at least for me, going back would serve no purpose other than emotional masochism of the worst possible kind.
But I do think that is is something that every person who possibly can should experience once in their life. Maybe I am hopelessly naieve, but I honestly if everyone could see it for themselves, this world might just be a little less hateful and more tolerant of others from different backgrounds from ourselves.
My wife and I have flown to New Zealand and back twice, both not stop flights from San Francisco to Auckland. To break this long flight into pieces for our next flight this coming December, we are flying Seattle to Honolulu to Fiji to Auckland on our way there and Auckland to American Samoa to Maui to Seattle on our way home. Both trips will take about 6 days giving us a chance to visit some other places we have never visited plus we are saving a couple grand on airfare. Plus we won’t have the 24 hour wait in Auckland for our rental car.
If you’re going to roam around Arizona looking at ruins* you can throw in Casa Grande as well. You can still see the hand prints in the adobe. If you’re travel-impaired, Pueblo Grande ruins are about three miles from Sky Harbor airport (as you can tell in the photo). And, oh, we got more.
In addition to Mesa Verde and Hovenweep, I’ve seen ruins/abandoned cliff villages at the Gila Cliff Dwellings and Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico, as well as Canyons of the Ancients in Colorado but in the last one the individual sites are spread apart and less accessible (well, technically more accessible since there aren’t any rangers, but it’s still marked as not allowed to climb up to them and there may be cameras.)
My two favorites are Balcony House at Mesa Verde and the Gila Cliff Dwellings, since they are the largest dwellings that you are allowed to walk into that I’ve been. Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde is larger but you don’t really get to climb within the site, just view it from the walkway, and at the end walk up to it and stick your head in one of the houses. Gila Cliff Dwellings is slightly smaller than Balcony House but you can also walk around in it a little bit.
We visited the Maulthausen concentration camp complex in Austria while the family was biking along the Danube. Against my inclination. Maulthausen is the site of a granite quarry, so probably offered the worst forced-work conditions of all of them. (When the guards were told to conserve bullets, they started pushing inmates over the edge.) It was where the Nazis sent the most hardcore types of prisoners, the ones they were afraid of. Including…wait for it…Freemasons.
The whole experience was nightmare fuel, but I did appreciate the enormous field of memorials offered by every nationality, religion, ethnicity, etc., of those incarcerated.
My bucket list would include a trip through Belgium and France, to see the monuments and cemeteries along the Western Front of the Great War. I just finished a 20-year old book called BACK TO THE FRONT, which was about exactly that, except the guy hiked. I would prefer to bicycle or drive. Belgian seacoast to the Swiss border.
I don’t expect it to be any cheerier than the concentration complex, but I’m just an old Gloomy Gus.
I travel vicariously through Chefguy’s accounts of his experiences.
As for Mardi Gras in New Orleans, I will only state that it is supposed to be a gigantic PITA. I have not been, but I have close friends that did, and I mentioned going, and their attitude was, “We’ll go if you want to, but, (sigh) it’s not gonna’ be what you’re expecting…” You can’t see anything, everyone is drunk, and there’s nowhere to go to the bathroom. (They went into detail about needing pisstubes.) There are better places to be drunkenly debauched, is all I’m saying.
My own bucket list, that I’ve seen and recommend, are the redwoods of California. It is a spiritual experience to be among majestic living things 3500 years old and up.
Mauthausen was a brutal place. AIUI, the guards on the Death Stairway often offered a choice: shove this guy over the cliff, or jump yourself. They’ve renovated the stairway since 1940s; it’s supposed to be much easier to climb now.
I regret not visiting Buchenwald when I drove near it, 20 years ago.