Remember that 2007 movie with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, where they have terminal illnesses and they decide to go everywhere they always wanted to go before they “kick the bucket?” In fact, the movie’s screenwriter, Justin Zackham, is credited with creating the term “bucket list’ to mean a wish list of places one must visit or things to do before you die. That term is everywhere now.
When I hear people talking about their travel “bucket list,” I imagine that all their travel must do’s are jammed in some orange plastic bucket with leftover paint in the bottom of it. The places they want to go are all mashed together and dinged up. They are just a sloppy mess with no hope of being sorted out. Each experience or country are just names on a list waiting for their check marks or gold stars or whatever people use to mark things “Done.” Hold a koala, sit in front of the Taj Mahal, ride a camel, see the Big Five, Italy, France, England, China, Japan, etc.
Has travel really become just a series of names on the map that are checked off and forgotten once seen?
Admittedly it’s easy enough to get on a plane and get almost anywhere in the world in a day or two. Look up the chosen place on the internet, find the airfare, choose some well-reviewed activities, you’re done and on to the next place.
But my travel dreams deserve better than to be dumped in some imaginary pail. I want my travel to be worth remembering. I want to truly experience the place where I am. I may make a new personal connection, have a great unexpected experience, end up somewhere I didn’t even know I wanted to see.
That kind of travel doesn’t fit in a bucket.
If the travel goal is to get to know locals, discover something new about each location, experience the culture in an authentic way, then we won’t keep our travel must-dos jammed in a bucket.
I imagine mine spread out on a nice shelf in a glass-fronted cabinet where they can be admired and appreciated. And remembered long after they have been realized. I’m not going to diminish my travel dreams by using the culturally popular term. Do you have another way to describe your travel dreams? Would love to hear them.
