We’ve noticed it more and more: sometimes a bucket list ruins travel for people. What can you do so your bucket list doesn’t disappoint?
The thing you don’t want: disappointment when you’re checking off something on your bucket list. Yet more and more we’re seeing signs that a bucket list ruins travel – not just for the bucket lister, but for other travelers in their immediate periphery and still others who have that same item on their list. A bucket list item is supposed to be an inspiring and fulfilling thing to do, though. What gives?
Sightseeing in the rain in Hue, Vietnam
Is the Bucket List Ruining Travel?
Disclosure: Neither of us has a traditional bucket list, although each of us dreams about visiting a couple of places at any given time.
We’ve traveled internationally full time for almost two years and have been location independent – meaning work is something we do instead of someplace we go – since 2011. So it might surprise you we’ve never been to Italy. Nope, nor have we been to Washington, D.C., Cancun or Costa Rica. Or Amsterdam, even (although when we do visit, we’ll look for fun and quirky things to do in Amsterdam). London, well, London we’ve actually set foot in, but only for a couple hours at a time: inside St Pancras and Victoria stations, and then running through the back hallways at Heathrow to catch a connection after a security scare on our incoming flight. But I digress.
We haven’t visited a lot of the places people have on their bucket lists. Instead, we’ve found ourselves in places we never anticipated, that weren’t even on the radar.
Many a bonafide Bucket List (capitalized!) will have items like “visit 30 countries before I’m 30.” It took us each until our late 50s before we’d visited 30 countries, and maybe 28 or 29 of those were within the last several years. But we’re not all “oh, let’s do this because we can see a bunch of countries” completely.
At the Loy Krathong parade in Chiang Mai, a rude man and wife sat too close and knocked our table of drinks over on us. But we saw this go by.
Some people think country counting is an ego-centric way of gathering affirmations. We think it’s more on the fun side of the travel spectrum, just like seeing how many things you’ve done on a list like the brand, spankin’ new (April 2016) Daily Telegraph’s Ultimate Travel Bucket List. This has 25 things you absolutely have to do in your lifetime. We’ll wait while you click that.
How’d you do? My score is 4.5 out of the Telegraph 25, just so you know, and I think Pete’s is similarly low. (4.5? Well, yeah, I’m counting Angkor Wat just because we saw an older Khmer temple complex about 30 miles from it in Isaan. We’re getting ahead of ourselves, though: we’re going to touch on doing stuff like that later.)
Some of the things the Telegraph says we should do we’d like to, others we couldn’t care less, and at least two are trending down in priority. But we know there are people who view that sort of travel feature as a challenge; others let themselves feel insecure if they don’t measure up. We think anything that makes you feel insecure has the potential to ruin other things.
Halong Bay is on many a bucket list. Some people are disappointed by the crowds and large numbers of boats. Not us. Go in December, when we did! Highly recommended.
Because we have rather wide interests, when travel opportunities pop up we tend to take advantage of them. Chasing a bucket list ruins travel in terms of serendipity, we’ve suspected, but perhaps not to a huge degree. We think it would for us.
Chasing a numerical bucket list – x number of countries or miles flown or museums visited – isn’t an activity that we want to govern our decisions, but we are interested to see the statistics other people rack up. We’re just not systematic, and sometimes we’re fickle, too. We’ve revisited several places, and wouldn’t dream of returning to others. That’s just how it is.
Houses in Horsham, West Sussex
Where a rather traditional bucket list ruins travel is a mostly a simple matter consisting of just a couple of things: 1) the sheer numbers of people who have that same experience on their lists and 2) the number of those people who are having it at the same time as you are.
Travel bloggers have made big splashes depicting the reality behind bucket list items as disparate as the Pyramids in Egypt and taking all the kids to Disneyland. Have you ever felt you should have a travel item on your bucket list because it’s “iconic” or a “must-do?” And then when you found yourself there, doing that, you were disappointed? Was there something on your bucket list for ages and now that you know what you know, do you wish you’d thought about choosing an alternative a little more?
We’re not saying get rid of the bucket list. No, by all means, it’s human nature to dream. A bucket list is a big incentive for lots of people, a net positive. Instead, we’re going to encourage you to massage your bucket list a little bit to get better results.
Montserrat, Catalunya
Tweak Your Bucket List for Maximum Enjoyment
1. Give yourself the gift of unscripted time within an experience. Consider a “being” mindset instead of a “doing” mindset. Slow down. Shorten the number of experiences or destinations and give yourself some breathing room. As Americans, we’re programmed through the years of two weeks of vacation, preferably non-consecutive. When vacation does come, we want to cram a year’s worth of pent-up desire. Running yourself ragged to check off items on your bucket list ruins travel. Instead, soak up a moment in a sidewalk cafe while you linger over a coffee. Spend an afternoon in a waterside park to absorb the essence of a port city.
2. Consider the “just as good and maybe even better” destinations. We didn’t visit London. We wanted to, but it just didn’t work for us at the time. Instead, we got to know a beautiful part of England on a lengthier stay while housesitting. Maybe try Bratislava instead of Prague. Think about Istria instead of Tuscany, Sofia instead of Istanbul, Brisbane instead of Sydney, Fiji instead of Tahiti, Malaysia instead of Singapore.
Oasis Palms, Wailoaloa, Fiji
3. Don’t be overly brand-dependent. We all have our favorite brands. As I write this, we’ve already discussed on more than one occasion the fact that we’ll be able to sleep in the Westin Heavenly Bed when we visit Kaua’i next month. But we’ve also had marvelous experiences with travel brands which were new to us, and non-brands, too. Giving your business to independents can often develop into more meaningful relationships once you’re willing to let go of familiarity, and much of the time it can save you lots of money.
4. Reframe your ideal experience. If you’ve always dreamed of skiing the Alps, is that about the Alps or is it about skiing? Perhaps you’d have just as good a time in the Pyrenees, if not better? Is a good time at Oktoberfest dependent upon whether you celebrate it in Munich? Maybe something as simple as visiting a destination in the off season (like we did in Mallorca) would make it delightful, instead of disappointing. Are you going to be irritated by too many crowds, ticketing nightmares, flight delays and lengthy queues?
5. What do you do if you find yourself in an uber-popular destination at the time when it draws the most crowds? Modify your sightseeing. Do you really need to stand in line for the Louvre? Maybe wandering the household-size gardens at the Rodin museum would be just as wonderful? Even if a place is too touristy, you can often discover a workaround. Maybe instead of the #1 Trip Advisor restaurant in Dubrovnik, you want to ask your landlord where you should eat with the locals? Take advantage of a special aspect: during the Winter Olympics in Sochi, citywide bus transport was free. We got on one day and rode to the end of the line, walked around a locale we’d never have visited otherwise, and then rode the bus back.
Slea Head, Dingle, Ireland. We never would have seen this without needing cheap tickets from Hawaii to Europe.
The point is, it’s a mini-tragedy when a bucket list ruins travel, instead of doing what it is supposed to do. Make sure your bucket list expands your horizons, reflects your conscience, provides a source of anticipation and joy, and then delivers an experience you’ll treasure for the rest of your days.
How about you? Has a bucket list item ever disappointed you? And if it did, what would you do differently?
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Excellent advice! I don’t really have a bucket list, though I do use the term now and then just because it’s easy. I don’t have one mostly just because it would be too long. I want to see everywhere! And I want to see each place, as you say, in a leisurely way, allowing for serendipitous changes of plans.
I’ve seen 8.5 places on that list, by the way (The .5 is that I haven’t seen the Serengeti, but I’ve seen several other game parks in the area in Tanzania, with the same range of wildlife, so that counts for .5 in my book.) Like you noted, some of them just don’t interest me: why would setting foot in Antarctica be such a thrill? Yes, it would be pretty and maybe even interesting, but that would be over in about five minutes. It’s a lot of money and energy to spend on a five-minute thrill and a check mark on your list!
Hi Rachel – We use the term, too, generally when we encounter the rare thing that can change big blocks of time. And yes, you totally “get” the notion of .5. I think equivalencies to popular items are a great way to refine a bucket list into something which will seem more meaningful after the fact.
I so agree with you! The trouble with published bucket lists is that they are full of popular (ie crowded) places – I laughed at the Telegraph’s picture of the Great Wall of China with no people on it. Another problem is that putting a place on a bucket list burdens it with expectation – I quite often find when travelling that the places I’ve looked forward to the most are not the ones I actually enjoy the most.
Hi Karen – Yes, exactly. Some of the places we’ve enjoyed the most? The ones we’d barely or never even heard of before the Universe delivered them up: Kuantan, Isaan, Sochi, Istria.
I HAD a bucket list but never really followed it. I went where my heart desired. I’ve realized I’m more interested in the “experience” that I can have rather than checking off a place. Guess I’ve felt like I don’t want to follow the crowd (often to crowded places). Sure there are some places I have/had always dreamed of, like Mont Saint-Michel, and I am so glad I went . Your comment that “chasing a bucket list ruins travel in terms of serendipity” is so true.
Hi Janice – So, we probably really have a bucket list but it’s fluid and heart-centered. Works for me! 🙂
Great post. I’ve never been a fan of bucket lists because they can make you so focused on checking things off that you don’t really enjoy what you’re experiencing or you miss the delights of the unexpected. I’ve enjoyed visiting a number of places under the radar of most people. I resent anyone telling me the list of things I must see or do. What I want to see and experience may be completely different than his/her tastes. I think it is good to dream. If you create a bucket list, it is a good idea to consider why something is on it and also realize your dreams may change over time.
Hi Donna – I couldn’t agree more with everything you’ve mentioned. Unexpected, under the radar, and absent from the must-see lines for the most part. It’s all very familiar. 🙂
Interesting post. I think the problem comes in expectations and over planning. It’s really good just to go with the flow, as you say, and not to cling onto expectations and wish your life away, waiting and waiting for your journey/holiday, meanwhile missing out on all the enjoyment of what’s going on around you in the here and now
Hi Bex – Yes, expectations are a critical factor in disappointment. I remember building myself up to see Mount Rushmore, and was so underwhelmed. But I returned years later and it was very meaningful. So your here and now has a lot to do with how you’re going to relate to a place. And yes, deferments – you can only hope to live in the future. It seems like now is a better bet. 🙂
We also don’t have a list per se. There are places we want to see, but have found that the more we travel, the more new places we learn about and want to visit too. At this point we are fairly content to see where the wind blows us and look for the unique and exciting in where ever we happen to be.
Hi GypsyNesters – Yes, our outlook is very similar to yours. It’s a wonderful feeling to trust that whatever turns up is going to be terrific.
Just like many above, I have a general idea about places I want to eventually visit but I don’t actively plan and written anywhere for myself to look at everyday. There’s so many different areas that interest me so it a way it is more freeing to travel with not so many expectations and planning.
Hi Noel – Yes, it is definitely more freeing. Not having to think far in advance and being more nimble when plans change are nice little side effects, too.
We don’t have a bucket list, we have places we want to see and have returned to many places we love and think it’s important to stay open to possibilities since so many reveal themselves when you travel. Why stick to a list? 🙂
Hi Nat – Yes, I do think a list can be confining. When I start to enumerate must-see places for a stay in a particular region, I generally am too optimistic. I list too many things and then we have to cut back.
We’ve never had a set ‘bucket list’ other than ‘don’t end up drooling in an old-folks rocking chair wishing we ‘had visited. . . .(fill in the blank)’. Instead our list has been ‘wherever the winds blow us’. We’ve found that going places without plans and expectations make for many wonderful travel experiences. BTW, read the list of 25 places and found 23 that we really don’t have any desire to visit. I am reminded of the phrase ‘one man’s treasure is another man’s junk’ so one’s most recommended place might be another ‘off the list’. Great post!!
Hi Jackie – Yes, these sorts of lists are very subjective, and they can be predictable, too, depending upon who is publishing them. There are lots of places with big reputations that I have no desire to go to, as well.
A lot of good ideas here, and good alternative suggestions. Only one quibble. There is only one London, the greatest city for culture in the world. Of course, we’re theater crazy and I can’t imagine a trip to England without visiting the home of the best theater in the world. The British Museum ain’t bad either.
Hi Tom – We’ll get to London one of these times, I’m sure. 🙂
I just love this post Betsy. I don’t have a bucket list per se just some ideas of where I’d like to go. I want the experiences not a particular number. I’ve only been to 4 of the places on the Telegraph’s list – so much for being “well traveled.” I also liked your ideas of what to do when you find yourself in a touristy place. Just thinking a bit differently can typically make your travel experience so much better.
Hi Sue – Yes, thinking just a bit differently or ferreting out something unusual can really make a destination “yours.” 🙂
I like your take on bucket lists. Not a fan of the traditional definition of bucket list, so I don’t have one or aspire to one. I agree with your suggestion to discover lesser known destinations instead of ones that everyone wants to see. That is where the real jewels are!!
Hi Caryn – Yes, the lesser known destinations have their own fascinating stories, and we’ve found that we make meaningful memories in them, too.
I loved this post. What excellent advice. I, too, appreciate serendipity—never really planning and rolling with opportunities.
Great post, Betsy & Pete! And I agree with most of the other commenters. I do occasionally use the term “bucket list” because it’s easy and I’m lazy! But I don’t actually have one either. I have a sort of running and ever-changing and growing mental list of where I’d like to go and experiences I’d like to have, but it’s not rigid and I have no sense of “ticking things off” a list. I’ll enjoy wherever I go, and one of my pet theories of life is that I want to die with a long To-Do list, because I never want to run out of things/ideas/experiences or excitement for what is still to come!
Hi Donna – I think always being interested in whatever comes ahead keeps us young. Thanks!
Great post, I’m currently planning a speedy trip through Vietnam (9 days because I have a job I love that is tied to a place) and trying not to over-plan!
I think my best advice is to wander aimlessly (while keeping an eye on landmarks so you don’t get too lost!).
I tend to plan one tourist attraction per day (normally first thing) and spend the rest of the day wandering, eating, and enjoying serendipity.
In Paris we ignored the queue for the louvre and got to l’orangerie for opening and were the only people in the Monet’s full room water lily paintings.
Hi Mel – Yes, we’re big fans of wandering aimlessly! Lately, our general rule of thumb is to have an unscripted day wherever possible.
I keep saying I’m “adding this place to my bucket list”, but in truth my bucket list is everywhere on the planet, even places I’ve been before.
I don’t like sticking to numbers (I have them enough on my job!) and the only thing I hate the most is people that measure their travel “experience” by counting the number of countries they’ve been…I mean…seriously?
Hi Bruno – I like counting countries up every once in a while for curiosity’s sake, but we’re really not that organized. The ideal bucket list would be everywhere!