2024 Theme –  The Year of the Bucket List

Yvonne and I have a tradition of setting a theme for each new year.

 2021 was “The Year of Mastering Uncertainty”
2022 was “The Year of Resilience”
2023 was “The Year of Ikigai”

We are proclaiming 2024 to be “The year of the Bucket List”

 As we are constantly being reminded, we are not making it out of this life alive. The ‘bucket’ will inevitably be kicked at some point for all of us.

We have been working on our ‘bucket list’ for a while now, and as this was our first real year of travel since Covid, we wanted to pick some items off of our hit list, and we did including:

Cruise down the Mekong,

Riding the Shinkansen Bullet train,

Visiting Tokyo and Kyoto Japan

Exploring Angkor Wat

A tour of Halong Bay

Visiting Dubai UAE

Taking a Thai cooking class

Plus visiting 8 UNESCO World Heritage sites

 
Our ‘Bucket List’ is constantly morphing and changing, as every once in a while we give it an update. More often than not we add more stuff than we tick off. 
 
At the top of our ‘bucket list’ is travelling to at least 100 countries each, before we get planted.

Currently Mike has visited 80 countries and Yvonne 88, so we still have a few to go! This is why we will probably focus on Eastern Europe for part of this coming year, as there are so many countries there we have yet to visit.
 
Another country rich continent, we have yet to explore in any real depth is Africa, so who knows there may be a safari in the not-too-distant future.

Other items on the bucket list include –

Iconic Train Journeys 

such as the The Oslo Bergen, Copper Canyon Mexico, and Darwin to Adelaide on the Ghan.

Specialty Cruises

preferably smaller cruise lines limited to just a few hundred passengers rather than thousands. Candidates include a Clipper cruise in the Med, Cruising the Canadian Artic, and an Antarctic cruise so we can step foot on the only Continent we have not yet visited.

Interesting River Cruises 

might include the Yantze, the Amazon, and the Danube Rivers.

Balloon Trips 

are also on the radar, as there are so many to experience. We have only done one so far, and that was to watch the sunrise in Alice Springs from way up high. Targets include flying over Cappadocia’s Fairy Chimneys in Turkey, and over Bagan, Myanmar.
 
The tricky part about travel ‘bucket lists’ is finding the balance between planning and spontaneity. We do not want to fall into the trap of trying to see every-thing, every-where, and ending up chasing our tails, just to check something off of an arbitrary list.

We would rather enjoy life as it unfolds.

That is why we have decided to travel slow and savor our life of travel, rather than pigging out at the buffet table.

Our ‘bucket list’ provides us with a compass bearing, rather than a rigid list to be checked off. We have learnt over the past decade that the universe abhors a vacuum. Creating space allows awesome experiences to happen unplanned, in other words ‘walking about with sufficient carelessness’.

Coming up in 2024

 
Our 2024 calendar is slowly starting to fill up. We have a few housesits booked in Puerto Vallarta and Merida Mexico, which will take us through February 2024. Then its home to British Columbia in March.
 
We have a sit booked in the Caribbean for 6 weeks starting mid May. Come July who knows? Most likely Europe at this point, lets see which direction the wind blows.
 
Although we are hoping to tick off one of our long-standing bucket list items this year and do a cruise around the Greek islands, hopefully with a very special friend to share it with.
 
We will keep you posted. In the meantime……………………
 
We hope you had a calm and peaceful Christmas, creating wonderful memories with family and friends.

We wish you a healthy, prosperous and exceedingly happy New Year!