Why not jot down the top ten bucket-list trips I would fancy? For now they are fantasy, that is deliberately wild. But thus all the more dreamy. Can you guess the common thread?
1. TRANS-SIBERSKI-EXPRESS
The first would take a good two months, to do it real chill from tundra to camp, Moscow to Vladivostok. Lookee.
Of course, it can be done in mad style.
Or earnestly simple. Either way, I would love to do this with my love by my side:)
2. CALCUTTA TO DARJEELING
The next trip I would fancy cuts up from the left arm of India, north to it’s shoulder blade, straight through to the foot hills of the Himalayas.
The colors, the food, the noise, the culture, the vast difference between what I know and what I will encounter is enough to lure this traveler in.
Did you know, there was a movie about Darjeeling, too, that mountain town with a cloudy choo-choo.
Just look at this place! Like something out of that Little Nemo film a million years ago.
3. THE QUARTERS OF THE US
Without a doubt, what would a list of dream-cations be, if I didn’t include the home field. There are so many states to visit here. As a child, did you collect quarters with the different states? A similar enthusiasm drives me to discover the green grass of my own back yard.
And what a yard it is. The northwest, for music; the northeast for seafood; the mid-west for quirky roadside pit-stops; and the coasts for views.
Uh-merica. (A state in perpetual honeymoon; I’d like us to be, her and me, traveling this one.)
4. THE HAJJ
A most fantasy, the most impossible of all, is the one I have always wanted to do: the soul’s hajj from Mecca to Medina and back, a holy pilgrimage entitled to all followers of the Quran.
Alas, as a non-believing, for now, westerner, no matter how much I could hide it, the trip is prohibited me.
But a poet with a spiritual heart can dream, perhaps sneak in, one day, inchallah.
5. GREEK ISLANDS BY BOAT
Rent a boat, or better yet, buy one, then sail the Mediterranean blue.
From Santorini, to Mykonos, to Ios, to Crete, to who knows what else.
Best done with a good crew. What do you think, go with families, bros, or both?
6. THE GREAT WALL & FORBIDDEN CITY OF CHINA
I want to hold the hand of my lover, and step the thousand thousand steps of these 5000 miles (twice the distance from Seattle to Chicago). Or ok not all 5000, but definitely some.
Maybe start and end in Beijing.
For the food.
And other human wonders. Who as a human wouldn’t want to wonder?
7. EXPLORE THE CRADLE OF LIFE
Look at this beautiful flag, the flag of Ethiopia.
Since high school, listening to Haile Selassie, countless Nat Geo docs, studying a bit of Anthropology, it just feels natural to want to explore this elbow of a continent with so much meaning. Of all the countries and cultures to visit there, Ethiopia would be the first.
To just chill a bit on the Highlands.
Or watch the rain fall.
8. CHILL SEASIDE GEORGIAN STYLE
Tucked between many world powers is the modest happy country with a cool flag.
For their poetry, beautiful language, culture, and landscapes, it makes me want to visit.
Fairytale castles, and safesound shores.
Casual, unique, different, and so far away.
9. ROMANIAN MOTHERLAND
And on the other side of the Black Sea . . .wouldn’t you like to know, I am moving to Bucharest in the summer, true, to follow and seal a bond with the one I love. Here is her bustling capital.
The country isn’t eastern Europe, not central, but something of its own.
With unparalleled castles, villages, fauna, flora . . .
Countless sublime beds of culture, like this singular town, Brasov.
Or Sighisoara, the classic home of a vampire whose first name the whole world can pronounce.
Also real life Lord of the Rings statues on the faces of rocks along rivers forming borders.
Wooh! Romania! The Motherland!
10. BY A COMMODIOUS VICUS OF RECIRCULATION, IRELAND
Not last, not least, I would cast a penny into the well of Hermes, the god of good fortune for travelers, to grant this one trip happen: a ring-around-the-rosie, by bike or automobile, of “Little Britain,” as an author once put it.
That author was this guy.
If you’ve noticed the language of this article, I mean listicle, to be weird and free that’s because I’ve been reading his last book, Finny’s Wacky Vigil, and have been feeling really inspired by it. I recommend a taste of the book, when you get the chance.
Look at these casual countryside walkways!
Bring on the brew of Ireland, too!
Or simply relax, in this peaceful place.
Or go for the bustle and hustle, if you please, of Dublin.
Honorable mentions: Tel-Aviv, Israel; Dakhla, Western Sahara; Tehran, Iran; Cape Town, South Africa; Antarctica.
Thank you for reading this silly list. Gotta run now, gotta go to work.
