Below is my Almighty Travel Bucket List, started in 2012 and constantly evolving (feel free to make suggestions). I hope it will give you as much travel inspiration as it gives me! Many at retirement-age may be looking for bucket list inspiration so I hope this serves as a help to you. See this professional retirement blog for more ideas on how to best spend your golden years. Anyway, without further ado, here is my list:

1. Ride in a hot air balloon
2. See the Big 5 on an African safari (Done, March 2016!)
3. Visit every continent in the world including Antarctica
4. Visit “The Shire” in New Zealand
5. Stay in a treehouse at an eco-resort
6. Take a cruise on a sailboat (Done! A windjammer cruise in October 2012)
7. Hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon…and back up!
8. Travel solo on an international trip (Done! I met with a women’s group in Tanzania to climb Kilimanjaro but my travel to and from the country was solo as well as most of my safari after the climb)
9. Visit the Redwood Forest in California
10. Visit Crater Lake in Oregon
11. See a grizzly bear in the wild
12. Attend an Olympics event
13. Walk along the Great Wall of China
14. See the temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia
15. Live abroad for at least one year
16. Visit an elephant sanctuary in Thailand
17. Take a cooking class
18. Fly first class on an international trip (Done! All three of us rode first class on a short flight to Costa Rica)
19. Spend the night in a medieval castle
20. Snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef
21. Take a transatlantic cruise
22. See the Northern Lights
23. Visit Japan during cherry blossom season
24. Have a few beers at Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany
25. Visit the ruins of Pompeii
26. Ride a gondola in Venice
27. Visit Dracula’s castle in Romania
28. See the ancient city of Petra in Jordan
29. Get mehndi body art in India
30. See the Taj Mahal
31. Visit the major historic sites in Washington, D.C. (Done! November 2017)
32. Camp in the Amazon jungle (Done! July 2012)
33. Go whitewater rafting on a Class 5 river (Brandon and I are debating about whether we’ve already accomplished this. He says we’ve already rafted through a Class V rapid, I seem to remember that they were all Class IV. So this isn’t crossed off until I go through a Class V and actually remember it)
34. Go fishing for piranha and eat our catch (Done! July 2012)
35. Learn to fly fish
36. Stay in an overwater bungalow (like this)
37. Become fluent in a foreign language
38. Visit Machu Picchu (Done! July 2008)
39. Visit the Swiss Alps
40. Volunteer abroad (Done! July 2008, though I plan to do this many more times)
41. Help someone else complete an item from their bucket list (Done! May 2016 I took my mom to England and Scotland)
42. Climb Mt. Fuji, preferably by my 35th birthday (Done, not Mount Fuji but Mount Kilimanjaro which is WAY harder)
43. Visit all the states in the U.S.
44. Read a novel in a foreign language
45. See a Broadway play (Done many times! Check out my review on the Book of Mormon)
46. Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland
47. Take a round-the-world trip
48. Take a cross-country road trip (Done, twice! Here’s Part One and Part Two of my 2010 cross-country road trip)
49. Float in the Dead Sea
50. Host a foreign exchange student
51. Kiss Brandon at the top of the Eiffel Tower
52. Eat at one of the world’s best restaurants
53. Complete the world’s largest commercially available jigsaw puzzles at 32,000 pieces (hey, I have other hobbies besides traveling!)
54. Stay in an ice hotel or glass igloo
55. Visit the Neuschwanstein Castle and Hofbrau House in Germany (Done in May 2015! Read here about our experience at Neuschwanstein)
56. Kayak at night in bioluminescent waters
57. Visit Yellowstone National Park