When you plan a trip like the 10 month adventure around the country that we’re planning, you hit a lot of bucket list destinations and activities. This whole trip is a bucket list. I always dreamed of doing something like this “someday,” assuming it would be after the kids were grown. For me, the major bucket list items are seeing the national parks, experiencing cities I haven’t yet visited, trying new things and eating new foods. While we’re gone, I want to try things like surfing, riding in a helicopter, going up in a hot air balloon, and swimming with dolphins, all things I knew I eventually wanted to do.

It might seem like after a vacation such as ours, hitting countless bucket list items, that there wouldn’t be much left on a list of things to strive to do. My kids have made comments like, now we won’t have anywhere new to see when we’re adults. It makes me laugh because they really believe that. I pointed out that although we will be seeing a massive chunk of the country’s highlights, we aren’t spending great lengths of time at any one destination. This is more like a preview of what’s available. The Cliff’s notes to America. I also used our own state as an example. We’ve been travelling around NY for years, constantly seeing, doing, and experiencing new places. We still haven’t seen it all. New York State has over 200 state parks and historical sites, we’ve only been to 30 something of those. I explained to them that although we’re going to have seen all 48 of the lower continental, it doesn’t mean we’ve seen the whole state just like someone who visits NYC can say they’ve been to NY but it doesn’t mean they’ve been to Niagara Falls, the Adirondacks, the 1,000 Islands, the Finger Lakes, Rochester, Albany, etc. There’s so much to see and do in each state besides the highlights we’ll see.

My bucket list isn’t being completed with this trip either. I still haven’t seen Alaska, the last state I have to visit to have seen all 50. I also want to, at some point, visit Colombia to see where my family is from. There’s still Puerto Rico, Phoenix, the Apolstle Islands in Wisconsin, and Dallas. I feel like I could spend the next 50 years traveling full time and there would still be things left to see.

Thanks for coming along on this journey. Leave a comment, ask a question, and come back for more!

*pic- the kids at Ontario Beach Park, July 2019