I’m sentimental when it comes to the era of ~2010s blogging and wish we could go back. Maybe a psychologist would tell me it’s just a bad case of nostalgia, a longing for a time when my heros lived in Bali and wrote epic bucket lists.
I wonder if any of them are still working on those bucket lists, or did they fade away along with their blogs?
I like to think that somewhere out there some of those blogging adventurers are still checking countries off lists, staying at hostels, running with the bulls, bungee jumping in South Africa, keeping the faith and keeping the spirit alive.
I never did make it to Bali or anywhere else in Southeast Asia, although I was definitely a Traveling Man in my 20s. Too bad I didn’t blog about it, that was a missed opportunity.
FYI, young man, when you get older the thing you’ll regret more than anything else is missed opportunities. Luckily, I didn’t miss all my opportunities, but I missed some.
Instead of Southeast Asia, I started my adventure moving from Nowhereville Indiana to Florida, which at the time felt like moving to some distant, foreign country. I lived in a tent for 19 months in Florida at a wilderness program. From there I:
- Flew out of Tampa to London for a whirlwind UK, Ireland, and Paris trip.
- Flew back to Tampa, drove to West Palm Beach with a good buddy, bar crawled and hit the beach. (Last time I ever saw that good buddy, a missed opportunity for lifetime friendship with a good dude.)
- Drove from West Palm Beach across the entire USA to Boulder Creek, CA, which is nearish San Francisco, with a stop at the Grand Canyon. I worked a YMCA summer camp at Boulder Creek and explored a bit in that area of California.
- Drove from Boulder Creek, CA to Canada, got denied entry to Canada because I had all my worldly possessions in my trunk and they thought I was going to stay in the country illegally, living there full time (look, I like Canada, but give me a break, I’m really gonna trade the Greatest Country In The World for Canada?).
- Drove from the Canadian border, through Yellowstone, through Chicago, and to birthplace of Indiana.
- From there, I got a job with NCL Cruise Lines and spent 2.5 years working ships mostly through the Caribbean out of Miami, but I was also able to do two summers on the Alaska itinerary out of Seattle and was able to do the Panama Canal in both directions.
- Eventually, met my future wife. We did a whirlwind trip to Dublin. Got married on a beach in Indiana on Lake Michigan, settled in Tampa Bay, and started making babies.
- Realizing world travel was out for the moment, we turned our focus to “backyard adventures,” which meant exploring everything Florida had to offer (that we could afford)–Honeymoon Island, Clearwater Beach, Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, and 100+ and counting state Parks (we are questing to go to all of them).
That pretty much brings you up to speed on my adventuring and, God willing, I have many more adventures ahead of me. FYI — what I just did was a kind of “reverse bucket list,” where you remind yourself of all the cool things you already did, instead of longing for the things you didn’t do.
I started a lot of bucket lists but never really finalized them. I’m thinking of making my OFFICIAL bucket list and putting it on the blog. What do you think? I think it sounds fun and maybe it will remind me to live a little.
What would you put on your bucket list?
There have always been a number of things that I know will always remain on my list until I complete them.
- Complete A Marathon: I attempted three times to finish a marathon and failed each time. The first time I was pretty well trained up but the marathon was cancelled due to weather. That was a disappointment. The second time I went 18 miles until I could not possibly take one more step. The third time I pulled out because I was fat and woefully under trained and knew I was delusional if I thought I would be able to finish it. Maybe fourth time will be the charm?
- Complete An Ironman: I have no idea why this is on my list, I can’t even finish a marathon. Yet I can’t shake it from my brain. Delusional.
- Hike The Florida Trail: There is a 1,500 mile hiking trail in Florida and I want to do the whole thing. Not at one go, of course. That would be insane for me to do. I want to section hike it over the course of years, much more reasonable. I’d estimate I have about 6.2 miles of it done.
- Hike The Appalachian Trail: Same deal as the Florida Trail, except this one is 2,190 miles long and goes straight up and down mountains. Shouldn’t be too hard.
- Bike Across America: I want to ride a bike all the way across America in one trip because why not?
- All 175 Florida State Parks: I heard a 176th park is opening, if that’s the case I’ll have to go to that one too. This has been a lot of fun. We are at around 110 state parks completed.
- All 433 National Parks Sites: I’m slowly, slowly checking these off. Most likely this is what me and my wife will be doing in retirement: be RV people and making our way across the whole country.
- Epic Trip To Australia + New Zealand, Southeast Asia, Hawaii, and explore the Caribbean much more thoroughly. Doesn’t have to be done all at once.
I’d say those are the boulders and many other things not listed here are the pebbles. I want to capture them all on a list and put them on the blog and my hope is that will motivate me to keep moving forward one doing the fun things in life I’ve always wanted to do, instead of grinding, just trying to get by. Obviously, these things will take money and time and that is another entire element that needs to be figured out. But I have faith.
Kind of a weird post, but I wanted to get my thoughts down so they stop bouncing around my brain. Thanks for reading, friend! I hope you join me in making an epic bucket list and that we will cross paths when we are old and gray and checking things off. How fun!