Okay, this whole TV show thing, it’s amazing, but also, I have absolutely no idea what I am doing. I just pretty much attend skype meetings, giggle weirdly and try not to call famous people by their former tv character names.
While I’m not much help on the production end, the whole giving input on where we should travel thing seemed like it’d be right up my alley.
And then, I quickly realized I travel places solely based on food, and decided that maybe I needed some outside input.
So, I turn to you. What’s on your bucket list?
Have you been somewhere you’ve sworn you’ve always wanted to return?
Is there a hidden gem in your town?
If you could travel to do anything, what would be on your dream list?
Disclaimer: I won’t jump out of planes or things in the sky. It’s a hard limit.
I’d love to see the salt flats; go back to Key West; and visit Portland (the one in Maine and in Oregon). –is the whole wide world included in this endeavor? Then add in India & Florence, Italy.
It can be anywhere, and also, tell me about the salt flats, where is that?
They’re in Utah and they’re GORGEOUS!! Just google images!! They are so lovely! And you can just drive around on them.
I’ve always always wanted to go to Bora Bora. My sister and I promised to go…then I had a baby. lol I’ve also always wanted to go to Japan too (anywhere that’s not close to here!).
I will make a plug for my state – there is some seriously beautiful areas in the Black Hills of South Dakota as well as the Badlands. Plus everyone should see the 4 stupid faces (as we locals affectionately call them) once in their lives. On your way, you can hit Mitchell SD to visit the Corn Palace – yes, a palace made of corn.
Okay my sister lives in SD and she never mentioned a palace made of CORN!! Sister fail!
http://www.cornpalace.org/
One of the best cheap breakfasts I ever had was as Mt. Rushmore. I was also fortunate to be in South Dakota during the Sturgis bike rally. OMG!!! I loved going to the Corn Palace!! If Brittany goes out there, she’ll also have to go to Wall Drug
YES YES YES! Add North Dakota in as well! See the beautiful western skies in the ND Badlands to the west. Find the beauty in flat prairie farmland that stretches as far as the eye can see. Straddle the US/Canadian border at the International Peace Gardens. Then head East and see when Peggy Lee sang her first professional gig, where Kid Johnny Lang grew up, and where you can get a meal made by Jerry Garcia’s former tour chef.
Well, I’ve always wanted to see India but that’s for when I’ve hit the lottery. My other bucket list item is driving across the country in an RV stopping at all the roadside attractions along the way. I want to go see the biggest ball of twine and all that crazy stuff.
There is something magical about Switzerland and Austria. I felt at peace when I visited those countries.
I live in Boulder, Colorado-best place on earth! (ok, so I’m a little biased.) But we have been voted Happiest, Hottest, and Foodiest town, so…when are coming here?
Actually, that is already a set trip! We will for sure be in CO next year!
I know Alice mentioned Estes Park in April??? Please tell me how to jump on that train! Remember-I have a vacation house in the mountains….
Northern California. Specifically, wine country in the fall (harvest time). Stumbling around vineyards before lunchtime after tasting a few too many is the best time I ever had! I know this is a trip based on alcohol consumption, but I don’t care! Watch Bottle Shock (with Allen Rickman) then visit Chateau Montelena in Calistoga, CA.
http://montelena.com/
In the continental US, my favorite place is Duck, NC. It’s not really an exciting adventure place. It’s a laidback, sit on the beach from sun up to sun down place.
I’ve never been to Key West and would love to go. San Francisco. I love to go to NYC and just wander around. No matter how many times you visit, there’s ALWAYS something new to discover in such a large, diverse city. Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks.
Kanab, Utah to volunteer at Best Friends Animal Society. This one will happen. If I make it nowhere else ever, I must go to Dogtown.
In my perfect world where I win powerball and never have to work again, my boyfriend, my dog, and I set off on a cross country drive to see all my friends spread out across the country. We head south to FL, west to LA, up to NM and UT, west again to L.A., then north to San Fran.
Okay, I just saw that the whole world is our oyster. So my dream international trip, I travel through Italy.
And pretty much every place I visit becomes solely about the food, also. As such, I highly suggest Paris.
peru and costa rica are amazing, my two most favorite places we’ve visited so far.
Funny you mention that, Brittany. I was just putting together my list of vacation spots for 2013, which will include Bucket List places. In 2012, I finally saw New Orleans, and I can’t believe I waited this long to see it. I loved every nanosecond, and I’d be happy to return once a year, every year, for the rest of my life. In 2013, I’m looking at the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and a trip to Italy (Venice, Naples and Rome). Work is going to take me to Sacramento, Portland, (the one on the west coast – I’m a two hour drive from Portland, Maine), Seattle, the Bay Area and Las Vegas, along with other spots I don’t know about yet. I need to get back to Paris sometime soon, we want to return to Edinburgh and see more of Scotland. I saw Israel when I was very young, and I’d love to go back as an adult.
I live near Sarcramento – the reason it’s a nice place to live is its proximity to other actually great places that you would want to visit. We’re 90 minutes from: bay area, SF, Tahoe, Napa and have our own wine country about 30 minutes away. The great things is that in a little more than an hour you can be at the beach or on a ski mountain. Otherwise, it’s not very exciting and everything closes by 9.
Any list for California MUST include Yosemite.
I’d throw in a vote then for Central California. Farmer’s markets, picking fruit from real trees, Yosemite National park is an hour away, casino gambling less than an hour, we also have a local wine trail. Although it is centered in Napa there are wineries all over CA. You can throw a stone without hitting one and most of them are SO good. The zoo in Fresno actually just opened a Sea Lion Cove exhibit that is one of the biggest in the nation. It is really cool. I actually have a crazy in there and could get you backstage. (I’d explain off public forum).
Atlantis….the Bahamas.
There’s no explanation needed….why wouldn’t you?
Safari in Africa is my numero uno, followed by swimming in the Dead Sea, and Bora Bora.
My bucket list is Bora Bora. Even before the Kardashians visited and made it popular. Something about pictures I’ve seen that just make me wanna lay out and drink fruity drinks.
Ever since I heard about it, I’ve wanted to go back to Spain and participate in Tomatina, it’s a huge tomato fight held every year in August. I figure its a lot safer than running with the bulls in Pamplona.
Savannah GA, Key West FL, and Ashville/Cherokee/Maggie Valley NC in that order, are my FAVORITE places ever – I would go back there anytime and would move to Savannah in a heartbeat!
My dream travel destination is Ireland. I would love to take several weeks to explore the whole island. Edinburgh, Scotland is also on my list! I have visited Switzerland, Austria, and Germany and loved all of them! Can’t go wrong there. Our lovely northern neighbor, Canada, is also a great place to visit. Banff is beautiful and Vancouver is a fun city.
Oh yes! In the whole world I would LOVE to explore the Highlands and Scotland! See Versailles in Paris and eat my way through Italy!
On an international level, I absolutely loved Budapest, so beautiful. In the US, as a Northwest girl who has been all over most of the country, Oregon is my favorite. It’s where the coast, mountains, desert, hippies and hipsters converge. Makes for AWESOME people watching. Plus, we have voodoo doughnuts. Where else can you get a tasty doughnut called the Cock -n-Balls??
Anywhere in Tahiti. That is my happy place. I would go back there in a heartbeat. I had my first vacation romance there back when I was 16 and was on a family vacation and then some 20+ years later I went back for my honeymoon. (no, it wasn’t with the same guy :))
1) Interlaken, Switzerland – “This place shits christmas ornaments” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlaken
2) Ubatuba, Brazil – Pretty much the most beautiful beach ever http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubatuba
3) Big Sur, CA
4) Paris
I adore Interlaken. My favorite side trip is up to Gimmelwald.
Seeing as how we travel based on the same set of criteria…Napa Valley, San Fran, Seattle, Scottsdale, Boston, Miami, Washington DC, New Orleans and Providence all come to mind…..
Costa Rica- 2nd largest rain forest that dumps into the Pacific Ocean…Pura Vida. Plus my first meal there cost me 80 American cents- you can eat like a queen for 5 dollars. They have no military and a 95% literacy rate. The people are just happy down to their souls and love Americans. They have an easy way of living (I did not say easy way of life) there- simple in a gorgeous way-something Americans should learn…..
Seeing the Blue Grotto in Capri. Watching the glass blowers on the island of Murano outside Venice. Seeing Stonehenge.
Jackson Hole Wyoming – totally gorgeous. I would move there if I was a better driver in the snow!
The sand dunes in Colorado.
Chiang Mai, Thailand.
French Street for jazz in New Orleans.
The northern coast of Vietnam.
Never turn down the chance to go to Turkey! It is so beautiful, the food is amazing, everything is cheap and they can communicate in any language! I lived in Barcelona for a year and if I had the chance to live there again, I would jump on it! While we were living there we had the opportunity to travel through France and Italy which I would highly recommend as well as Amsterdam. Actually all of Europe was amazing for the most part. I wasn’t overly thrilled with Austria but it was beautiful and Paris was lovely but it’s expensive and dirty, that being said they do have great pastries and cabaret shows!
Turkey, without a doubt!
The Redwoods in Northern California! One of my favorite places! Zion National Park in Utah is magical! And I grew up in the most wonderful small town of Paso Robles, Ca where its a hidden gem of vineyards, rolling hills, oak trees and cowboys!
I will always always always return to Ireland. A must do/see/drink.
Damn…you made me think about this…Oh, the list changes all the time but here are the ones that are pretty much constants:
The florida keys
Hawaii
Jamaica
Ireland (yes, again…and again and again and again)
Italy
England
Spain
France
Thailand
New Zealand
Singapor
California/San Fransisco
New York City
Did I say Ireland?
Japan
Turkey
Greece
Gah, I pretty much want to go everywhere.
Memphis! SISTA we’ve got Beal St., diver buckets and bbq pulled pork nachos!
Barcelona – you don’t have to plan anything. The city is awesome, there’s tons to do, but you don’t feel the tourist pressure like you do in Paris or Rome or something. And it’s a party place. We literally walked into two different street festivals while we were there where people were all dancing together and sharing wine like crazy. There was also a beer dispenser like a soda machine in our hostel. Perhaps that influenced my feelings about Barcelona more than I would like to admit. To top it all off, it is GORGEOUS there.
Secondly, Seattle. Why? Cuz we’re awesome up here. Yeah, it’s chilly… but to be able to hit your bong without breaking the law could be nice for you and Andy. :D Just get a hotel and let the rest of the week take its course! Plus, I could stalk you. Or meet up with you and take you out to lunch. Whatevs.
This only exists in October, but you should go. There’s a tiny, beautiful island off the coast of Nova Scotia called Cape Breton Island. Every year in October, they have a festival called Celtic Colours, and fiddle and bagpipe players, singers, and various Celtic craft persons show up and put on concerts all over the island every night for 10 days. During the day, you can travel around and do the crafty things, or see demonstrations and it is just amazing. The island pretty much shuts down from the end of the festival until May when the snow clears, but for those 10 days, it’s pretty much the most magical place every. Everyone on the island raises their children to play the fiddle or the pipes or dance or whatever, and again, MAGICAL.
http://www.cbisland.com/
The Winchester House in San Jose is pretty awesome too. Actually, San Jose, CA in general is underrated, being so close to San Francisco, people forget about it, but it is just lovely, and more laid back than San Fran.
I would love to take my adopted daughters to China so they could experience the awesome history and culture of their birth nation. We also love Hilton Head! It’s a wonderful family vacation spot! My dream vacation would be an African safari and to see great white sharks! My hubby’s not too excited about the safari/shark thing!
I fell in love with Venice, Italy in a way I thought only happened in movies. I want to go back to Italy before I even go to another country. Love.
You should totally come to Canada… Ontario in fact…
You are awesome!
The Flower Market in Nice, France. I’ve been lucky enough to travel to a ton of places both personally and for work. This little market is by far my favorite place on the planet. There’s not a bad time of year to go. You can see the beach through the alleys from the market. It smells beautiful. One time, I ate a bucket (it was a small bucket, but a bucket nonetheless) of sun-dried tomatoes with a bottle of wine and some kind of bread that a woman made over a trash-can fire. It was maybe the best meal of my life. Seriously, go.
*The original Starbucks at Pikes Place Market in Seattle, WA
*see the Aspen Cathedral in Vail, CO.
*French Quarter in New Orleans
*Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania
*The Crystal Palace (or Palacio de Cristal) in Madrid, Spain
*Hike the Narrows at Zion National Park
*Lake Retba (which is, just so you can appreciate the awesomeness of it, a huge lake which is bright pink due to some harmless bacteria. The bacteria part freaks me out, but it’s still pink, which makes it awesome.)
*The floating coffee shop in Graz, Austira. Seriously. Google that shit.
toledo, spain – somehow, someway, i will be back there someday.
My list of “must visits” includes, but is certainly not limited to:
Sardinia
Oxford, England
St. John, USVI (most of the bars are “pour your own cocktail.” As in, here is a cup, here is a bottle of booze, and here is some juice. Pour away. Yep.)
Vienna, Austria
Burlington, Vermont (So many breweries, so little time!)
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
The Croatian coast
And the icing on the cake… Where drinking wine is acceptable at any time of day and a warm baguette is only ever a short walk away, whose country is home to the highest number of paid vacation days, and the place where no one does anything (save sleep and eat,) on Sundays… Paris. But I live there so I’m slightly bias.
Okay, this isn’t food (though we ate SO MUCH good food on that trip), but when I was a sophomore in college, my dad really wanted to drive all of Route 66 with me during my two-week spring break. We started in California and wound our way to Chicago, and the first night, he just HAD to stay in the WigWam Motel in San Bernadino. I think it’s been refurbished since then, but it was downright SCARY. I pulled out my sleeping bag and slept on top of the bed because the sheets looked so sketchy. And I’m pretty sure the attendant thought I was a prostitute and my dad a really sleazy old man. Good memories! You all could have a hell of a time staying in WigWams. But truly, Route 66 is fun and amazing and ripe with great scenery and Americana. Go to Oatman, AZ where the widish burros descend on the town every day to be fed and then have a heart attack driving around the mountains on your way into Kingman (I almost did! At night! While wildish burros brayed at the roadside!). Cadillac Ranch! And your kids will be thrilled that you went where Disney’s Cars is set.
So many places, so little time… Of the places I’ve visited, I’d love to return to:
-Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada (head into the tundra on a float plane and go fishing)
– Tofino, BC (gorgeous beaches, amazing winter storms)
– Flathead Lake, MT
– Isla Roatan, Honduras
– Kabul, Afghanistan (may not happen in my lifetime)
– New York City, of course
– Palm Springs, CA
I’m dying to go to:
– Paris, natch
– Ireland to see the Dark Hedges and Giant’s Causeway
– Scotland to touch standing stones
– Croatia to visit the islands of the Dalmatian Coast
– Finland to sleep in a glass igloo
– Spain to attend La Tomatina
etc., etc., etc…
Cape Cod, MA. Specifically, Provincetown. Have a drink; take a whale watching cruise; have another drink; shop in the most delicate little shops full of handmade goods; have another drink; stay in a B&B. It’s truly the perfectly quaint seaside town.
I’ve read forever, and love travel so much that I finally had to comment on something!
Places I’ve been: Edinburgh is my home away from home – I lived there for a year and STILL get homesick for the place, it’s THAT incredible. Marrakesh and Istanbul are two of my favourite cities in the world (and Morocco as a whole is probably my favourite country I’ve ever been). And I’ve got to rep the hometown and throw Vancouver in there as well – not so exotic, but a gorgeous, amazing, interesting city for sure.
Bucket list: Budapest, Pondicherry, Thailand (especially Bangkok and Koh Samui), Machu Picchu, Kenya and Tanzania (or a safari in general), and (a lot closer to home!) Portland, but that one’s mostly for the food as well.
Thank you for commenting, and I have to say, your list looks SO MUCH like mine, it’s scary. Dying to get to Morrocco, Portland, Thailand and I’m now kinda sold on Edinburgh.
Yay! Glad to hear it, and I’m always happy to make a hard sell on Edinburgh – how many other cities are crazy enough build a castle on top of a volcano?
I’m going with an African safari in Duba, Botswana or another African safari. Definitely on the bucket list if I can convince the wife the lions won’t eat her!
My husband and I travel.. a LOT.. we’ve been to 24 countries in the 8 years we’ve been together. You’d probably be very surprised at how cool Antigua, Guatemala is.. The coffee plantations there are fantasticly interesting and the food in Antigua is amazing.
I also love love love Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica. The rain forests are awesome and again – great food!
My favorite city in Europe is Prague. My least favorite was Moscow. The Amalfi Coast in Italy is a for sure “don’t miss” with the Isle of Capri and Positano being my favorites. We loved Scotland last year when we went on our “Scotch tasting” vacation. The whole country is gorgeous, but Edinburgh was my favorite city there. But don’t go in the winter!
In the US, I live in Boston which is fabulous, but I agree that Boulder is great. So is Blackberry Farm in Tennessee. Louisville, KY is a great city (again, excellent food!), Charleston, SC always keeps me coming back.
You are lucky to get to pick!
Here’s a plug for Massachusetts, but the Western half that most people forget exists. We have lovely diners, great food, rolling hills, Tanglewood picnics and music in the summer and fantastic beer bars..
and if I could go anywhere… I would go to Vietnam. The people, the climate, the food, the history is all intriguingto me.
My favorite American city recommendation would 100% be Austin Texas, you’ve probably been there. Also one of the most beautiful places in America is the valley of fire in Nevada, its about an hour outside of Vegas, and it is absolutely stunning. I am currently studying abroad in London and have traveled to some amazing other cities in the world. My top recommendations would be Stockholm, Sweden, the people here are so incredibly nice, the food is amazing, and the scenery is absolutely spectacular. My other favorite place is Istanbul, Turkey. It is full of amazing history, some of the nicest most generous people in the world, and def some of the best food in the world. Another great reason to go to Istanbul is that it straddles two continents, Europe and Asia. And who wouldn’t want to go to Asia without having to show your passport again. Safe Travels love!!
North Shore of Minnesota. I can recommend a place to eat in each town/city along the way.
Here are my top picks!
Nice, France – stay in Old Town and walk to the Mediterranean coast. Best decision I ever made was to study abroad here!
Solvang, CA – a quaint little Dutch town in the middle of California wine country. The movie Sideways was filmed in this area.
Cape Town, South Africa – a hell of a plane ride, but so worth it once in your life! A visit to a school in the shanty towns will change your prospective on life forever. And for fun, stay overnight on a safari!
Not at the tippy-top of my list, but here’s my post on a student trip I led to Morocco if you are interested: http://bijouxjane.blogspot.com/2010/06/au-maroc.html
If you haven’t already, you really need to visit Ocracoke Island in North Carolina’s Outer Banks. It is relatively isolated and just beautiful. While you’re there, stop by Howard’s Pub for the best crab cakes in the world. Also, all of the places we’ve been to out west have been gorgeous. We’re obsessed with large rock formations and have seen crazy ones in Arizona, Utah and Wyoming. Finally, Yellowstone is one of the most amazing places on earth. You can’t even imagine how fantastic it is until you’re there.
Lately I’m dying to go to France (Paris and Provence, specifically) and to explore New Mexico (Carlsbad Caverns!).