Travel Bucket List

Everyone has a bucket list right?  Things to do before you die... hmmmmm.... what is it that I really want to do before I die?  TRAVEL!

I have been married for the past 13 years. Throughout our marriage, we have found out that we both enjoy traveling... a lot... with each other... We have become awesome travel buddies and make a good team.  I think part of the reason why it seems to work is because:

1.  I do most of the pre-trip planning.  I research and book our tickets, hotel, car (if needed) etc.  My husband helps out with the hotel if we are going to another country.  Before we leave, I organize everything we need into a folder (I will share my folder when I plan my next trip so you can see what I'm talking about).  Pre-trip planning also includes buying any omiyage, ordering yen or other currency exchange, etc.

2.  Although my husband think's I'm a crazy trip planner, when I'm actually on the trip, I just relax and enjoy it!  We've figured out that we love traveling on our own.  We don't like being tied to a schedule or tour group and enjoy the freedom to do what we want, when we want.

3.  We are ok with getting lost.. This is a must if you decide to travel independently.

4.  Once we are there, my husband will take the lead on the navigation.  I admit, I suck at it.  It takes me awhile to get used to the area, but he picks up on it quickly and can normally figure things out faster than me.

5.  We are open to trying new things and have fun while doing it... Imagine trying to order from a vending machine that only had Japanese writing!?

That being said.. you are probably wondering.. ok so what is your travel bucket list?  Please don't hold me to this.. this is just a few ideas that have evolved over the past few years.  Some of them are on there for specific reasons, that don't always include me. Here goes:

(These are in no particular order)
International Destinations:

• Milan- need to take my daughter to visit my sister.  I also want to go visit that Artegano (?) fair one year
• Venice- I enjoyed it there and want to go back!  Need to get me some lace and glass!
• Kyoto- just cause I want to travel to another city in Japan besides Tokyo
• Osaka- same reason as Kyoto
• Hokkaido- I enjoyed Sapporo and want to visit that area again
• Nara- I need to see those wild deer one day!
• Australia- need to touch a koala
• New Zealand- Hubby wants to go find the shire
• England- My daughter and hubby want to go visit the Harry Potter set
• Paris- I just saw a friend's photos and I think I want to go there too... now to convince my hubby to go with me.

Domestic Adventures:

• Orlando- gotta go check out the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter.. unless they open the one in LA!  Then I don't need to go all the way to Florida.
• Washington DC- I want to take my daughter to see the Smithsonian one day. I want to see it too!  Also want to see our nation's capitol.
• Alaska- gotta go visit Aunty Ruthie one day
• Washington State and Oregon- visit the cousins
• San Francisco- just think its interesting

I know.. not that adventurous yah?  Maybe after I retire I'll get more adventurous like my friend Les.  She will go anywhere and has gone to a lot of places already.  All this writing about travel is making me want to start trip planning again!

This is for me....

What better way to document my travels than to blog about it?  At first I thought, why would I ever want to share what happens on my trips?  The first time I ever did a trip report was on our first trip to Japan.  You can find that post here.  I am not exactly sure why I decided to do it, but after I started I couldn't stop!  It was fun to re-live our Tokyo Adventure every day and I ended up referencing it frequently to remember where we went on each day, names of stores, areas, etc.

If you read through all of my posts for that first trip to Tokyo, you'll see at the end that we were there for the earthquake and tsunami.  Through blogging, I found out just how many people were reading about our trip and were worried about us!  We actually used it as a tool to communicate back to everyone back home.  In fact, when people meet me that read my blog, they always seem to comment about my Japan trip reports!

Since then, I've made a few attempts to do trip reports on other vacations like when we went to Vegas, our 2nd trip to Japan, and who can forget Lfundoo and Kiki's Epic Crafty Adventure?  I love re-reading all about our trip and find that its better than (dare I say) project life!  It's great to capture those memories while its still fresh in my mind and is what seems to work for me.... so here I am now.. dedicating a whole blog just to my travel adventures.

Sooo, if you don't really care to read about all the fun I have on my trips, then this blog is not for you.  It really isn't about how many people read this blog cause this blog is for me... but if you would like to join me, I'd love for you to read about my trips and hopefully learn a few thing from my travel adventures.

Now you might think this is kinda funny.. that here I am starting a travel blog and I haven't even really been to very many places... here's a list of places I've visited aside from Hawaii:

Los Angeles
San Diego
San Francisco (though I don't remember that trip at all)
Las Vegas
Orlando
Milan
Pisa/Florence/Tuscany
Rome
Venice
Tokyo
Sapporo



I thought about what I want to include in this blog and along with actual trip reports, I will try to give you some travel tips, trip planning, and trip hauls.  If and when I ever figure out how to you tube, you just may see some video too!