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Friday, September 28, 2007

Aspirational travel: wanderlust and wish lists

What is it about wish lists? Don't you love them? And no more so than when they're travel wish lists. Inspired by Decorno's What's Next for Travel blog which asked "What's on your list? Where does everyone want to go?", Franki Durban at LifeInAVentiCup wrote on Wanderlust: "I found myself unable to complete a list. I simply have too many places I hope to experience, and I won't stop until I've seen them all. Seriously, if it's on the list, I'm going, and I don't intend to leave this marble until I've completed my journey." I'm with Franki. And I enjoyed creating my own: Yemen, Iran, Libya, the Ukraine, Guatemala, Zanzibar, Madagascar, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Nepal, Bhutan, Mongolia, Malta, Serbia, and Montenegro. I could go on. Why is that? Why do we enjoy list-making so much? Lonely Planet do well from their Blue List book and its companion website where you create your own 'bluelist' to recommend a travel experience. The glossy travel magazines publish lists all the time: top ten destinations, world's best beaches, top 100 hotels, etc. National Geographic Traveler has just released its 'Places of a Lifetime' list and guides to those cities - you can read our Dubai guide there soon! What we're really doing when we create our travel wish list is defining our dream destinations and travel aspirations. Our lists - and those of others - inspire us to move.

4 comments:

Prêt à Voyager said...

I think my friend Jason put it best when he said that when he travels he always is looking to go some place he's never been, except Paris- Paris is the one place he could always go back to. . .But I must agree with many points made on these multiple posts. I think it's cool that I can say by 21 I had literally been around the world. But the problem is once you start, you can't stop. Right now Thailand, Morocco, Argentina, Peru, Russia top my list for no other reason really than because I haven't been there yet (and they seem intrigingly exotic, and I've heard good things). . . Thanks for all your continuous food for thought!

Maryam in Marrakesh said...

Eeek on my list is Syria, Madagascar, Bhutan, Burma, Brazil, Cuba, more islands in Indonesia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan.

franki durbin said...

Sadly, I'm that girl who reads "1000 places to see before you die' right before I go to bed each night. My poor (tolerant) husband never minds, so long as he and I travel together he's delighted to be my companion.

Seeing your list I realize I forgot to add Malta and Zanzibar. Ahhh! Such a list! Such a life!

I'll have to head over to NGT's Places of a Lifetime now ;)

Alexander Santillanes said...

Man, reading everyone else's list just makes me want to add to my own!

When I started my new blog this year at PrimtiveCulture, I had a hard time deciding on what to write for my first entry. After weeks of not writing anything, I finally compiled a brief wishlist of my top 5 travel destinations. Once I had done that, I had no trouble writing my later entries. That first entry is one of the only non-illustrated pieces on my blog, and is likely among the least interesting things I've written, but somehow I think it encapsulated all of the potential for a future that my blog needed. So, I think in some ways a travel wishlist can itself be a point of departure. -X