I would have liked for my wife to see Switzerland and Norway with me but she really does not feel comfortable traveling or being out in strange places these days; I don’t blame her either.
Financially I doubt it will happen, but: England, Paris, and Venice. My wife has already been to England and Paris. She would also like me to see Niagara Falls, like she has. A few places we've already been, that were really cool: To the top of Rocky Mountain National Park (highest paved road in North America) from Estes Park, across The Continental Divide and exit at Grand Lake. All the way down to Key West from Jacksonville, Florida. Covered both upper and lower sections of Yellowstone National Park.
Amazing how the trees grow up on the tops of the rock formations. I'd like to go and snorkel a beautiful ocean reef one more time, although I know I won't. South America has some good ones that are closer. Florida Keys used to be nice 30 years ago. I'd also like to go to The Land of the Midnight Sun in North Sweden but too old to hike thru the forest or take the cold for that matter.
I'm with your wife on that, although I've always wanted to visit the Scandinavian land of my ancestors. I watch Jonnas videos sometimes.
I remember going into Spokane with my mom when I was a kid, and she never locked the car, and sometimes, even forgot to take the keys out. One time, we had gone to Nat Park (where the Looff Carousel originally was) after a day of shopping, and Mom stopped so that Joy and I could ride on the carrousel before we went home. When we got back out to the old Buick, the radio was playing ! We knew we didn’t leave it on, because my mom never allowed the radio to be on when we were driving in Spokane traffic. The assumption was that some teenagers must have found the car was unlocked, keys in the ignition, and were listening to the radio until they saw us walking back out to the car, and they ran off. Nowdays, the car would have been either long gone, or vandalized.
I haven't been outside of North America yet. But I did a lot of traveling for work, with the kids, and later as they grew up and I was single again I ranged out into more rustic and adventurous locations. When I was young I thought about at least living temporarily in Australia. With a few exceptions though, looking back I had the best time with others. Photos with people I know or knew in them remain the most meaningful. Shared memories and additional points of view broadened the travel experience. Having separate interests led me to experience things I might pass by if I didn't have the opportunity to indulge fellow travelers. It isn't entirely the destination, or even the journey. With time I realize that sharing can be a very rewarding part of any travel. That means both sharing with those having common interests and those with a different perspective and interests of their own. That could be snorkeling tropical reefs, driving up a mountain to the site of an astronomical observatory, examining ancient petroglyphs, a two week road trip through a region I've never explored, hiking through a wilderness forest with an ear and eye out for bears and cougars, checking out the food and music in a big city's ethnic enclave, touring magnificent works of civil engineering, attending colorful local festivals, appreciating unique geography and broad vistas, or munching on a great big dill pickle vended from a barrel on a hot day watching a wryly comical Ded Bob puppet show at a Renaissance Festival while being pestered and embarrassed by the costumed "wenches" fishing for tips while the wife smolders darkly beside you.
Me Too! I use to love to go to ”the city” as a little kid. We were country folks. When I was little, we would go to the city all the time with my parents just to go see and do different things. Most of the stuff we did was free too; the zoo, museums, botanical gardens, ball games, train stations, and the airport. My mother loved to watch the planes take off and would wonder where everyone was off to, as we sat in the airport. As I became a teenager, I would go with one of my friend’s and her mother to go to the city to go shopping or watch a fashion show in one of the department stores. I had great fun doing that. I loved the department stores that had 3 floors or more. We were always riding the escalators or elevators.
When I was a kid we didn't have much. But I can dimly remember how at Christmas time when I was very young we'd take a trip downtown to slowly drive through the retail district to see the amazing street decorations and gaze into the department store display windows full of displays of amazing things. We never shopped there, the cruise was what we got from it. But it wasn't long before that changed. Sure, a part of that was suburbanization and later shopping malls distributed through the area. I wonder how much of it though was an increase in crime, lack of parking as light mass transit faded, and surrounding neighborhood decay as jobs fled... followed by gentrification of those neighborhoods when people got forced out by decay and loss of food stores along with increasing property values/assessments and rents?
I wish that (10 to 15 years back when I felt more up to it) I had connected with others of similar interests and gone on one of the organized tours of things like this:
There are so many places that i would like to be able to go and to see, that it is hard to just choose my most favorite. When I went with my daughter to Hawaii, I loved it, and would definitely go back again if I had the chance. We were there for around a week when she was working over there, and during the day, I too the old city busses and rode around the city of Honolulu. I went a different place each day, and we went clear out to Pearl Harbor, and I could see the shipyard where our ships were sunk. Another day, we went along the ocean and around Diamond Head Crater. The busses looked like they were form the 1950’s and were open om the sides. they had CB radios in them to talk back and forth with the main office. We stayed at the Hawaiian Hilton, and one of the features that I discovered was the Torch lighter who cam running by each evening with his torch and lit up the standing torches as he ran past. The fist time I saw him, he was going too fast for me to get a good picture ; so the next night, I picked out a good spot where he had to run right past to light the torch and waited with my camera to get him on video. I hated having to leave and come home again, and would definitely want to go back again and stay longer and see more.