My lack of world traveling…

In less than a month I will be heading down to NYC for a friend’s 30th birthday. I’ve been looking into things to do and see, and it’s got me thinking of a list of places I haven’t yet been and desperately want to.

For all intensive purposes, let’s say money was no object (which, of course, id not the case AT ALL). Here is a partial list of the places I want to see at one point in my life, in no particular order…

Nationally:
Calgary to visit family and attend the Stampede
Vancouver and see the places the Olympics were held
Prince Edwards Island
Gaspesie

In the United States:
LA
Washington DC and all the fix-ins
Chicago
Austin
Colorado
Boston (I’ve been, but I want to appreciate it more)
Philadelphia (mostly to be one of the thousands who runs up those stairs to the Rocky theme…)
The Alaska-Yukon border
I want to attend Mardi-Gras, but I don’t care for the beads (or how I would go about getting them)
I want to drive down the west coast
A random little town in a random state that no one would ever think of (I’ll probably trow a dart at a map of the US for this one)
I want to go to all the places Guy Fieri has been and eat all that ridiculously amazing food.
And a ton more things I can’t remember…

Internationally:
I want to devour Europe. I never got to do the backpacking thing, and I wish I did.
I want Prague
I want Switzerland
I want Scotland (I REALLY want to go here and find more of my family history…)
I want Ireland
I want Italy
I want to walk up the Acropolis and look at the architecture that started my love of all things Greek and Roman
I want to go to the Louvre and see Winged Victory of Samothrace (I think she will make me cry)
I want to spend a year in Europe and just SEE everything

Then of course there’s these places…
China
Japan
Australia
New Zealand
Africa (who doesn’t want to go on a real safari and see an elephant? SERIOUSLY?!?!)

I’ve never been anywhere really. The only time I’ve left the continent is when I went to the Dominican, and before that the only real places I’ve been that were “vacations” was Vegas, Florida, San Fransisco and Arizona.

I feel as if I’ve barely scratched the surface of what this world has to offer. Heck, I have barely seen things in my city, in my province! I don’t want to wake up one day and feel like I haven’t lived. I want my daughter to see the world, I don’t want to limit her that. It’s time for me to make a choice, to actively try and see more places, do more things.

I think my lack of seeing places also is what hinders my writing when it comes to locations. I don’t know many places, and writing about home is weird for me, so I have a tendency to want to write about places that do not exist, because then I can’t go wrong…

Maybe going around and visiting new places is just what I need to do to gain some real life experiences and add them to my writing. Hmmm… I might be on to something here.

First stop, New York City. Next stop, The world!!

Happy Thursday everyone!!