My Travel Bucket List — 5 Places I Want to Travel To

A girl can dream about where she wants to travel to next

Travelling is good. Travelling should be encouraged. Travelling includes mapping out the places I want to travel to on this earth before I can’t anymore. Travelling is like rocket fuel for my hyperactive mind and body, something new to explore. Of course, once I’ve travelled for a bit, I’ll be exhausted and need a break to recover. However, that won’t stop me from making further journeys when the time is right.

I’m a digital nomad transitioning to the lifestyle too. Any place I travel to, I’d want to be able to stay for a while and live like a local. After all, it’s one thing to travel as a tourist, but it’s quite another to live like a local. Plus it’s cheaper too.

Anyway, I’ve picked 5 locations from the bucket list I want to go to the most. I will likely be able to cross off most of these in the next 5–10 years, assuming my digital nomad transition is a success.

Malta

Many people have probably heard of this country but don’t know much about it or where it even is. Well, unless you’re in Europe, then you probably know where Malta is.

Malta is a unique hybrid of Mediterranean, Arabic and British culture in the southern seas of Europe that’s easy to get around thanks to its vast bus route network. Malta has so much historical architecture I want to experience. Its capital city Valletta has 320 monuments by itself, making it one of the most densely packed historic areas worldwide.

It’s also one of the most LGBTQ+ friendly tourist destinations in the world, making it perfect for socially minded travellers like me. This is the destination I will likely end up visiting first out of all those mentioned on this list. There are direct flights to Malta from my nearest airport, after all.

ABC Islands

Honestly, I could have picked almost any Caribbean Island. So why the ABC Islands in particular?

The ABC islands — aka Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao — are also a cultural melting pot. Here, European, Caribbean, and Latin American influences combine in this unique corner of the world. Three European languages (English, Dutch and Spanish) are widely used alongside the local creole (Papiamento). Additionally, the ABC Islands are constitutionally part of the European Union, bringing many of its perks with them.

Each island is infused with beautiful natural landmarks like Eagle Beach (Aruba), Pink Beach (Bonaire) and Queen Juliana Bridge (Curaçao), fitting the mostly desert-esque terrain on the islands.

I’m really interested in visiting each island first-hand to see first-hand the differences between each island. While the Dutch influence is everywhere, each island has its own unique identity that many people — me included — don’t fully grasp.

Additionally, their location (around 30 miles off the coast of Venezuela) means they are out of the way of most of the natural disasters that are sadly commonplace in the summer months. So, if I ever was to live in the Caribbean and set up a base to travel from, it would probably be here.

Mauritius

Continuing the topic of cultural melting pots, Mauritius has always fascinated me. This small archipelago nation is densely populated, but it’s also packed with so much natural beauty within it like the Black River Gorges National Park and the Seven Coloured Earths (aka the closest the world gets to literal rainbow terrain, somewhere I’ve always wanted to see).

It is one of only 3 Hindu-majority nations in the world (alongside India and Nepal), hence influences from the Indian subcontinent are everywhere. Other influences include French, Chinese and East African, impacting various aspects of Mauritian society from its cuisine to its entertainment.

Mauritius is also another country on this list that’s a multilingual society. English and French are the official languages, however, there’s also Mauritian Creole (Morisyen) that is widely spoken too. Some people are even quadrilingual, especially in the Indian and Chinese communities who brought their languages with them.

I love being in environments where multiple languages are spoken at the same time interchangeably, even if I can’t understand what people are saying. It’s relaxing while serving as an important reminder that I am in a multicultural, multilanguage environment. I love that so much.

Svalbard

Gone straight from the hottest of places right to the coldest. Yep, that’s a true 180 right there. Svalbard is an archipelago of islands in the Arctic under the sovereignty of Norway. However, thanks to various international treaties, Svalbard doesn’t require a visa to live in. In theory, if you have the income to survive there, you can stay as long as you want in Svalbard.

It’s so far north that you can experience the midnight sun in the summer and the polar night in the winter, which I’ve never seen or experienced before. It’s such a unique phenomenon, which I would love to experience first-hand.

Additionally, it’s one of the few places in the world you can also find Soviet-era buildings and architecture outside of Russia, much of it disused and abandoned, although some of them (such as Pyramidien) are tourist attractions. Given Russia is effectively closed off to Westerners like me due to current events, this part of history via the Arctic might be the only way for me to experience it.

Japan

Ok so technically I’ve already been here, and if you’re reading this, you probably already have as well (and likely know some things about Japan too). I studied abroad in Japan as part of my degree several years ago. However, because of the nature of studying abroad as a student in Japan (which is kinda like US/UK secondary school, for comparison), I couldn’t explore or travel much sadly. I want to remedy this.

Places on my bucket list for a return trip to Japan include the Dragon Quest Cafe, Tokyo Disneyland, the Sapporo Snow Sculpture Festival, Shimonada Station and Okinawa. There are way too many to list. I’d also love to return to the region of Japan I studied abroad to see what it’s like now. I imagine aspects of it will have changed.

I really hope the Japanese government implement a digital nomad visa in the next 5 years or so. That would make clearing this list so much easier.

Have you been to any of these destinations? I would love to know your thoughts.

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