The Top Of My Bucketlist

Today I’m answering a question from Christina, one of our listeners in Slovenia. Fantastic data — we’ve got listeners in Slovenia. I love that. I love Slovenia. And as Christine asks, “Stephen, you’re always talking about things on your bucketlist and it seems like the whole world is on your bucketlist. But what really is at the top of your bucketlist?”

Very true, there are so many things on my bucketlist, I often struggle to follow it. Places, experiences, all around the world. But there has been one at the top of my bucketlist since before I left the UK for the first time, 14 years ago. One that’s still been there at the top throughout the whole time, throughout me traveling to over a hundred different countries, I’ve still never made it to Patagonia.

The Lure Of Patagonia

Patagonia has always inspired this dream in me to go hiking in the mountains, to be amongst the penguins, to kayak, to go ice hiking, to travel the fjords. I always, always wanted to go trekking in Torres Del Paine in Chile.

I’ve heard about the elephant seals in Punta Delgada, the opportunity to go whale watching, and it’s always been on my bucketlist, but for some reason I have never made it. The first time I left the UK was South America or start closer to home in Europe. And playing it cautiously, I started close to home and people say, “Oh, you do a big trip around South America.”

But my experience has been different, in that each time I’ve gone, I’ve gone to a single country. I’ve been to Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay, and never made this trip to Patagonia, in the Patagonian summer to go hiking — until this year.

And this year I flew to Chile. I went to have some time, a little bit of time in Chile. I went to Buenos Aires, went to Uruguay. I went to Mendoza in Argentina to check out the wine. And two days before I was due to fly to Patagonia, for this two-week trip that I think I’d planned for longer and anticipated more than any trip I’d ever done — we had coronavirus.

So, I was in Buenos Aires and suddenly the borders were closed, all flights were cancelled, all buses were cancelled. All national parks were closed. Everything, as we all know, back in March changed, the world changed and people like you or me who love to travel, suddenly had that passion taken away from them. We suddenly had this new reality where travel really is a privilege. And a lot of people don’t want you to travel.

What Is On The Top Of Your Bucketlist?

So, Patagonia, unfortunately, I never made it. I was on a repatriation flight from Buenos Aires, to Europe. I was very fortunate, I know a lot of people got stuck. I was very fortunate that there were people around who could organize my trip when it all went wrong.

But unfortunately, Patagonia I’ve never made it. So Patagonia still is the number one thing on my bucketlist after 15 years of not making it. So when you listen to the show and you hear the things that are on my bucketlist, even the things I’ve done before, you can know that they’re there, but they’re not the pinnacle. The pinnacle is Patagonia. And then, the trip across the ocean to Antarctica.

So, thanks Christina for that question. Guys, what is on your travel bucketlist? What is the top of your travel bucketlist?

What is the one destination you really want to see? What is the one experience that makes you get up in the morning? You know, when it’s a really cold day and you can’t be bothered getting out of bed, you can’t be bothered going to work, you can’t be bothered doing anything and you think — yeah, but one day I can be there. One day, I’m going to be on holiday there. What is that place?

Let me know at Stephen at Kated dot com. If you don’t have that place, why don’t you check out Kated.com? You’ll find two and a half thousand travel ideas from 80 different countries, loads of stuff —  from wine to whales, to hiking to cooking, to places that you’ve never heard of. And to unknown places in very famous destinations you will have heard of. There’s a lot on there.

You can save your favorites by tapping the hearts, and you can use Kated.com to build your own bucketlist. And the reason I’ve got such a big bucketlist is because I do actually keep track of it. And so, on my Kated.com bucketlist, I’ve got 200 different experiences that I’m really planning to do. I’ve got about 20 countries on there that I’m still really wanting to visit for the first — or some for the second — time. And so, Kated is your bucketlist planner, use it to find ideas, save it, and then to plan your trip around what you really want.