Our New Bucketlist (2023)

We have travelled to 25 new countries since we published our first bucketlist in 2021 and experienced many more bucketlist adventures. So it’s high time that we update our list. Let’s celebrate the successes and start planning the future!

• Waiting for the Great American Road Trip
• Our Own Gringo Trail in Central and South America
• Visiting Even More of Europe
• Africa - Or All the Safaris, Please
• Still Dreaming of the South Sea - Australia and Oceania
• Eating Banana Pancakes in Asia

Waiting for the Great American Road Trip

You might think this update is off to a great start as we have not actually ticked the first item off but trust us, it gets better!

We want to start our USA road trip in the wild west: driving from San Francisco to Los Angeles and seeing the national parks. Afterwards, we plan to make our way east to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon, up to Utah's national parks, and north to Yellowstone. Driving back south we would like to make our way through Colorado to the old Route 66, where we plan to cross from New Mexico to Texas. There, we want to check out the street food in Austin and San Antonio before we drive further east to New Orleans. Our plan is to finish up our trip in Florida with beaches and amusement parks.

Our Own Gringo Trail in Central and South America

See, here it gets better:

We have ticked a lot of items off our bucketlist:

• We chilled on Caye Caulker in Belize.
• We visited Tikal, Guatemala.
• We went surfing in El Salvador.
• We went scuba diving in Honduras.
• We sandboarded down a volcano in Nicaragua.
• We saw sloths in Costa Rica.
• We relaxed in Bocas del Toro, Panama.

What’s still missing is South America.

We ran out of time and did not make it south to Cartagena, Columbia and further.

Diving the Galapagos islands is still high on our bucketlist as well as several places in Peru before we make our way to Bolivia, and finish the trip in Chile.

Visiting Even More of Europe

We wanted to reschedule our cancelled 2020 trips to Slovenia, Ukraine, and Norway.

At least, we managed to visit Slovenia.

Additionally, we planned to do a tour around the Baltics visiting Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland.

We managed to visit Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland.

Our travels to Ukraine and Russia have not taken place yet for the same reason.

In Scotland, we have paid homage to our love for whisky and visited several distilleries.

In Ireland, we would still love to pay homage to our love for beer and visit the Guinness brewery.

Last but not least, there are several places in the Balkans we have ticket off the bucketlist like the beaches of Albania and Lake Ohrid in North Macedonia as well as some places we haven’t made it to yet like the fjord of Kotor in Montenegro.

Africa - Or All the Safaris, Please

This part unfortunately still remains unchanged.

In Africa, we mainly plan to do two things: diving and going on safaris. We want to visit loads of national parks in Namibia before heading south to Cape Town, South Africa. There, we would love to dive with sharks (ethically and without encouraging a change in their behaviour and being in a cage). We would also love to dive in Mozambique as we have only heard amazing things about it. Additionally, we would like to visit loads of national parks in Tanzania and Kenya, as well as - you guessed it - do some diving in Zanzibar.

The quirkiest county on our Africa bucketlist might be Tunisia but as a huge history nerd I need to see Carthage and as Star Wars nerds we need to see Tataouine. If the political situation allows for it, we would love to see Ethiopia and visit the famous rock churches.

Still Dreaming of the South Sea - Australia and Oceania

We have also not made it to this region of the world yet.

I have been dreaming about the paradise islands of the South Sea for as long as I can think - above all Tahiti and Bora Bora. Australia has only been added to my bucketlist quite recently and I'm still not 100% convinced that no snake or spider or saltwater crocodile will kill me when I go there but some places are just too tempting - first and foremost the Whitsunday Islands on the east coast and Hamelin Bay on the west coast. I feel like I have to explain the last one: Hamelin Bay is one of the very few places in the world where you can see living Stromatolites. They are one of the first life forms in the fossil record and were extremely abundant 1.25 billion years ago (for your reference the dinosaurs evolved around 250 million years ago).

Another weird item on my bucketlist is Wellington, New Zealand. When I was young I was extremely obsessed with the teen TV show The Tribe which was filmed in Wellington, so much so that I even rewatched the whole show in 2020. I think it was more popular in Germany than anywhere else so give me a shoutout in the comments if you know it!

Eating Banana Pancakes in Asia

Let’s end this blog post on a high note, shall we? In 2023, we revisited South East Asia.

• We went to see Angkor Wat in Cambodia.
• Visited the Kuang Si waterfalls in Laos.
• Saw Ho Chi Minh City, Hoi An, and Hanoi in Vietnam.
• Additionally, we went to Penang and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia as well as Singapore.

We would still love to visit several islands of the Philippines, preferably Palawan, Cebu, and Siargao.

Going further west we have quite a few places we want to visit in India. Of course, there's the Taj Mahal and other places in Rajasthan, but there's also the Himalayas, Goa, and Kerala as well as the Andaman Islands.

Even further west we have visited the Arabian Peninsula, but not as planned the United Arab Emirates or Oman but Qatar.

Last but definitely not least, our top bucketlist destination of all time is the still Maldives. I guess we really need to tick off this one…

What do you think? Where should we go next?