What’s On Your Bucket List?

You have 18 summers

Have you seen the meme that does the rounds on Facebook about only having 18 summers with your Things from the day they are born? It freaks me out and I know I’m not the only one! A friend asked me the other day: “What’s On Your Bucket List?” She told me that she and her husband recently sat down and wrote a bucket list of things they want to do with their Things. They realised that they won’t get all of them done before the eldest leaves home. Scary stuff.


We are lucky in that our travel addiction is shared and is currently affordable with the expat package we are on. We can currently do more than 1-2 holidays a year and so tick off a good number of things we want to do. (I’ll wait here for the snide remarks haha. In all seriousness, we are well aware of how lucky we are and I am, in fact, writing another post about that too. In the meantime, I’ll appreciate not apologise for our good fortune and continue to plan awesome holidays.

Intentional holidays

Now I know when it comes to planning holidays I am the queen of it – planning at least 12 months in advance and longer if our expat assignment allows for that. Anyway, the whole thing has got me to thinking I want to be more intentional about where we go and what we do.

I mean there has to be a bit of an opportunistic side to things too: We might want to travel the length and breadth of South America but if we get posted to Australia then travel there will take precedence. I’m pretty sure we and the Things will survive the disappointment haha. I really want to sit down and thing about where we absolutely want to have taken the Things before they are 18.


Not only that but I want to think about the sorts of experiences we want them to have had before they turn 18. I’ve been struggling a bit over the summer thinking how I can get turn this blog from my little hobby into something that lets me get paid to travel. I don’t really get sponsored posts but I probably should. I just don’t know how you guys can expect me to give you an objective review if I have been paid to write something or got a holiday for free. (Don’t worry we are far far away from that happening).

What is this blog for / about?

And then I got to thinking that quite the purpose of this blog is really to show you the holidays we want our Things to have, not the ones we get for free. And also that the holidays that we have been looking at while the kids have been little are possibly not the sorts of holidays that we will want to be taking them on as they grow up.

I was challenged to do a mood board for the blog the other day and the photos I chose were pretty interesting. There was a family surfing, another snorkelling, another one was of some remote island in Thailand, there was one of a family hiking in a jungle… There weren’t any of a resort with 10 swimming pools and a water park which is the sort of thing I have looked at in the past. You probably get where I am going with this.

I mean, I guess this is part of the evolving journey of holidaying with kids: A solo flight with them which would have once scared me senseless is now totally doable. This is part experience on my part and part maturity on their part.

Let’s Get Planning!

So job for between now and Christmas is to thing, and really THINK, about our bucket list for the next few years. (That is, after we have done the job of booking the current planned holidays!)

Where / what’s on your bucket list?

Emma Morrell
Emma Morrell

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4 Comments

  1. 23 September 2017 / 15:01

    I love Tasmania, and would love to take my son there when he’s a bit older. I’d also love to take him to awesome places like the Atacama Desert!

    • admin
      28 September 2017 / 11:02

      I LOVED the Atacama Desert! I would love to take the kids there.

  2. cinnamonsuzie
    23 September 2017 / 15:16

    Only 18 summers …. oh man.
    If it makes you feel better, I still sometimes go on holiday with my parents, and I’m 33 XD
    (But it is a different sort of experience now)

    • admin
      28 September 2017 / 11:02

      Ha ha yes I hear you! We were debating that very thing in the summer and decided as long as we were paying they would still come with us.