5 Places from My Travel Bucket List

I’ve been grounded for the last 2 months without any travel (thanks to my job change and few other personal reasons). All I can do/doing is following fellow travellers’ stories of their recent escapades and keep thinking about my travel bucket list. Here are five places which stand out from my long bucket list for the reasons they got added to my list (in reverse chronological order) –

5 Places from My Travel Bucket ListImage courtesy: Wikipedia

5. Pitcairn Islands: While Wiki-hopping one day, I stumbled on these group of four islands, officially named the Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands. Pitcairn Islands intrigued me for multiple reasons – remoteness of the location (nearest land masses are over 2250 kms away – New Zealand), history (home of the mutineers from HMS Bounty over 200 years ago), accessible only by boat and one get to meet/talk to everyone on the whole island (there are less than 70 inhabitants). Who would say no to an opportunity to spend time on a remote island with very few people to disturb and just blue sea for thousands of miles around.

4. Kokoda Trail: An year ago I got hold of a book by Rob Lilwall, ‘Cycling Home from Siberia’ – an epic journey cycling close to 50,000 KMs in three years covering half of the world. His journey started from the icy cold Siberia (as the title indicates) via Japan, China, almost all the South East Asian countries and then to Australia via Papua New Guinea. From there back to his home England, traversing through India, South Asian countries, Europe. His journey in Papua New Guinea caught my eye where he took the Kokoda trial, which is known for being the location of the second World War battle between the forces of Japan and Australia. The 96KMs single-file foot trail has become an annual endurance running race. I hope to walk along that path one day.

5 Places from My Travel Bucket ListImage courtesy: Wikipedia

3. Machu Picchu, Peru: Though I had read and heard about the Inca Empire & civilization a couple of times, it never fascinated or attracted me. That was till I read the book ‘Peruvina pavitra kaniveyalli’ (Title translates to ‘In the holy valley of Peru’ – ಪೆರುವಿನ ಪವಿತ್ರ ಕಣಿವೆಯಲ್ಲಿ) – a travelogue in Kannada by renowned author Nemichandra. The author’s narration of the beautiful country took me to a different world and that’s when the Inca trail got added to my list. (Probably I’ll re-read the book now that I’ve nothing much planned to travel.)

2. Antwerp: This is an odd one in the list. The very first project I worked in my carrier was for a Belgian client. And as part of task, we had to enter a valid address in to the application we were testing. We were given a dummy address with a valid postcode of Antwerp. After using that address for more than two years, it started feeling as if it’s an address of a friend or someone. Till date, all I know about Antwerp is that, it is a small city in Belgium. And I don’t have a clue about the place except its name. I’ve decided to keep that way until I the day I start towards Antwerp – a little surprise stashed away.

1. Gabbar’s Ramanagara: A surprising entry from the list and no prizes why it got added. Probably this is the oldest entry in the list going back close to 20 years. Being so close to Bangalore and passing through the town countless number of times, I’m yet to explore those rocky hills where Gabbar walked around once. Every time I travel to Mysore, I make a promise to myself to visit Ramanagara next time for sure and that promise is being renewed for a long time now, recent one being just 2 months ago. Here is a new promise to myself, not to renew the old promise 🙂

And for the time being, I’ll go back to reading and dreaming!

16 comments

  1. i’s assumed that you’d have more places on your list since you are an avid traveler. well, i’ve some places on my list too. so hope to visit them 🙂

  2. Oh ! Your list is quite interesting. Never heard of first two places. Now should I also add them to mine? 🙂 My list keeps getting longer every few days. 🙂
    But I don’t give them any timeframe. Sad part is that the list remains as it is & I travel to some other places.

    1. I too don’t have a time frame for this short list. And yeah the list keeps growing over time.
      Better way to clear the list would be to have a common list among fellow enthusiasts and have a challenge who clears it fist 😀

    2. He he… I like the idea of putting up a list and traveling to different places. That’s the whole fun of traveling right?

  3. Went to Gabbar’s den last year. Was quiet and serene. Everything was clean except for a few graffiti here and there.

  4. You should have done Ramanagara by now. Correct?
    Btw, really impressed with the two books you listed up there. Papua is a wonderful place from what I have read / heard. Maybe you can sign up for a tribal trail tour for starters, although that’s not a very traveler thingy :/
    One day I hope to master my Kannada reading well enough to read the Peru book. Till then, there is the payaniga

    1. Not yet. Going by my recent track record, my plan is to visit Ramanagara before April this year 🙂
      Start honing your Kannada reading and don’t miss the book by Nemichandra

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