Big trip bucket list
Fifteen travel bucket list ideas for the big one — the sabbatical, the gap year, the trip you keep postponing.
Every traveller has one trip they talk about for years. It's rarely the most comfortable one. It's the trip that was long enough to change the pace of the days, far enough to feel properly foreign and full of moments that didn't fit the plan.
This travel bucket list is split three ways: places that are worth a long flight, journeys where getting there is the experience, and the food that makes a country stick in your memory.
Wonders worth the long flight
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1 Hike to Machu Picchu
Walk the Inca Trail for four days and arrive at the Sun Gate as the mist lifts. The train is fine; the trail is unforgettable.
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2 See Petra at sunrise
Go through the Siq at opening time, before the crowds, and watch the Treasury turn from grey to rose as the sun reaches it.
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3 Watch sunrise at Angkor Wat
Get a three-day pass and a bicycle. Sunrise at the main temple is busy; the jungle temples at noon are where the magic is.
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4 Visit the Galápagos Islands
Sea lions on the benches, iguanas on the docks, boobies that don't move out of your way. Book a small boat and a good naturalist guide.
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5 Set foot on Antarctica
The most expensive line on most lists, and the one people describe as the quietest place they've ever stood.
Journeys, not destinations
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6 Drive the length of New Zealand
Cape Reinga to Bluff with a campervan: volcanoes, fjords, glaciers and beaches within a few days' drive of each other.
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7 Drive Route 66 end to end
Chicago to Santa Monica on the old road, motels and diners included. Go slow and take the detours.
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8 Cruise the Norwegian fjords
Take the coastal ferry or a small cruise through Geirangerfjord and Sognefjord, where waterfalls drop straight into the sea.
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9 Trek the W in Torres del Paine
Five days on the W trek in Patagonia: granite towers, glaciers and weather that changes every hour.
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10 Ride horseback across Mongolia
A week on horseback across the steppe, nights in a ger, no roads and no hurry.
Eat your way through it
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11 Eat real ramen in Japan
A tiny counter, a ticket machine and the best bowl of your life for the price of a sandwich back home.
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12 Eat tacos in Mexico City
Al pastor from a street cart, sliced straight off the spit. Ask locals where they go — the answer is never a restaurant.
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13 Crawl pintxos bars in San Sebastián
One small plate and one drink per bar, then move on. Repeat until midnight.
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14 Eat pho on a Hanoi sidewalk
Breakfast on a plastic stool on a busy sidewalk, with the whole city riding past.
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15 Have dim sum in Hong Kong
Trolleys, steaming baskets and loud tables of families on a Sunday morning.
Keep it, don't just tick it
A bucket list is easy to write and easy to forget. DoBefore keeps it where you'll see it, lets you tick ideas off with a tap, and turns each one into a memory with photos, the place, how it felt and a few lines of reflection. Years from now you won't just know that you did it — you'll remember what it was like.
A long trip leaves you with thousands of photos and a few moments that actually mattered. Saving the moment — where you were, who you were with, how it felt — is what turns a camera roll into a travel journal.
Start your list
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