Every once in a while, I find a list of places posted on the Internet with a "how many have you visited?" question attached. This might be US states, countries, cities, or even attractions. I love traveling with my wife and having new experiences, and as we've gotten older, we value the experiences more than any physical things. It's something that I hope we've passed on to our children as well.
My wife and I have been very blessed and have been able to travel a bit in life, though not as much as we would have liked with three children and a ranch of horses. We made it a goal about 6 years ago to try and visit a new country every year and experience life in another culture. The pandemic limited our travel for a few years, but we are starting to make plans to travel a bit more and gather some data for our minds.
We don't actually get data to store in a database, but rather experience life, see and hear things, taste new foods, and hear new languages. The database in our brain gets a few inserts, although I'm not sure of the long-term retention and accuracy of those memories. A few bits get stored in the form of pictures, and one of the reasons I do like social media is that I'll get reminded of times gone past on a regular basis.
Today, I'm wondering what data you might wish to gather through experiences? Is there something you have on a bucket list that you are hoping to experience in the next few years? This could be a place or an event. Perhaps there's a concert or an event to experience. Skiing somewhere? Completing a class? Eating at an amazing restaurant? If you're looking for inspiration, Brent Ozar has a list in his Epic Life Quest.
I've included a list of places below from the list that inspired this piece, and I have a longer list of places on my blog, but let us know what dreams you have to experience something in life.
How many of these cities have you visited? (18 for me)
- New York
- Toronto
- Tokyo
- Bangkok
- Melbourne
- Mumbai
- Hong Kong
- Beirut
- Cairo
- Moscow
- London
- Munich
- Rome
- Copenhagen
- Berlin
- Milan
- Kiev
- Los Angeles
- Sao Paolo
- Istanbul
- Montreal
- Beijing
- Singapore
- Abu Dhabi
- Casablanca
- Dublin
- Prague
- Barcelona
- Amsterdam
- Budapest
- Athens
- Manila
- Las Vegas
- Vancouver
- Jakarta
- Shanghai
- Cape Town
- Stockholm
- Paris
- Vienna
- Glasgow
- Osaka
- Taipei
- Miami
- Santiago
- Seoul
- Dubai
- Lagos
- Warsaw
- Lisbon
- Auckland
- Hanoi
- Honolulu
- Perth
- New Delhi
- Rio de Janeiro
- Chicago
- Zagreb