A life list for travel

'Best of' lists, why we travel — By Bob Riel on April 28, 2008 at 9:28 am

Have you seen the movie The Bucket List, with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, in which two terminally ill men set off on a global road trip in order to check some items off their life list of things to experience? Do you own the book “1,000 Places to See Before You Die?”

Well, then, Smithsonian Magazine has a feature you might be interested in. Titled “The Smithsonian Life List,” it is a compilation of 28 places that they deem worthy of adding to your own life list. As they describe it:

“We are all of us resigned to death: it’s life we aren’t resigned to,” novelist Graham Greene once wrote. A growing number of Americans of all ages are embracing that idea by renewing a resolve to live life to its fullest…

To that end, the staff of Smithsonian—as diverse a group of travelers as you’re likely to meet—put their heads together to come up with an exclusive list of 28 places the Smithsonian reader might wish to visit before …it’s too late. Some of the sites are portals into the past—ancient cities so well preserved that visiting them is like stepping into a previous century. Others feature feats of engineering or sublime works of art—or, in the cases of the Taj Mahal and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, both. Travelers can visit temples and churches so breathtaking they must have been built with divine inspiration. For the more adventurous, we offer rewards beyond mere sightseeing—from a three-day hike across the Grand Canyon to a ride along China’s Yangtze River…

Whether you visit only a couple of these destinations or all 28, your life will be enriched by the experience.

Check out the article and the accompanying photos and dream. Or pick up my book, Two Laps Around the World, and read about my visit to eight of these 28 places. Or better yet, get out there and travel yourself.