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MPR News Staff

Revise your travel bucket list: Seek experiences, not sites

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Taprobane Island
Taprobane Island sits just off the coast of Sri Lanka.
Michael Coghlan | Creative Commons via Flickr

You can't flip through a magazine or scroll through Facebook today without being confronted with a list: "10 places to see before you die!", "15 secret vacation destinations," "5 beaches that will blow your mind."

But what's in a list?

Christine Sarkis, a Smarter Travel staff writer, recently wrote, "Why I'm Ditching My Bucket List."

"A travel list isn't like a grocery list, it's not a 'sit down and get it done' thing," Sarkis told MPR News host Kerri Miller. "It's a constant, evolving process."

Seth Kugel, the writer behind The New York Times's Frugal Traveler blog, agreed.

Lots of lists can be filled with "things that may not be as great as we think they are," Kugel said. Take the Mona Lisa, for example. "It's almost a caricature of a tourist attraction."

"The idea of having a list is great, but what goes on that list, maybe we should change that: It should be experiences instead of places," Kugel said.

Skipping the most notable sites in exchange for new experiences can be a way to reinvigorate your travels.

"A traveler's best compass is curiosity and openness," Sarkis said. "Sometimes that means ditching the big name attractions."

"If you go to the places and do the things you're most intrigued and excited about, you're setting yourself up for absolute success. You can't really seek the unexpected, but by doing the things that are not the necessarily expected things, you can open yourself up to this possibly of wonder," Sarkis said. "For me, that's the sweet spot of travel."