I have a coaching exercise called 100 Dreams, which helps clients flex their wish muscles and also reminds them that there isn’t one be-it-and-end-all dream. The popularity of the exercise has resonated with the likes of Chris Guillebeau and Laura Vanderkam, and I’m thrilled they have introduced it into their communities.
I do the 100 Dreams exercise for myself, and increasingly my dreams revolve around travel. I could fill the entire exercise with just my dream travel destinations.
Mixing and Matching Travel Destinations
Of course, there are whole countries on the list, which would need to be broken up into several trips. There are also trips specific to modes of transportation – cross-country by car, train trip thru the Canadian Rockies, river cruises in Europe and Asia, luxury cruises to the Caribbean or the Greek Isles. There are experiential trips – spa/resort, learning tours, visiting places at the Christmas holiday. I’ve always wanted to go to tennis camp and finally learn how to play.
As I listed out all my specific destinations, I started to realize that even with the US cities currently close to us, if we tried to live there for even just a month each, it would take five or more years just to do that. With Scott being a rabid Mets fan, perhaps we could align the US cities trips with where the Mets happen to play – become roadies of sport!
For destinations a plane ride away, dividing the trip by continent or region makes sense – we could build several three-month trips hopping from Europe to Asia to Central America, etc.
Putting dreams on paper is the first step to making them a reality
Just listing out the 100 dream travel destinations made it seem actually doable. There was an actual list, and I could group things together. At the very least, I could now make sure that we take advantage of each school break proactively and not by routine.
The check list format also makes it easy to chart progress. You would be surprised how far you can get with a few small steps.
100 dream travel destinations
Here are my 100 Dreams of travel (I have more but rounded to 100). What are yours?
- US cross-country by car
- Canadian Rockies by train
- Vancouver/ Victoria/ Western Canada
- Calgary/ Banff, Canada
- Montreal, Toronto and Niagara Falls, Canada
- Guanacaste, Costa Rica (visited many times, most recently in January 2020)
- Central Valley/ Jaco, Costa Rica (visited in September 2019)
- Panama
- Belize
- Ecuador
- Colombia
- Dominican Republic
- Mexico
- Roatan
- Peru
- Brazil
- Argentina
- China
- Japan
- Manila, Philippines (visited several times, most recently February 2020)
- Cebu, Philippines (visited February 2020)
- India (visited 2017)
- Singapore
- Hong Kong
- Malaysia
- Indonesia
- Thailand
- Vietnam
- Cambodia
- Fiji
- Easter Island
- New Zealand
- Melbourne, Australia
- Sydney, Australia
- South Africa
- Athens, Greece (visited 2017)
- Santorini, Greece
- Iceland
- Sweden
- Finland
- Norway
- London, England (last visited April 2017)
- English countryside (last visited April 2017)
- Paris, France (visited July 2019)
- French countryside
- Barcelona, Spain
- Madrid, Spain
- Alicante area, Spain
- Portugal
- Italy
- Switzerland
- Germany
- Austria
- Holland
- Belgium
- Poland
- Hungary
- Croatia
- Israel
- Vatican
- Aruba
- Caribbean cruise
- Panama Canal
- Greek Isles
- Tahitian Islands
- Danube River cruise
- Seine River cruise
- Transatlantic cruise
- Spa/ resort
- Tennis camp
- Language stay
- Safari
- Camino de Santiago walk
- Key West, FL
- Bar Harbour, ME
- Sarasota, FL
- Four Corners
- Santa Fe, NM
- Jackson Hole, WY
- Grand Canyon
- Portland, OR
- California coast
- Las Vegas, NV
- Denver, CO
- Texas (visited Houston in August 2018)
- Chicago, IL
- St. Louis, MO
- Kansas City, MO
- Crater of Diamonds, AR
- Nashville and Memphis,TN
- New Orleans, LA
- Atlanta and Savannah, GA
- Asheville, NC
- Carolinas Coast
- Charleston, SC
- Finger Lakes region
- Vermont
- Berkshires
- Alaska
- Hawaii
We are Scott and Caroline, 50-somethings who spent the first 20+ years of our adult lives in New York City, working traditional careers and raising 2 kids. We left full-time work in our mid-40’s for location-independent, part-time consulting projects and real estate investing, in order to create a more flexible and travel-centric lifestyle. 
Financial independence and early retirement is not something we originally focused on, but over time realized it was possible. Our free report, 
