Wow – Your Bucket Lists Are Amazing!

August 21, 2012 — You name the activity – from skydiving to learning how to play chess – there is somebody from the Topretirements.com community who wants to do it in their retirement. Ditto for travel – From cruising to Antarctica to taking a train ride across Canada or Europe.

The results are in from last week’s poll, with 215 people taking the time to share part or all of their bucket lists with us. We are so excited about your plans – what you folks are planning on doing couldn’t be more interesting!

Here in this article we will share a summary of what we learned from your input. At the end you will find a link to a CSV document with all of the anonymous responses, which we think are worth looking at. We think these lists are great from the standpoint of getting new ideas, and/or refreshing our memories about the kind of things we might have forgotten we want to do.

Travel tops the lists
At least a quarter of our poll respondents put travel-related items at the top of their bucket lists. Standout destinations were:
- Touring western national parks
- Europe
- South America

Machu Picchu – a popular Bucket List choice

But literally, just about every place on the globe showed up as a dream destination – from visiting the Passion Play at Oberammergau to sailing aimlessly around the globe. RVs, Harleys, and boats were mentioned as ideal dream vehicles to take them to these destinations.

Wow, with these activities you are going to be busy
Many of you listed multiple dream activities that you aspire to do in your retirement, so there were probably well over 1,000 listed in all. Here are some of the most frequently mentioned ones:
- Fishing (several mentions)
- Golf (including touring courses in an RV)
- Mountain climbing
- Boating (and that includes kayaking, sailing adventures)

Bareboat charter in the British Virgin Islands

It seemed like almost every person responding had their own idea of what would be fun to do. Some of our personal favorites are:
- Learning to fly
- Finish a quilt for each grandchild
- Compete in international BBQ cookoffs
- Read all the books I have been collecting reviews on
- Learn to dance the salsa
- Attend a Kentucky Derby
- Do anything, anytime I want to
- Hot air ballooning
- Buy a new BMW Z4
- Fly remote control airplanes
- Find a local chess partner
- Organize my photos
- Extend my film making into an independent film co.
- Helicopter over the Grand Canyon
(see the full list at the end of the article)

Volunteering
A good number of you, at least 20 of the 215 providing input, want to help others as a key part of your retirement. Several mentioned teaching/tutoring kids and high schoolers in various subjects including math and science. Volunteering with the Red Cross Disaster Services, Habitat for Humanity, and international mission trips were specifically mentioned.

International Literacy Project – Hands Across the Sea

Family and friends
Predictably, many of you intend to spend more time with friends and family in your retirement. You want to see old friends, make new ones, take the grandkids to Disney World, even “make a new beginning” with friends and family. Grandchildren are a top priority for some of you.

Where and how you want to live
It is interesting to see how many of you have goals for your new lifestyle in retirement. Specifically, you mentioned that you wanted to live in this kind of lifestyle:
- Near a university
- In a warm climate
- Low tax burden/low cost of living
- Patio type condo home
- Gated community
- Sidewalks
- Cottage on a lake
- Build an energy efficient home
- Close to an airport
- Rent our home so we can travel most of the year
- Build an outdoor kitchen
- Become self-sufficient
- Start a second career

Bottom Line
First, it is great that almost half of you have a bucket list. Second, we are energized by all the thought that our members have put into developing your bucket lists. And third, so many interesting and original ideas. Now, go out there and get busy ticking them off!

For further reference:
Our Pinterest Bucket List (lots of cool photos)
What’s on Your Bucket List?
Bucketlist-Topretirements – The Complete List of Responses
Top Member Concerns at Topretirements – A Survey
Best and Worst Things About Retirement – A Survey