Personal Essays

Why Throwing Away My Bucket List Made Me a Better Traveler

If you’re a traveler, you can hardly escape a bucket list reference these days. (To pick but one example, Thrillist has used the phrase more than 100 times in headlines over the years. We even made you one in case you weren’t up to the task.) It’s edging toward cliché, yes, but bucket lists endure because they’re so pithy. If you’re really sitting down to articulate the places you want to go and things you want to do before you die, you’re a little macabre and a lot carpe diem.