For those who know me, I am not a person who likes to sit in one place for very long. I am constantly on the move and cannot stand being cooped up inside the house for an extended period of time. Additionally, I am also a person that needs adventure, and with me now being two years out of school and with no big financial obligations, traveling to various locales around the world has been a very big thing on my to-do list. I made a pact to myself that I will take at least one international trip every year. And this year, there has been heavy contemplation of which location I want to travel to this summer.
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{{Photos by: Stephanie Vasilidias}}
I know what you may be thinking, summer is a few months away and I haven’t made a decision yet. Isn’t that a bad way of planning? It probably is, but I like to say I live my life on the edge and whatever location is meant to me then it will happen. The biggest reason that a decision hasn’t been made is because I can’t actually sit and say this is exactly where I want to go. I have an extensive bucket list of travel locations that just keeps growing and growing. But for the summer of 2018, I have sat and put a list of seven options from my bucket list that I can plan on traveling to this summer.
Once you have travelled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.
– Pat Conroy
1. Maldives
I am itching to go to Maldives. I have seen so many beautiful photos of the island and the various villas that you can stay. When one of my favorite bloggers, Victoria from In the Frow, shared her experiences in Maldives, I just one that this place had to be added to my bucket list.
Every time that I see a peek into what a vacation in Maldives would be, I just see this luxurious villas where you can sit above the water while in your tub or at your dinner table. There are slides that you can wake up and go down to get a morning swim in the clear blue water. I don’t swim for exercise very often, but if I woke up to this, I would definitely make this my morning routine. The luxury and dreaminess of a vacation in Maldives is exactly why this location is at the top of my bucket list.
Let’s be honest, there is just something about the fact of being able to sit on a beach where you can look out at clear water and just not worry about much at all. And there are many islands that can give that experience, but there is just something about Maldives and its luxury, exclusiveness and culture that I just need to see for myself .
2. Italy
When I travel, I like to travel to experience culture. In high school, I wasn’t the best student when it came to history class, but it was one of my favorite classes because I was able to learn about the history and culture of various places around the world. One of the main places that fascinated me was Italy. Many people don’t know, but Under the Tuscan Sun is one of my favorite movies to watch because of the movie shows the beauty of the Italian landscape and culture.
Additionally, I am a big foodie. I love Italian food but I want the rich, authentic taste of true Italian food. Also, I need an authentic experience at an Italian vineyard. I feel like in order for me to say that I am a true wine drinker, I need to have at true glass of Italian wine from an Italian vineyard in Italy.
Italy has been the most talked about location for my husband and I regarding summer travel, but it is also a place that I want to visit and take my family to, so we may be holding off on this location this summer and waiting for the family to save up their money so that we can plan this big adventure together.
3. Bahamas
What girl does not want to take a summer vacation to the Caribbean and wake up to the gorgeous oceanscape?
Last summer, my husband and I took our honeymoon to Punta Cana, and we loved the fact that the resort was all-inclusive and that we could also go on day adventures around the Dominican Republic, venture into Haiti, or go to the various smaller islands around the island itself.
I have seen so many great landscapes of the Bahamas and heard about how gorgeous the Bahamas is – specifically in Nassau.
Nassau, Bahamas has jumped to the top of our list for our summer vacation option. There is so much culture in and out of the ocean that we can experience, and the relaxation factor is something that is definitely something that I am focusing on this upcoming summer because of the fact that this past year has brought so many changes, stress, and revelations.
4. Honduras
Honduras is a location that recently was added onto my bucket list.
When I was in high school, I traveled to Costa Rica with my Spanish class. Originally, Honduras was an option for our travel destination but after the school did some planning and budgeting, we ended up going to Costa Rica. At the time, I wasn’t a big traveler and this was the first time that I even thought that my life could be filled with various adventures outside of the United States.
I get a lot of my travel ideas from travel experiences from other bloggers and through Instagram, and about a month ago I saw that another one of the bloggers that I follow had taken a trip to Honduras and got to swim with jaguars in the ocean. I mean, that’s an experience that is once in a lifetime.
After doing some more research into Honduras and the culture, I immediately added it to my bucket list of places that I needed to visit. Unfortunately, I have to put this location on the back burner and save it for another summer. I attempted to start planning it but since there is so much to experience in Honduras, I didn’t want to half plan this trip and miss out on everything that I can do there.
For this location, I know that I want to spend a good few months planning an entire itinerary and be able to spend more than just 4 or 5 days there.
