Travel bucket list 2025: From Wales to Thailand and some “weird” destinations in between

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. Every January my gym across the street is filled with people who made them. Then every February my gym becomes 50 percent less crowded. Resolutions are for quitters.

Travel bucket lists are for doers.

Since retiring to Rome 11 years ago, I have  averaged about 60 days a year out of town. This year I should top that. Maybe the realization that I’m headed toward the 19th hole in my game of life has stepped up my travel schedule. 

But I have lined up a long list of destinations I have either already booked or will down the road. From Wales to Thailand, from Southern Africa to Syria (Yes, Syria.), my 2025 will be filled with mountains and desserts, couscous and feta, Islam and Eastern Orthodox.

A major advantage of living in Europe is the deregulated airlines have made traveling so cheap. I just booked our first trip later this month to Budapest. Two round-trip tickets from Rome cost me all of €84. You can’t take a Greyhound across Kansas for that. 

Our problem with airlines is they sodomize passengers with luggage costs. Discount airlines such as RyanAir out of Ireland and WizzAir out of Hungary will charge about €50 for a carry on bag. Even ITA Airways, Italy’s latest version of its national airline, tried charging us €100 each for each leg of our round-trip flights from Rome to New York. For a carry on.

These airlines do allow free “bags” that fit underneath the seat in front of you. This “bag” can be no more than 40 centimeters (16 inches) long. I’ve had shave kits bigger than that. What we learned to do is wear many of our clothes on the plane and wear them three or four times on the trip.

For Christmas, Marina bought me a handy, small backpack with five separate compartments. They can fit everything I need, from toiletries to protein bars. No need to check bags at the gate; no need to get violated by luggage fees.

Below is a tentative list of destinations in rough chronological order for 2025. Most I’m making with Marina; some I’m making solo.  I hope this inspires you to dust off your passport, particularly you Americans who might think this could be a good year to get out of the country.

To wit:

Budapest

This will be our second trip and my fourth. I’ve seen it go from an oppressive, gray, communist capital in 1978 to a vibrant, fun, gorgeous world destination in 2016. Besides the Hungarian cuisine, which I’ve said is the most underrated in Europe, we are going for two reasons:

One, the spas. Budapest sits atop a geological fault where nearly 8 million gallons of water in varying degrees of sensual warmth pour from 123 thermal and 400 mineral springs. The spa at our Danubius Hotel Helios has three pools at different temperatures, including a seductive Jacuzzi. We have a room with a view of the Danube River. The Danubius has the best breakfast buffet we’ve ever had. 

We’re booked for the end of January.

Two, immigration. No, we’re not moving. Hungary is arguably the whitest country I’ve ever visited. Its immigration policies under prime minister Victor Orban seem laced with racist overtones. But I have read it’s changing. I’ve lined up some interviews for a future blog that will surely make waves.

Gorizia, Italy-Nova Gorica, Slovenia

Marina Pascucci is the photographer for the organization that is promoting Gorizia-Nova Gorica as the first European Capital of Culture that went to a dual-city bid. This year marks the 80-year anniversary of the Yugoslav army occupying Gorizia during World War II, killing more than 1,000 citizens and soldiers and forcing thousands out of town. 

In 1947 after the war ended, Gorizia was given back to Italy and a new town was built across the Isonzo River in Slovenia called Nova Gorica. This year the 1,000-year-old city of Gorizia will team with 78-year-old Nova Gorica to host a year of events to celebrate a borderless cooperation between two cities of different cultures, language and history. 

We want to attend the Feb. 8 ceremony linking the two cities on the far northeast tip of Italy. I wrote a piece for BBC.com on Bodo, Norway, last year’s European Capital of Culture. This could be a fun tradition.

Check out the agency website that Marina created. Click here.

Wales

The most accomplished male soccer player in the world out of Colorado is a 29-year-old goalkeeper named Ethan Horvath. He has been on the U.S. National Team since 2016 and has bounced around Europe with various degrees of success and heartache.

I caught up with him in Brugge, Belgium, and Nottingham, England, for stories for Denver’s Mile High Sports magazine. He is currently riding the bench at Cardiff City FC which is flirting with last place in England’s second division. 

With the World Cup coming to North America next year, I want to do a recon mission to Wales this winter and see how he’s doing. In the meantime, we will explore Cardiff Castle, prowl Welsh pubs and get a street sign with one of those Welsh place names of 65 letters.

I haven’t been to Wales since 1985; Marina has never spent more than five hours in London. We can fly there round trip for as little as €47 each.

God, I love Europe.

Oman

I put Oman on my last bucket list for 2021 and never made it. This time we’re booked.

Every year Marina and I go to exotic places for our birthdays. My March birthday list includes Delhi, Sicily, Lisbon, Beirut, Istanbul and Kyoto. This year we’re going to the land of sand dunes and beautiful beaches and fabulous mosques and exotic food.

On the far east end of the Persian Gulf bordering the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea, Oman has fascinated me since reading about its beauty and tranquil environment in a region of perpetual chaos.

I’m treating us to a birthday gift of a five-star desert camp with a swimming pool and a table atop a sand dune to watch the sun set. And unlike neighboring Saudi Arabia, we can order wine with our views.

Oman will be my 20th Muslim country. I hear it will be my favorite. 

Thessaloniki, Greece

Two years ago I joined the Travelers’ Century Club, a group of travelers who’ve been to at least 100 countries and territories. Besides developing contacts with travelers who’ve been to even more places than I, the TCC holds meetings in interesting locales all over the world.

Our Mediterranean Chapter has held them in Madrid, Algiers, Bologna and Bilbao. From Algiers, we organized a group trip around Algeria with side trips to Tunisia and Libya. 

In early April, we’re meeting in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second city in the north of the country. I’ve been there. In 1978 I hitchhiked out of Thessaloniki on my way to Athens and I remember it as a dull, gray city full of banks.

But at 68, retired and financially independent, I’m a more savvy traveler than I was as a 22-year-old backpacker living on $15 a day. I look forward to seeing Thessaloniki’s archaeological museum, its beautiful churches and its famous views of the Aegean Sea.

Thessaloniki is the unvarnished Greece, away from the beaches and the tourists and the parties.

I also booked a day trip to Meteora, six Eastern Orthodox monasteries sitting like hood ornaments atop towering pillars and one of the most spectacular views in Europe.

Southern Africa

Look at the above map of countries I’ve visited and there are two gaping holes I want to fill: West Africa and Southern Africa. I’m choosing Southern Africa this year as the safari I took in Tanzania in 1992 remains one of the travel highlights of my life. I want another with a good glass of wine at the end of each day.

The massive question is which country? Zambia? Botswana? Namibia? South Africa? In November I met with reps and took glossy brochures from all of them at the World Travel Market in London.

They all have their drawing points:

Zambia. More than 20 national parks and home to the world’s largest mammal migration in Kasanka National Park in the fall. It also has the world’s largest hippo population. It features whitewater rafting and the incomparable Victoria Falls.

South Africa. The safari king, boasting renowned Kruger National Park. established in 1898 and stretching 210 miles (350 kilometers). It is dotted with 254 cultural heritage sites, artifacts from the Stone Age and 148 mammals, including the rare white rhino. However, it attracts 1 million visitors a year and London sources told me the traffic jams from the plethora of trucks and buses make the savannah look like L.A.

Botswana. Of the 415,000 elephants remaining in Africa, 130,000 roam inside Botswana’s borders. The country’s mild climate makes it especially comfortable to visit the Okavango Delta, Moremi Game Reserve and Chobe National Park. The season is long – from May to October – when it’s dry and animals are concentrated in increasing numbers.

Namibia. I hadn’t considered Namibia but Marina sent me a website from I Dream Namibia which features tours ranging from Etosha National Park to a farmstay in Khomas Hochland. It’s luxury digs on a lake where you can sit on a patio, drink wine and watch wild animals walk by.

(If any of you have been to any of these countries, suggestions, pluses and minuses will be highly appreciated.)

Valle d’Aosta, Italy

I am not into country counts. (I count Muslim countries just for the novelty.) It turns traveling into a scavenger hunt. However, Julys in Rome are insufferable and with Jubilee in town all year, this July will be worse. I’m tired of sitting home all month eating fruit.

Valle d’Aosta sits at the far northwest tip of Italy on the Swiss border. Its capital of Aosta sits at 1,910 feet (583 meters) and its average high temperature in July is 83. It’s in the shadow of Mt. Blanc which at 15,780 feet (4,810 meters) is the highest point in Italy.

I want to sit in a log cabin in the mountains and take day hikes and eat Fontina cheese with a crisp, local Chardonnay.

Valle d’Aosta is also the only one of Italy’s 20 regions I have yet to visit, not that it will influence my thinking. Not at all. (Oh Lord, I think I’m caving.)

Skopelos, Greece

This little island at the northern end of the Aegean has been our late summer getaway since 2019. We are fixtures at the Panormos Beach Hotel across the street from the beach and where I sip ouzo with the friendly bartenders and Angelos, the helpful and social hotel manager.

I love a destination where the biggest decisions I must make are Greek salad or souvlaki and ouzo or ice-cold beer in frosted mugs only Greek islands can do.

Syria

What, Ukraine is full? Actually, Syria was the second choice for TCC’s fall meeting. We contemplated sticking to our original plan but we didn’t know how much of Beirut would be left by the time we arrived.

So at our October meeting in Bilbao, we decided on Syria. Then the evil al-Assad regime was toppled and it appeared the country would be settled under a more popular regime. We are waiting for the smoke to clear and see what new government takes over. 

Will it lean West and encourage tourism or lean to Islamic extreme and make things difficult? We have time, but I look forward to it. I also like our idea for the side trip.

Iraq.

Thailand

Marina, who loves healthy food, warm weather and exotic beaches, would love Thailand. I’ve been to Bangkok numerous times and am no longer a fan. It’s too crowded and as hot as a sauna. But the food is great and so are the people. I hope to use it as an excuse to show Marina one of my stomping grounds as a wayward backpacker in the ‘70s.

It’s also a convenient jump-off spot for Ko Kut, a little island in the Gulf of Thailand which has beckoned me for years. It’s known as a yoga retreat and attracts the tranquil and the contemplative, all too mellow to go on the drunken rants that have taken over other Thai islands.

Austria

Christmas in Rome is hectic and Marina is just now recovering from shopping, taking care of her elderly parents and doing most of the cooking for their annual massive Christmas Day feast. 

She needs a break.

I want a white Christmas. I lived in Colorado 23 years and only had one: I spent it at Breckenridge ski resort and woke up early to ski a nearly empty mountain until it swarmed with skiers by noon. Otherwise, every Christmas I spent back home in Oregon or at my sister’s in California.

I proposed a cabin in the Austrian Alps for Marina. Sip hot chocolate by a fire. Take walks in the woods. Eat wienerschnitzel at night. Now that would be a Merry Christmas.

I imagine I won’t make all of these. But I believe in shooting for the stars and landing on the moon. Speaking of the moon, maybe I should start my bucket list for 2026.