My Wishlist of Wonder: The Wild, Weird & Wonderful Places I Want to See – I

Creating a Wishlist of Wonder

I want to travel to every corner of the globe and see it with my own eyes. I want to wander into places and homes that will expand my world view and help me understand how others are sustaining the daily grind.

I love seeing how people live, love, eat, work and worship. So, as long as I’m mobile, curious and have a few nickels to my name, I’ll keep roaming. Here’s my ever growing Wishlist of Wonder.

I will start with this first installment and I fully expect this list to get longer, stranger and more ambitious with time.

Wonders I’m Chasing

• Komic Village, Spiti Valley, Himachal Pradesh — Have a cup of coffee in one of the world’s highest villages, surrounded by the stark, beautiful landscape of Spiti.
• Namche Bazaar, Nepal — Have tea in a little tea house in Namche Bazaar, surrounded by the Himalayas.
• Acatenango Volcano, Guatemala — Climb Acatenango and, if I’m feeling brave enough, camp overnight on the volcano while watching Volcán de Fuego erupt in the distance.
• Bheemeshwari Nature Camp, Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary, India — Escape into the wilderness for a little while at this nature camp along the Cauvery.
• India → Japan by Train — Take a train journey from India all the way to Japan. Not entirely sure this is possible, but honestly, that almost makes it more exciting.
• Sri Lanka — Take a long, meandering trip across Sri Lanka, trying to see as much as possible — cities, mountains, tea country, and beaches.
• The Great American Train Adventure — Take the Lake Shore Limited from New York to Chicago → the Southwest Chief west toward Arizona → and then the Grand Canyon Railway to the Grand Canyon. A whole American adventure, stitched together by trains.

Journeys I’ve Already Taken

Here’s a few things I’ve had the opportunity to do so far.

A Glacier’s Toe:

The toe of the Athabasca glacier is the wildest thing I’ve seen in the wild. The “toe” is the name given to the receding edge of the Athabasca Glacier, which flows down from the massive Columbia Icefield in the Canadian Rockies of Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada.

An Andalusian Paradise

The “pueblo blanco” white houses of Andalusia is a small mountain side town called Frigiliana. The walk around town was just magical.

Here are some beautiful pictures including a home that looked like the bougainvillea paradise.

America’s Truck Stop

Every summer, we love exploring cities in America as much as we can. When our children were little, we would drive to Destin, Hilton Head, or Tampa and spend a weekend away together.

The detours we literally take for gas, coffee, or food off the side of highways have shown me a side of America that I rarely encounter in my daily life. This recent road trip reminded me that, in their own ways, people everywhere are trying their best to make life a little more sustainable for one another.

A Bibliophile’s Dream Come True

I still get goosebumps when I think about the wonderous gigantic library I visited in Alexandria, Egypt. This modern library built in 2002, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, can accommodate 2000 readers in its main reading hall on any given day. It’s located on the gorgeous Mediterranean shore of the port city of Alexandria.

Even as the library was filled with all these people, I could hear a pin drop. We went into a couple of museums and an art gallery but simply didn’t have the time to walk the massive place in the 4 hours we had.

As I walked out of the library, I noticed the concrete bust of Alexander. Was he really this gorgeous in real life?

Arts To The Rescue

I arrived in SFO as a tourist, but the moment I walked into SFMOMA, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, it felt like I belonged there. I was suddenly in the company of over 50,000 artists’ works.

The Grand Atrium’s minimalist geometry draws you in immediately, creating a quiet sense of reverence before you even encounter the art. The museum stands as a true testament to what the city represents, a global hub for art and culture, bringing together artists from across the world.

Peace Monks In The Deep South

A group of dedicated Buddhist monks, led by Bhikkhu Pannakara of Texas and his adorable rescue dog Aloka from India, are walking 2,500 miles from Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington, D.C. This pilgrimage, as they call it, is for unity, compassion, and inner peace for the world.

When they happened to be in Good Hope, talk about an apt name, in my home state of Georgia, and we had the good fortune of being part of this positive revolution. The size of the crowd stunned us, and the energy of kindness and love was palpable among absolute strangers.

Traveling To My Village Without A Passport

Poranki, my small hometown a few kilometers from the center of Vijayawada, is a place where your morning walk will take you through banyan groves, tall college buildings, and cow-dung-filled roads. I travel there as much as I can, but when I cannot, I just have to close my eyes to dream about the good times I had there. The narrow streets have homes lined up with competing rangolis and children chasing cricket balls, vendors calling out their fresh produce through automated audio messages via loudspeakers.

You meet triplets, run into a newborn puppy and worry about its fate. But then you remember your neighbors feed fresh yogurt rice and yummy tea time biscuits to street dogs and you feel happy once again. You will buy cakes, shoes, and clothes, and go to the tailor’s to get them stitched. You stop kids on the streets to become their paparazzi. You visit temples early in the day before sunrise and even after sunset.

Places I’m Going To Consciously Leave Out

Here’s what won’t be on my bucket list anymore. Because I am just overwhelmed by how overdone these locales are and how taking a picture for 2 seconds here will set you back 4 to 6 hours in a long line on most days. I really want to go to the unexplored and the wild and experience the place than to treat it like a photo-op.

• The Gate of Heaven, Lake Como, Varenna, Italy
• Beaches of Santorini, Greece

Featured Image: Stunning footwear in a shop in Mumbai, circa 2026

Continue in SECOND CHAPTER… 

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