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

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.

Find the all the chapters of this series HERE. I fully expect this list to get longer, stranger and more ambitious with time.

Wonders I’m Chasing

• Utsjoki, Arctic Finland — Wait for snow at 68° north, surrounded by the quiet magic of the Arctic. But first, catch the sea of autumn colors.
• Zermatt, Switzerland — Wake up to a view of the Matterhorn from the window of a mountain hotel.
• Gomukh Tapovan Trek, Indian Himalayas — Make the trek to Gomukh Tapovan and stand in the doorway of the Himalayas, looking out at the Bhagirathi brothers — Bhagirathi I (6,856 m) and Bhagirathi II (6,512 m).
• Mammoth Mountain, California — Get to the top of the Sierra and take in the mountains from above.
• Surf in Las Terrenas, Dominican Republic — Take a surf lesson at a little surf school in Las Terrenas and see what the Caribbean waves have to offer.
• New York City — Spend a day wandering through the city’s archives, museums, and forgotten corners, discovering stories hidden in plain sight along the 92 NY.
• Killarney Provincial Park, Ontario — Hike through the Canadian wilderness, surrounded by lakes, forests, and that particular kind of northern silence.
• Wyoming — Find the otherworldly hot springs tucked into Wyoming’s wild landscapes.
• Angel Falls, Venezuela — Stand beneath Angel Falls, the world’s tallest uninterrupted waterfall, and see one of nature’s great spectacles.
• Roi-Namur, Marshall Islands — Go somewhere so remote that simply getting there feels like part of the adventure.
• Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania — Wander Main Street, ride a scenic railway, explore the Pocono mountain trails, and spend a slow day in one of Pennsylvania’s prettiest historic towns.
• Niagara Falls, Canada — Wake up to a room with a view of the Falls and, someday, get that perfect unobstructed view of Horseshoe Falls.
• Scotland by Bicycle — Take a four week, 1250 mile cycling adventure starting and ending in Newcastle, looping west through Dumfries, island-hopping across Arran and Mull, heading north through Oban and Fort Augustus to Inverness, then returning south through Aviemore, Falkirk, and Edinburgh along the east coast. A ridiculously ambitious idea. Which is probably why I like it. Found the idea on Reddit.

Journeys I’ve Already Taken

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

Kareena at Saqqara:

As we walked around, we saw donkeys and camels and their owners patiently waiting to offer tourists a ride. As soon as we met eyes with a man who had teeth that matched the color of his tanned face, he shouted at me and my husband, “Kareena! Shahrukh Khan!”

I wanted to launch into my lifelong love hate relationship for Bollywood but understood that in this context they were simply trying to get us to take a ride on their camel.

And it was funny how up north in Alexandria, they were even familiar with Baahubali. But here, this interior into main land, I was not sure if pirated movies of pan Indian cinema had been able to penetrate. Read about this funny encounter HERE.

A Valley Boy Looks for Love

The best part about having Yogi is that I make a ton of friends easily.

I spotted a couple sitting right next to me on another adjacent bench. After I caught one of the gentlemen’s eyes a few times, he said, “Well hello, I’m Oscar. He’s cute.” He pointed at Yogi, asking him to come to him.

“Looks like he likes you, Yogi,” I said, as if I was talking to Yogi, and nudged him with the leash to move toward Oscar. He smiled. “So cool,” and started patting him.

Read the evening I met a valley boy HERE.

Choosing Love Over Fear

This was a difficult one.

Usually, I don’t like to talk about race, religion, or politics because I feel like those things can divide us unnecessarily. And when you compound that with online discourses, it can become extremely polarizing.

But when I saw the above picture pop up on Twitter repeatedly this week, I was curious about what was happening and what the whole thing was about.

Read my open letter to Bo French HERE.

A Taste of Family Tradition

My aunt, Seshu Chebolu, shared this family recipe with us recently. I had to post it so it wouldn’t get lost in the memory folds of my brain. It’s one of the most vivid memories I have of my grandma cooking for us — the plenty of ghee and oil, and that buttery taste in my mouth that will never go away.

Find it HERE.

Rafting the Ocoee River

See, I can’t tell you how it feels to ride waves on a river. But I will try my best.

And if you’ve never done whitewater rafting, I highly recommend you do. This is where you get on a raft with a couple of paddles and try to navigate a river’s rapids from an upstream spot. The river will do most of the work, I promise.

Read the article HERE.

Nostalgia in Steel City

This summer, I went back to Pittsburgh after 20 years. I went for the wedding of my friend’s son. His brother is Baby S, and babysitting S was my first job in America. So, I feel a special connection to this family.

After a 4-hour flight delay, we drove via downtown and stopped by a bar to have dinner. It was nice to see the young crowd in what is deemed to be an aging old steel city.

Check out the fun pictures HERE. 

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To be Continued… 

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