We recently asked our clients what their top bucket list items are for retirement – and they did not disappoint! While some people want to visit tropical islands and cruise around the world, others simply want to cherish the time they have with their loved ones. We’ve divided the bucket list items into five categories and included them below. We hope you enjoy reading them and gain some inspiration for your own bucket list!
Exploring The United States
- Visit Quantico in Virginia
- Travel to Alaska
- Visit Kauai and get married at sunset on the beach
- Take a train along the border of Canada and The United States
- Own an Indian motorcycle and drive it to the Grand Canyon
- Visit all of the national parks
- Travel to the Midwest
- Rent an RV and visit as many states and national parks as I can, with the pup in tow, of course!
- Take a months-long drive around The United States
- Visit all 50 states
Traveling the World
- Go on a European River Cruise
- Go on a Columbia River Cruise
- Go on a cruise along the west coast of Iceland
- Go on a cruise around the world
- Sail to the British Isles with our two boys and our three grandsons (all male sailing adventure)
- Revisit Budapest
- Travel to Paris
- Travel to Israel
- Travel to Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, Poland, and The Netherlands
- Travel to Greece, Australia, and the Southern Caribbean
- Travel to Egypt to see the Pyramids
- Travel to Bora Bora and Papeete
- Visit the picturesque shoreline of Dubrovnik, Croatia
- Visit Lisbon, Portugal and check the possibility to spend a couple of months there in the winter
- Take my sister and brother with their spouses for a trip around Italy which was cancelled due to COVID-19
- See the Bay of Fundy in Newfoundland, as well as Scandinavia and other areas of Eastern Europe
- Spend a month in Italy, Spain, Greece, London, and Australia over a five-year period
- Take a railroad trip across Western Canada
- Spend the hot Charlotte summer months in the tiny farming village in Ireland where my mother grew up, where many relatives still live and where the temperature is cooler.
- Travel to every continent
- Visit every Disney park in the world
Goals and Self-Improvement
- Spend more time with family
- Spend more time with grandkids and great grands
- Spend as much time with our grandson and his family as we can teaching him – playing with him & just loving on them all. Watching him develop and discover his place in the world is the first thing on my list and I would be a very contented grandpa.
- Be a better friend and family member, decompress and not view the world as a win or lose environment
- Have a plan for each day; always try to do a little more than you think you can accomplish; Be kind; “Help other people, especially those at home.” (The last one is from the Girl Scout Promise. I consider home to be my world.)”
- Volunteer in the community/church
- Extend quantum physics knowledge and its application in daily life
- Attend 4-6 weeks of therapy in Regenerating Medicine Academy in Russia
- Practice Zen
- Read books and listen to 115 lectures of philosopher and professor Alan Watts
- Read the many books waiting in my library
- Move our family house in a small town built around 1920 to our tree farm on a large creek, then add a large side porch that overlooks the creek and lots of longleaf pine trees to read books on spring and fall afternoons between walks in the woods. Also, continue to manage and improve the tree farms.
- Stay healthy and active and visible so that the “right man” can find me!!!
- Simply view people and places as some of life’s joys and not as opportunities to gain an advantage or profit from
- Buy a small beach cottage
- Take an Umstead spa day
- Get a monthly manicure and pedicure
- Work with a personal trainer
- Own and live in a beachfront house or condo, any beach, anywhere and maybe kiss a baby turtle, I have kissed way too many frogs!!
Learn Something New
- Learn Spanish
- Learn Italian and French
- Learn American Sign Language
- Learn to shag dance
- Take guitar lessons
- Learn the piano
- Expand my knowledge of and participation in music
- Take additional sewing classes
- Take cooking lessons
- Take a class at The Folk School
Adventure and Entertainment
- Visit the Baseball Hall of Fame
- Attend Little League World Series
- Attend college baseball World Series
- Attend Frozen Four College Hockey Championship
- See the Aurora Borealis (in Norway specifically)
- Go on an African Safari
- Visit a cranberry bog
- Go fishing
- Go fly fishing in some of America’s most scenic rivers.
- Hike the Appalachian Trial
- See a bear in the wild
- Go skydiving
- Get tickets to Hamilton when it comes back
- Walk through a blooming lavender field (probably in southern France or Washington state)
If you haven’t seen the “My Views on Retirement” interview with John Hancock from our Virtual Financial Planning Symposium, you can access it below to learn what’s on his bucket list:
