It occurred to me that I am not actually a very well-travelled person. The vast majority of the world, I've never been to. I just live abroad and kinda stick to my area away from home.
Within countries, I am fairly well travelled. I've been all over China, Korea etc. But I don't just island hop the world.
Upon further inspection, I realised that I have travelled maybe half of what I would ever be interested in seeing. The vast majority of the world I've zero interest in ever seeing with my own eyes:
Some of these countries in red aren't necessarily because they're shitholes, but I simply lack any interest. Canada for example just does not interest me. What even is there in Canada? Literally nothing. Nothing the USA doesn't have, anyway.
Then again, Greenland also has basically nothing but somehow has a mysterious allure that makes me want to visit. Maybe to my great disappointment but I'd prefer to give it a go.
South Africa I might have put as a 'Maybe' given the glorious nature of it all, safari is still on my bucket list. But then it's just a terrible country overall so I dunno if I'd want to finance them to perpetuate such terrible stuff.
I'm also quite interested in visiting Nigeria and Kenya, although for similar reasons I get put off. Major corruption, the mass slaughter of school girls and religious extremism being a few of those things. BUT, if things cool off, could be worth a visit.
South America, although 50/50, the ones I want to visit I really want to. There's so much there I have such a strong pull towards visiting - even taking into consideration the corruption, violence, poverty. I feel like it's a land of immense potential with some incredible areas, nature and such.
India I'll likely never step food in even though it can intrigue me sometimes. I think browsing it on Google Maps should suffice. Besides, I went to Nepal and that's a soft version of India vastly preferable.
Oman was my Middle Eastern experience. No need to do anymore of that. Egypt has Pyramids but I mean... f**k Egypt lol.
Some places I've been to I just need to experience so much more. A lot of re-visits needed. Spain, Japan, Thailand, Italy, and many more. Even China, there's some regions out West I never went to I should probably check out at some point? Not particularly inspired given how most of China that I've seen is variations on a single theme (vast swathes, thousands of miles of land, transformed into tacky artificial tourism spots)
Scotland is a big one I need to visit far more of. I imagine once I learn to drive I'll be heading there over and over. Heck, even England I'm only just learning about how little of my own darn country I've seen, although most of the developed areas are total sh*tholes, I can't deny that.
That's it. That's all I've ever seen of my own homeland, as far as I recall... Crazy.
Other's I've already been to I am pretty much done with forever. I've been to basically every corner of South Korea (And yes, technically stepped foot into North Korea for a moment). Nothing more to see. Same with Vietnam.
I guess I'm old
I think the whole backpacking adventure stuff ran dry for me long ago. The thing is, you can go on Google maps and zoom into a random town in the middle of Saudi Arabia, then another one in Guiyana, and another somewhere in China. Other than a few things here and there like the amount of sand in the environment, they are kind of the exact same.
Sometimes I've spotted buildings in each so similar I would swear they were built by the same company. The same blue-reflective glass facade which are all invariably either malls or electronics markets.
And once you've lived in a place like Seoul and Shanghai, no city in the world really impresses you unless they're remarkably historical like Florence or something. Even Tokyo was a bit Meh.
If I did a backpacking adventure to all the typical places; Bali for the beaches, Thailand for the elephants, I'd get bored almost immediately. Like, I get it, hot weather every day. Spiritual connection, Yadda yadda.
I'm not going to be looking outside of my tuktuk in absolute awe at the chaos of the 'vibrant' streets in some random South Asian country. I already did that in my 20's - I get it. The fact they speak a slightly different language or have a slightly different religion, cuisine or climate just doesn't intrigue me anymore.
It's not a judgement on their countries, it's just human nature to very quickly adapt and find things normal - hence the 24-hour news cycle, infamous because we get bored of even the most shocking tragedies in no time.
I think my focus has moved more to making my own life something I love, without looking outward to try and escape from it for a while.
When it does come to travel choices in the future, I'm looking for things that I'm already deeply fascinated in and want to experience first hand. Not new, novel things I hadn't previously thought about to "open my mind". I want to visit Italy more because I have genuine and deep interest in its history, the Romans and their connection to my own country which they essentially built for us.
I want to visit USA because I have many friends there and it is the land of the Gods when it comes to natural landscape, beauty and variation, something I have always been a deep lover of.
New Zealand? Lord of the rings hiking. Japan? More skiing & heavy snow!
The places I want to go have direct and real interests that have been a part of my list of passions and intrigues for many many years.
To go to, what, Morocco? I mean, Why? I'm sure I can go on Wikipedia to find something that makes me think "oo that's kind of interesting I guess". But at that point I'm just forcing it. If I was made to go, I'm sure I'd have a decent time riding in a long line of camels to see a salty pond where somebody was assassinated 2,000 years ago, but things like that I could just read about if I wanted without contributing to enslaving wild animals for back-breaking labour.
USA! USA!
As for the USA, well, I've always just wanted to just kind of road trip the whole thing, even the crappy broken down parts. I want the experience of parking up to some dive bar in the middle of nowhere and getting an unwelcoming vibe. Really get that 80's movie experience.
I even want to see those crappy urban sprawls; millions of identical houses with zero trees. I dunno why, this stuff just fascinates me. Those left-behind towns that were once manufacturing hubs or cotton farms, left to rot today? awesome, sign me up. Vast, open farmland for thousands of miles of massive fields and maybe one farmhouse in the entire state? fascinating. Idaho is supposedly the most boring state in the country. Supposedly there's quite literally nothing there.
Must see!
It's hard for me to distinguish between a lot of states but I guess this would be my guesswork map of desired spots. And I've drawn a potential road trip route over several months:
It would also be kind of interesting to get a feel of the political tensions between each state, depending on which side is in power. Either way, one is going to be gloriously celebrating while the other will be insisting it's the end of all things, and collapse of the American Regime. Cool.