Bucket List: Ideas on Travel Destinations
I love to travel and I also love to hear about the amazing trips our clients are taking. This got me thinking about the countries that should be on my (yet to be compiled) Bucket List of travel destinations. I am open to suggestions if anyone would like to share their favorite places.
Where are people the happiest?
Despite the old axiom that misery loves company, I like going where people are happy. An international team of economists, neuroscientists and statisticians recently released their third annual World Happiness Report. According to their methodology, Switzerland is the happiest country. This makes sense, good chocolate, good beer and they are always at peace. I think it is also interesting that all of the Scandinavian countries scored quite high. Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark were all in the top 10. So, I think I will put a Scandinavian tour on my bucket list.
Click to enlargeWhere are Americans most liked?
Another criterion is I prefer to go to places were Americans are liked. The Philippines is the country that likes us the most (according to Pew Research). I think that may be a worthy locale for my list. My need to be liked pretty much rules out Russia and Jordan, the two countries that like us the least. Some of the U.S. favorability ratings surprised me. Check them out for yourself.
Which bucket list destinations are the most popular?
Lastly, I was thinking about which countries actually host the most tourists each year. There must be a reason that France is the most visited country besides croissants (which I love). Perhaps there is so much to see and do there. Check out this list of 100 things to do in France.
Turkey is the sixth-most visited country despite having a decidedly negative view of Americans. Check out the Top 10 tourist destinations (from Wikipedia, as of 2013) below:
| Rank | Country | International tourist arrivals (2013)[4] |
Change (2012 to 2013) (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  France |
84.7 million |  2.0 |
| 2 |  United States |
69.8 million | 4.7 |
| 3 |  Spain |
60.7 million | 5.6 |
| 4 |  China |
55.7 million |  3.5 |
| 5 |  Italy |
47.7 million | 2.9 |
| 6 |  Turkey |
37.8 million | 5.9 |
| 7 |  Germany |
31.5 million | 3.7 |
| 8 |  United Kingdom |
31.2 million | 6.4 |
| 9 |  Russia |
28.4 million | 10.2 |
| 10 |  Thailand |
26.5 million | 18.8 |
My bucket list is starting to come together. Send me some suggestions. I’ll be busy working out a travel budget and figuring out how to get the time off. Have a great week and happy travels, wherever your bucket list takes you.
