The Anti-Bucket List

I'm going to Scotland.

Not for work. Not with family. Just me, a pair of hiking boots, and a National Geographic expedition through the Highlands and Islands.

If you've been following my fitness posts, this is the why behind all of it. The trip involves multiple hours of hiking each day on moderate to steep grades, covering 3 to 9 miles per day. Eight days through Edinburgh, Loch Lomond, Glen Coe, the Isle of Skye, Perthshire, and back. At 50, that's the kind of thing that requires actual preparation.

I'm a little trepidatious about this, though, and not because of the hiking.

I've really only ever travelled for work. Conferences, client meetings, team offsites. There's always been a built-in purpose, an agenda, a reason to be somewhere that someone else defined. This is me choosing to go somewhere purely because I want to be there. Solo.

That's new territory for me.

I'm hoping this is a chance to really find the things that click with me when I travel. What do I gravitate toward when there's no agenda? What catches my attention when I'm not on someone else's schedule? I'm also looking forward to learning about the land, the culture, and the history of Scotland and the specific areas we'll be hiking through. It's a Nat Geo expedition, so that ups the ante a bit. There will be expert guides who can connect you to a place in a way that goes deeper than what you'd get on your own.

The Anti-Bucket List

I've always considered this trip to be on my bucket list. But at 50, I'm starting to see things a little differently.

I'm not at a place in my life where I really want to "achieve goals" in terms of my personal life. Not in the check-the-box sense. Even if I looked at this as a kind of pilgrimage, that too implies getting to a destination, and that's not a goal I'm interested in.

But being a pilgrim on a journey? That's a concept I can get behind.

The goal isn't to arrive somewhere. The goal is to be on the journey, and to take other journeys after this one. Hopefully this is the first of many.