Virtual Bucket List Tour of the World

[RowanTheRed]

I was just thinking about something I read in another thread about posting photos of where you are so that people from other places can see through our eyes what its like. It was actually @potato chip that mentioned it, and that thought led me to think of where I was born and grew up, where I am now and where I have never been that I would LOVE to go both nationally and internationally.

So I thought that we could make a sort of game out of this. One poster can say where they would love to visit and anyone that either lives there or has visited there can post a reply for them with photos as well to show them what it's like there.

So here are the rules of this game:

• anyone around the world is welcome to play
• if there is somewhere that you have always wished to visit post it in a reply. The more specific you can be to where you wish to visit the better. For instance, I have ALWAYS wanted to go to Scotland, but specifically to the highlands and to the Isle of Skye.
  
• give us your top 10 places (or less) of where you would like to visit.
• If you have visited any place mentioned, tag the original poster to your reply so they get the alert. Then tell us about your experience. Show us photos of your trip. Tell us what you wished you could have spent more time with and what you would have skipped.
  
• For those that have the PRIVILEGE to actually live in an area that has been listed in the Virtual Bucket List, be our virtual guide so we can all see through your eyes what it is truly like. Show us the place that the locals prefer and give us the "insider's view" if you will into what is really worth visiting. Tell us what makes it so special.
• If you are one of the fortunate ones that have traveled a lot, give us a list of all the places you have been or lived that you have photos of.

If anyone else has suggestions for this game, just let me know.

Thanks for playing

 

[RowanTheRed]

I will start the Virtual Bucket List tour

I have always wished to visit

• the highlands of Scotland
• panhandle region of Idaho
• Washington state, not sure where but coastline and mountains come to mind
  
• Montana's western side
• Oregon's coastline

Places I can share with you that I have lived, visit frequently or am now.

• I was born and raised in central Florida and spent MANY summers playing on Anna Maria Island in the Gulf Coast
• I currently live in the upstate of South Carolina near Greenville.
  
• I frequently go to the mountains of North Carolina to visit my parents who live in Banner Elk

 

[User395221]

I don't really have a bucket list, I'm interested in everywhere that's somewhere else

I prefer cold places over hot places, so the tropics isn't "up there" for me.

I'd like to go to north america, both the US and Canada. Some of the scenery looks so good in photos, it'd no doubt be even more beautiful in real life.

What do you have in South Carolina? I think horse ranches. Are there horse ranches, or do I have the wrong end of the stick?

All I know about Florida is that retirees might move there and that there are gators in the swampy parts (is that in the southern part?). Is there that swampland/gator land in central Florida? What's it like there?

 

[RowanTheRed]

@potato chip
sorry for the delay, I had to work for the last three days and never had time to get online!

As far as South Carolina, we aren't really known for horse ranches. You might be thinking of Kentucky though. SC is very different all over, with flat land, swamps, ocean coastline and mountains. There is a little less than 190 miles of Atlantic Ocean coastline running from the Pee Dee area down to the Low Country area. Here in the Upstate where I live, we are at the foot hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains which is part of the Appalachian Mountains. So our terrain is more of a rolling hills up to the start of the mountains. I can see the mountain ridges well just north of me, I am only 23 miles from the North Carolina state border. My area has lots of lakes, rivers and mountains. There is actually over 500 miles of biking and hiking trails throughout the state. Some through swamps and near rivers and lakes. Others in the mountains and foothills where you can find some beautiful water falls. Raven Cliff Falls is our highest water fall at 420 feet. Having been born and raised in Florida, I tend to prefer Florida's beaches to those in SC. But honestly, I have really only been to Myrtle Beach here in SC, so I am by far an expert on SC beaches!

Now for Florida, if it holds water it can hold a gator! Gators are not just found in the swampy part of the state. My hometown was Lakeland, Fl. It had a series of sink holes that formed a chain of lakes throughout the town. ALL of which had gators in them!!! Florida has two different types of coastline. There is the Atlantic Ocean coastline and then there is the Gulf of Mexico coastline. I prefer the Gulf of Mexico, specifically a little island called Anna Maria. That is where we went every summer growing up and it is still as charming and quiet as it was then.

As soon as I can find some, I will upload photos from Florida and South Carolina

 

[User395221]

Wow, thanks, RowantheRed, you should write for a travel magazine, I'm there after reading your descriptions.

I must confess to complete ignorance about geography, particularly the details of the US states. I can tell you roughly where the ones I know are, but I couldn't pass a test and put them all on a diagram. For example, I didn't realize South Carolina was on the coast. I thought it was somewhere "in the middle" around that area. I'm going to bring up a map online and have a good look.

It sounds just beautiful. I love hills and rivers, I'm sure the scenery is beautiful. Forget New York and LA, I'm sticking South Carolina on my list for if I ever get to go to the US.

Do the gators go into the built-up areas, where all the retirement condos are? It seems a bit strange to move to a place full of alligators for a peaceful retirement

 

[RowanTheRed]

Do the gators go into the built-up areas, where all the retirement condos are? It seems a bit strange to move to a place full of alligators for a peaceful retirement

Gators live anywhere they want! But yes, they will inhabit any body of water that they find. Including neighborhood ponds, golf coarse ponds, you name it. And they have no problem climbing fences to get to water either. Just check out this video

When you get a chance, Google "Blinky the one eyed alligator in Lakeland, Florida" This was a gator that used to take daily walks in the down the main streets and sidewalks of the city I am from back in the 70's

 

[User395221]

They've put up Blinky statues!

Those gators don't seem very vicious, people have their kids on trikes and nobody's bothered by them. That guy following the fence-jumping one wasn't worried it'd turn about and bite him.

We have crocodiles, but only way up north.

Somebody on here had their coop wrecked by bears, and one had a bear invade his house. I saw some videos on TV of bears coming right into residential neighbourhoods. One was swimming in somebody's pool. Do gators take chickens? Do you get bears in South Carolina where you are?

 

[RowanTheRed]

@potato chip LOL! That's the problem, people are idiots and don't respect the gator and their innate potential for tremendous power and speed. I have seen large dogs taken by a gator in a split second when the owner threw a stick out into the lake for the dog to fetch. Most of the danger comes around the water and particularly if you are around a nest. There was a man eaten by a gator in Lakeland just last year, he was trying to cool down by swimming in Lake Hunter. And sadly there was a little boy killed at Disney when his parents let him splash in the water at a lake's edge that had a sign up to stay out of the water due to gators.

As far as gators and chickens, I am certain if the opportunity arose, a gator would love him some chicken nuggets and drumsticks!

We don't have bears immediately around me, but just a short drive to the north part of my county and you can find some black bears. My parents live 3 hours north of me in North Carolina on top of a ridge, they have a big problem with black bears as well. They are constantly tipping over my dad's bee hives and getting into the garbage cans DESPITE everything being "bear proof".

Besides bears, we also have coyote, fox, bobcats, wolves and mountain lions. Not to mention snakes, opossum, raccoons, and a variety of birds of prey.

 

[User395221]

Besides bears, we also have coyote, fox, bobcats, wolves and mountain lions. Not to mention snakes, opossum, raccoons, and a variety of birds of prey.

It makes me feel lucky I'm in the city and don't have to protect my girls from all of those.

I'm aware of how quickly alligators and crocodiles can move, just from seeing them on TV. I wouldn't be up close and personal with a camera, especially if that gator had decided not to go over the fence but to turn back the way it had come.

Yes, I saw the report about that young boy being taken at Disneyworld. Terrible tragedy for his family. :( We've had people eating by crocodiles up north, but they aren't walking around the streets or at fun parks, they are in rivers and lakes and "out of the way" (insofar as city dwellers go) places.

Bears are lovely to watch on TV (have you seen that clip from the David Attenborough documentary, where the bear is scratching his back on a tree? They show a trailer on TV with that shot with "that's the way I like it" by KC and the Sunshine Band as the backing track), but I wouldn't want to meet one in real life.

 

[RowanTheRed]

I'm aware of how quickly alligators and crocodiles can move, just from seeing them on TV. I wouldn't be up close and personal with a camera, especially if that gator had decided not to go over the fence but to turn back the way it had come.

Yes, I saw the report about that young boy being taken at Disneyworld. Terrible tragedy for his family. :( We've had people eating by crocodiles up north, but they aren't walking around the streets or at fun parks, they are in rivers and lakes and "out of the way" (insofar as city dwellers go) places.

BTW, I didn't mean to imply that you were an idiot when it came to gators. I was referring to the dingbats that don't have enough sense to move as far away from a gator as they possibly could! And like I said in a previous post, gators go where ever they want, when ever they want. You can't really keep them out. And like any wildlife, when you infringe on their habitats to the point they have no where left to call their own, then you should expect them to take up residence in your own back yard and yes, even in fun parks. It was indeed very sad, but I just can't help wonder why they didn't simply obey the sign that told them there was a potential for gators there. It was somewhat a senseless preventable tragedy.

and now, thanks to you, I have that song stuck in my head!

That's the way, uh huh uh huh, I like it, uh huh uh huh....