The Problem With Bucket-List Travel (2024)

As a journalist covering travel, I get lots of pitches from travel vendors and public relations people for “bucket list” destinations. According toone survey, 95% of Americans have “bucket lists” of things to see and do before they die. Perhapsthis explains why I received 80 emails pitching me on “bucket list”destinationsin the last month:

• “Bucket List Tokyo Cherry Blossom Trip: Flights & 6-Night Stay From $747!” (Travel Pirates)
• “Bucket List Destination(s)": (Dollar Flight club; links to a page that will send you personalized information on your selected destinations)
• “Bucket List Alert: Tahiti Cruises up to $2900 off (Paul Gauguin Cruises/Dunhill Travel Deals)

Conde Nast Travel insists onshowing “50 Things to Do in Europe Before You Die.” Another death-obsessed pitch comes from Lonely Planet, “Top 10 places to see before you die” [No pressure!] “Are you ready to write your travel bucket list? Here are 10 incredible trips to take.”

Admittedly, it's hard to argue with Lonely Planet’s bucket list, including Cambodia’s temples, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, and MachuPiccuin Peru. I haven’t been to any of these places. I suppose I should go before I hit the bucket. But does a sense of obligation—or guilt-- actually motivate people to make reservations, buy tickets and fly to these distant spots, just to check them off a bucket list?

Urban Dictionary defines “bucket list” as “a list of things to do before one dies. It originates from the term'to kick the bucket’, itself a17th-centuryterm meaning 'to die.'” An alternate Urban Dictionary entry for “bucket list” is “A list of things you'd like to do before you die, like visiting the Grand Canyon, falling in love or falling into the Grand Canyon.”

The survey by Provision Living (a senior living community) more euphemistically calls a bucket list “a list of experiences or achievements [people] hope to accomplish whileliving life to the fullest.”Provisionfound that the top US bucket list cities were Honolulu, New York, andLas Vegas, while the top bucket list countries were Australia, Italy and Ireland.

Certainly, some people may realize there areexperiences they want to have, despite--or because of--advancing age. President George H.W. Bush famously went parachuting for his 90th birthday, as did 89-year old Canadian Holocaust survivor Elly Goty.Nonetheless, it's odd that travel vendors and marketers find the phrase “bucket list” so irresistible, as it is linked so closely to death.

The term “bucket list” appears to have been coined long before the 2007 release ofThe Bucket List, starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.In thefilm,the main characters, both terminally ill, meet in a hospital room. Using the wealth of Nicholson’s character, the two check themselves out against doctors’ orders and hit the road with a listof things to see and do before they "kick the bucket.” (Justin Zackham, the film’s writer, along with his wife and sons, is making a “bucket list” effort to get in the Guinness Book of World Records by visiting every country in the world as a family.)

The concept of the bucket list has obviously had a lasting impact ontravelindustry marketeers. But should it? I would argue “No” for several reasons.

First, of course, travel should be about life, getting out of one’s cocoon, seeing new things, meeting new people, eating new foods, etc. Bucket list marketing makes travel seem like an obligation to get through and then, mercifully, die. If I don’t make it to Angkor Wat while still ambulatory, on my deathbed will I regret not checking it off my bucket list?

Second, marketers try to shoehorn trips most of us have never dreamt of onto our bucket lists. “Check this incredibly special experience off yourbucketlist and swim with minke whales in Australia! “(About Australia) The Great Barrier Reef, where this tour occurs, is certainly on my bucket list. But I’d never thought of swimming with whales, and, frankly, can see a possible downside that might leave my survivors to check that last box off my bucket list.

Finally, a third reason destinations might want to rethink bucket list marketing is its potential financial fallacy. With US median household income in 2018 just $62,175, many destinations feel compelled to promote expensive trips as bucket list experiences. The implication is that the potential traveler should spend a lifetimesaving money, so inretirementshe can finally make the journey and check off the old bucket list.

But pushing a “trip of a lifetime” gives the message that it will only be done once. Such promotion makes no sense for growing tourism to a destination.

Australia, for example, to many Americans is the Number One bucket list destination, because of the distance from the United States, time to get there, cost of airfare and the limited vacation time of most working Americans.

But rather than counting on travelers setting fire to a lifetime of hoarded dollars on one last trip, why not make it easy for young people to visit early in their lives, say Millennials on a shoestring budget? Perhaps they will return with friends, significant others and new family members, rather than wait for that near-death bucket list moment.

Fortunately, the bucket list trip doesn’t have to be an end-of-life experience. Younger travelers are saying “No More Not Yets.”Flash Pack, a group travel company for solo travelers in their 30s and 40s, found that for people in these age groups, “traveling the world was the number one bucket-list goal, over marriage, children, career and owning a home.” The study found that 54% of respondents would rather invest in experienceswhile they’re still young than save for a house. And 84% wouldn’t think twice about spending $4,000 on the trip of a lifetimewhile66% would hesitate at the average wedding cost of $33,391.

Some 80% of Flash Pack respondents said that seeing aging family members with ailments and restrictions makes them want to live for the moment and spend their retirement funds now. And 88% had fears that they may not be able to travelpost-retirement, either for lack of funds (55%) or because of health problems (53%).

The Flash Pack study points up perhaps the biggest fallacy in “bucket list” marketing: thelonger you waitto take that bucket list trip, the more likely that you’ll never get go. Or if you do go, like one of the protagonists in The Bucket List, you might end up climbing that mountain posthumously.