Places to go...

[juliet]

(pinched from mr_tom - the BBC's top 50 places to go before you die)

(bold - been; italic - would like to go)
1 The Grand Canyon
2 Great Barrier Reef
3 Florida
4 South Island
5 Cape Town
6 Golden Temple
7 Las Vegas - but I didn't like it at all.
8 Sydney
9 New York
10 Taj Mahal - amazing. I expected it not to live up to its billing. It does. It exceeds it. Literally breath-taking.
11 Canadian Rockies
12 Uluru
13 Chichen Itza
14 Machu Picchu
15 Niagara Falls
16 Petra - utterly fantastic
17 The Pyramids
18 Venice - but only for a day on an orchestra tour, would like to go back
19 Maldives
20 Great Wall of China
21 Victoria Falls
22 Hong Kong
23 Yosemite National Park
24 Hawaii
25 Auckland
26 Iguassu Falls
27 Paris
28 Alaska
29 Angkor Wat
30 Himalayas
31 Rio de Janeiro
32 Masai Mara
33 Galapagos Islands
34 Luxor
35 Rome - I love Rome.
36 San Francisco - on a very short list of Cities That Aren't London That I Would Live In.
37 Barcelona
38 Dubai
39 Singapore
40 La Digue
41 Sri Lanka
42 Bangkok
43 Barbados
44 Iceland
45 Terracotta Army
46 Zermatt
47 Angel Falls
48 Abu Simbel
49 Bali
50 French Polynesia

Comments

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

... and where would you suggest going instead? I'm firmly happy to defend these islands as the best place to live in the world, so this could be fun.

[the23.livejournal.com]

i think you are missing my point here. i'm not saying it isn't the best place to live, although to say that it is i'd have to have lived in all the places that seem like they could be decent first (scandinavia, australia, new zealand, south africa, us, canada, ireland, etc.).

rather my point is that the experience of living abroad (rather than experiencing foreign countries through travelling) is invaluable because it makes one realise that things don't have to work the way they do in britain.

i came to america expecting it to be moronic, but on balance it seems to me that a lot is preferable here. the most obvious example is that the streets are much safer and burglary is very rare. on balance i would rather live in britain and i will return (hopefully in the next year or two), but with a completely different worldview than i had when i left.

my main reason for returning is that i deeply wedded to the culture i grew up in (mostly sporting as far as i am concerned) - it certainly isn't because there isn't socialised healthcare here or that people have guns or any of what scares british people about america (although i do think the foreign policy is reprehensible). i suppose if i had grown up in oregon and then moved to england for a few years i would probably want to return to oregon. it's that much of a toss up.