Never been outside this guy.
I’ve never been anywhere outside of North America. Not that I haven’t tried. One time I was scheduled to go to Sweden with the rest of my family, but my wife decided that this would be a good time to meet me and be engaged and stuff. So, I ended up being the only one from my family not to go there.
Then years later, my parents were over in Hong Kong for a mission. They invited us all to come visit and we were the first to jump on board that train. We all got our passports, spent a fort knox full of money for plane tickets and we were all ready to go. Then my mom decided that she wanted to fall off the bus, hurt her knee, and decide that they needed to come home to the states to get it fixed. Or in other words, to sabatoge my vacation. Oh and I guess we adopted my son around then too. He also sabatoged us.
As bitter as I am about not getting to go to these places, I’ve never really cared about bucket lists.
Here is my list of buckets.
First of all, bucket lists are things you want to do before you die. Why think about dying when I have so many more couch sessions to look forward to before I die. Just decide to live instead thinking about all these “adventures”.
Second, so you are supposed to plan out the whole amount of things you want to do? I’d rather just take things day by day. Planning is the worst. Every time in my life that I’ve decided to plan things, stuff always changed. In high school, I would “plan” to ask girls out, and they wouldn’t be at their locker when I planned to do it. Or I would plan to become a copywriter at a big advertising agency and that didn’t really work out either.
I guess what I’m saying is that planning is stupid, because it never works out how you plan it. So I’m all about winging it. Except when it comes to travel. I’d rather couch it.
Here’s the thing. If I go to London some day, cool, but if I don’t, I’m good. If I go to some remote location in the world, is someone else is really going to care? If I post that I went to Zimbabwe or Easter Islands on Facebook, how many people are really going to care that I went. Maybe me and one other person. Basically posting that is rubbing it in that I went somewhere that someone else didn’t.
I just say you enjoy your time on the couch, enjoying all your regrets. Enjoy lamenting all the places you didn’t go. Save all the traveling money for a better Xbox, because it went on sale.
Besides, haven’t you ever heard that the biggest way to be unhappy is to have huge expectations and not meet them? I guess I could make up some huge ambitions, just so I could be bitter, but I’m pretty tired.
Not how I want to spend my vacation.
I don’t have the strength to travel. You have to go on planes which mostly suck your energy dry. They don’t even feed you anymore. You’ll probably have to find an expensive hotel that has a bed that no way in the world is as comfortable as the one you have at home. Then there is all this pressure to pack all this fun into your vacay, so you feel all the money you spent was worth it when all you really wanted to do on your vacation was sleep in (which you could have done at home).
Wanderlust all you want people. Put your fancy pictures on Facebook, and Instagram. I’ll be sitting there not caring where you went. The only pictures I will envy will be the ones of you sleeping and sitting comfortably on a couch.
What about you guys? Any wanderlust, or just couch lust like me?
ARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH
Bitter Bucket Laster Ben
Ben's Bitter Blog 
I travelled out of my home town once… to a place called Sydney (pronounced Shitenee)… it was awful. Nothing bad can happen on the couch… even if it does, if you scotch guard it first, you’re as right as rain. Sorry for mentioning the weather.
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I’m so sorry that happened to you. I don’t know how I would react to such an awful experience of having to leave my home…and couch.
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Couch lust mostly, but I have a family of saboteurs too.
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I know. My wife and kids always want to go places and I’m like I’ll stay at home and hold the couch down.
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This post could have been written by me, down to the adopted kid mention. I am with you 100%.
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Just slap your name on the header and make it yours.
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THANK YOU! I’ve always felt like NOT wanting to travel abroad (I’ll happily road trip anywhere) made me an unworthy human being. You put it perfectly: if you get to London, Hooray! If not, eh.
Plus; I find it hard to reconcile my world-class level of CHEAP w/ travel.
Ben, I just (RE)found the “Notify me of new comments via email” selection box beneath this comment, Finally! I will be notified outside of wordpress! In addition to NOT traveling, I really need to NOT work in tech.
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I’m glad you found your way back to the blog. I am with you all day. It’s with pure pleasure that I stay home and see these amazing places on TV in 4K, which is way better than my eyes can see.
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I absolutely hate planning as well. Not because it doesn’t work out but that it reeks of adulthood and isn’t fun. If I could just show up at a location, roam about aimlessly and somehow manage to hit all the best places, that would be great. I’ve got the wanderlust. Slowing down on the social media scrolling to keep my sense of contentedness in check until I can get to wherever it is I’m going.
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Travel is so much work though. You have to pack, you have to arrange flights, cars, hotels, and stuff to do. Then you just spend all your time running around when it would be so much more fun to just sit at home and relax in your comfy bed.
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Oh, I am so going to disappoint you (again). I am a terrible minion.
First of all, I’ve been doing the bucketlist thing for a couple of years now. But not really in the “oh-my-oh-my-I-neeeed-to-do-all-this-stuff-before-I-get-runover-by-a-train” way. I just put things I’d like to do but don’t believe I’ll achieve in a mason jar, forget about it and the next year, I check them again. And I often get surprised.
I also am the traveling type. I won’t tell you about the whens and the wheres of my future wanderings, since you won’t care anyway. But I will keep on boarding planes to go far away from home and spend time in foreign places. Pretty much all the places I traveled to, so far, have couches and pizza, so I think you could learn to like visiting other countries. And if you really dislike planes, you could start with Canada. Just saying… 🙂
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I assume you are talking about Denmark. I can’t believe how much you love that place. Well, you know what I love more than Denmark? The couch.
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I can’t blame you, it’s so dang comfy!! 🙂
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It is very comfy. I hate leaving it every day.
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I lust for wander like you wouldn’t believe. I’ve only ever made it to Canada. I have a list. One day, by damn, I will go somewhere off of this continent.
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Maybe when your kids get older? But seriously, you will always want to come home and sleep in your way more comfortable bed.
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I did all kinds of traveling and globetrotting when I was in the military, and all against my will. Then I got out of the military and got married to someone who wanted to see all the places I’d been to against my will. So now that I’m retired we are blowing our next egg traveling to those places. Against my will.
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Sounds awesome. Can’t she just be happy with you on the couch all the time? Let her travel the world. While you sit on the couch going with your will.
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She’d get lost. She has no sense of direction, whereas I was born with a compass in my head. Darn compass. She has to have me along so she can find her way back from her adventures.
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I know right? I have that same compass. My wife sometimes gets lost in a mall and I have to guide her out of it.
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