Y  is for Yonder & Beyond

Henceforth, and till I live, The World at Large

Today is the penultimate day of the great AtoZ writing challenge It’s been a long, fascinating, yet demanding month-long ride. Also my first journey with AtoZ. It was a pleasure compiling 26 different stories of my enthralling travels experiences. Some replete with adventure, some plain simple revelations that the places brought with them and some life’s little nuggets of wisdom lent during the course of these travels. I’m humbled by the love I have received from my very talented fellow bloggers and all the brilliant bloggers I have chanced upon during the course of this challenge. I hope to be back again next year, though better prepared than this time and armed with another bunch of interesting stories.

My torrid love affair with travel will continue today, as I’d like to share with you my long-standing dreams of visiting some places around the globe. Reading and hearing about them has left me spell-bound and intrigued. So come, join me in my travels yonder and beyond.

Here are those places from my bucket list that I intend and hope to visit someday:

@@@ Northern Lights I want to go see the Northern lights one. For the uninitiated, Northen Lights are the bright dancing lights of the aurora which are actually collisions between electrically charged particles from the sun that enter the earth’s atmosphere. The lights are seen above the magnetic poles of the northern and southern hemispheres. They are known as ‘Aurora borealis’ in the north and ‘Aurora australis’ in the south. Auroral displays appear in many colours although pale green and pink are the most common. I’m not sure whether writing will earn me a million bucks, but if some day I hit a gold mine (or rob a bank!) this is where I want to go see the Northern Lights at the Arctic resort-Kakslauttanen.  Else I’ll be happy to go to Iceland, Northern Canada, Sweden or Finland which are some of the best places to experience the phenomenon.

You can experience the Northern lights in this video

@@@ Galapagos Island: The Galápagos Islands is a volcanic archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. It is considered one of the world’s foremost destinations for wildlife-viewing. A province of Ecuador, it lies about 1,000km off its coast. Its isolated terrain shelters a diversity of plant and animal species, many found nowhere else. Charles Darwin visited it in 1835, and his observation of Galápagos’ species later inspired his Theory of Evolution. (Source:Wikepedia) It gives me a great sense of euphoria to imagine being surrounded by so many species of wild life.

@@@ The Great Barrier Reef: I would like to explore the stunning Great Barrier reef of Australia through a scuba diving experience. I hope to be a certified Padi diver by then.

@@@ the Lion Whisperer Kevin Richardson’s Sanctuary in South Africa: I would one day like to volunteer or visit Kevin Richardson’s wild life sanctuary where he works towards the conservation of lions, and other wild life.. For details check : Lion Whisperer

@@@Arusha in Africa: Arusha is a city in northern Tanzania and the capital of the Arusha Region. Located below Mount Meru, the city is close to the Serengeti National Park, and a few other wild life parks and the Mount Kilimanjaro, and also the Arusha National Park on Mount Meru. My 18-year-old is named after this city, so it’s been long planned to do a family trip here someday. When in Tanzania how can one miss Zanzibar. Zanzibar is a mesmerising island on Africa’s East coast, dazzling with the turquoise sea, palm fringed beaches and coral reefs. That is one dream destination I long to visit and probably club it with our Arusha travels.

This apart, I want to visit parts of Europe like Paris, Spain and England (where i spent sometime as a kid), Amsterdam, Istanbul (inspired by author Orhan Pamuk’s book), Bali and Cambodia. Oh heck, this list looks pretty endless, and I’m not sure if this life time will be good enough to tick them off my bucket list. But then I’ll keep my faith in Paulo Coelho’s quote and manifest them to happen.

One day I hope to write about all the travel epiphanies inspired by these places and share with you, my dear readers. So for now, I’ll see you tomorrow at our final countdown with the alphabet Z. And yes, meanwhile cheers to my journeys yonder and beyond!

My theme for this year’s Blogging from A-Z Challenge is Travel Epiphanies that are my very own tales of adventure and revelation. I will be writing 26 posts throughout the month of April. You can read my theme here.