Down with the Bucket List

I have a problem with Bucket Lists. I get the concept: make a list of things you've always wanted to do, and commit to doing, before you kick the bucket. The problem with Bucket Lists is, whether small or ambitious, you indelibly end up putting it off until you're too old or too busy to do what you've committed out to do. Or, even worse, you've kicked the bucket before you even get the chance to finish your list. The problem I have with Bucket Lists is they're actually PROCRASTINATION Lists.

No, we need a better term for a list of things you really want to accomplish, one that represents living in the moment and taking advantage of opportunities as they come. Borrowing from one of my two favorite travel gurus, Phil Keoghan, I propose the NOW list. No Opportunity Wasted (NOW) is a concept the Eyebrow Raising Amazing Race host initiated with his book by the same name published about a decade ago. NOW represents taking advantage of opportunities as they come.
My concept of a NOW List is more than living in the moment. Rather, it's about living in the environment--to borrow from my other favorite travel guru, Rick Steves. If you've seen Rick Steves' videos or books, they're less about sight-seeing and more about sight experiencing, or more appropriately, culture experiencing.

The best NOW life is one in which you experience peoples and cultures rather than sites and tourist traps.

Therefore, this inaugural post on the InnoSense Abroad blog serves as a virtual brainstorm for NOW Experiences that fall outside the normal Europe Trip Bucket List, where Grand Canal Gondola Rides are replaced with Tomato Fights in Spain and playing pipes on a 150 year old organ in Paris, France. While this post will serve as a reference for NOW experiences, unique impromptu activities will be detailed throughout this blog with the Title and Keyword "NOW List".

Got any suggestions to share? Comment on this post.

The NOW List

1. Play the Pipes in St. Sulpice (Paris, France)
2. Float down the Aare River (Bern, Switzerland)
3. Take a Cable Car over Montjuic (Barcelona, Spain)
4. Join a neighborhood Paellera (Valencia, Spain)
5. Add pictures to the Billion Graves App from cemeteries like this and this while remembering to not BLINK
6. Go cliff diving at Cinque Terra (Cinque Terra, Italy)
7. Brave the sulfur smells and enjoy the hot springs of Saturnia (Orveito, Italy)
8. Teach kids in Italy English
9. Attend the free Italian Puppet Theater in Rome
10. Go "Castling" in places like these 
11. Go coo coo for cuckoo's in Germany's Black Forest
12. ...and then there's this (Italy)