Christina Trotter
110 Unique and Crazy Bucket List Travel Ideas [2023]
Updated: Mar 30
Do you have anything unique on your travel bucket list that strays from the typical bucket list ideas? Anything that perhaps isn’t for everyone, but is uniquely YOU?
I’m part of a fun Facebook group called Girls LOVE Travel. Someone recently posted this question and was met with over 400 responses! Not all of them are for me, but there are several that will be making it to my list.
If you want to add some unique travel bucket list ideas – or just spice up your life a little bit – check these out. And please, please, please add any more that you have or thought of after reading these so that we can grow this list!
World’s largest ball of twine (Cawker City, Kansas)
Visit the Amish and see how they live
Visit a goat race in Tobago
Eat Omaha steak in Omaha
World’s tallest filing cabinet (Burlington, Vermont)
Sex everywhere: plane, train, tent, RV, etc.
Milk a cow
Visit the State of Texas Fair
Cuddle a cow
Do splits everywhere when traveling
Go to a nude beach
Lay in the Four Corners
Go to a Brazilian National Jiu-Jitsu tournament in Brazil
Dress up in historical period pieces at historical sites
Train hop
Go ice fishing in Iceland (Read my 10-day itinerary for Iceland)
Hitchhike
Wear capri pants on the Isle of Capri
Jump into a fountain
Ride mopeds in the Florida Keys
Visit the rude-named places in Ireland
Visit Heidiland in Switzerland
Slide down the slide on the Great Wall of China
Crossing off sandwiches from the PBS show “Sandwiches That You Will Like”
Visit a speakeasy everywhere you go
Direct traffic
Visit cemeteries everywhere you travel (I love this book if you are into visiting cemeteries and yes, I am)
Mario kart racing through the streets of Japan
Get room service
Mud-wrestle
Take a picture in Pisa, Italy where it looks like you are holding up the Leaning Tower
Pirate watch around the Horn of Africa
Re-enact the Sound of Music
Take a nap on every safe form of transportation
Visit a dude ranch
Experience life on an Indian reservation
Visit the ancestral diary farm in the Netherlands
Have a bespoke suit made (we did this in Hoi An, Vietnam and it was so inexpensive and so much fun)
Ride an Icelandic horse in a lava field (Read my 10-day itinerary for Iceland)
Have tea at the Ritz in London
Attend a star party (Hey Texans, do this at McDonald's Observatory - see my Texas Bucket list)
Stay in hotels that were converted from other things, e.g., a jail, courthouse, school
Stay in an ice hotel
Eat at the same places that Anthony Bourdain did, and as many as possible
Stop and take a photo at any place mentioned in a song
Learn Yiddish
Stay overnight in a castle
Be a Portland hippie for a weekend
Visit the most unique Starbucks around the world
Learning to drift…Tokyo Drift
Pretend to be a pirate on a boat at a Pirate Festival
Have an original Caesar salad from Caesar’s in Tijuana
Have a Gregg’s sausage roll in the U.K.
Get a street ice cream from a street person that makes you work for your cone in Turkey (apparently, it’s a thing across the country)
Stand on the corner in Winslow, AZ
Join the Mile High Club
Bungee jump naked
Join a flash mob
Attend a rally car racing school
Watch a Moulin Rouge Show
Take a picture with a Cuban cigar in Cuba
Salsa pose in La Boca, Argentina
Carnival Cosplay in Rio
Go to the last Blockbuster
Learn how to hotwire a car
Visit Roswell and see all the alien stuff
Visit all of the Disney parks
Go to a Star Trek convention and have Star Trek uniforms to wear
Visit places where Cryptids are associated with the location: Mothman, or camping in Big Foot country or seeing the Loch Ness Monster
Go horseback riding into the Grand Canyon while smoking a joint
Eat fondue in Switzerland
At 90 years old, try heroin in the Bermuda Triangle
Dress like Jackie Kennedy and take a picture in front of the Eiffel Tower
Visit all of the destinations in the Beach Boys’ song, “Kokomo”
Eat McDonald’s in every country (on a personal note, you can get the original fried apple pies in most McDonald’s outside of the U.S.
Visit a cat or hedgehog café
Stomp grapes and eat chocolate like in “I Love Lucy”
Pour tea into the Boston Harbor
Finding movie locations and taking pictures
Eat Sashimi in the fish market in Tokyo in the middle of the night
Go to all of the Ripley’s Believe it or Not museums in the world
Take a selfie with the cow like the cow is the celebrity and I’m a fan.
Attend a Berlin tram rave
Stand at the Grand Canyon edge and shout, “The Grand Canyon (pause)…What a Grand Canyon indeed” (Read my article about Sedona and the Grand Canyon)
Visiting a Lego store in every city
Staying at kitschy hotels (e.g., Madonna Inn, Austin Hotel, Cheetah Hotel)
Attend the Anne Rice Halloween Ball in New Orleans
Eat a macaron in France
Cuddle a panda
Noodle a catfish
Learn a synchronized roller skate dance
Ride in a motorcycle side car
Ride in a blimp
Attend the annual Gloucester Cheese Rolling Race
See a narwhal
Fly a kite
Skydive over every continent
Take a topless photo on a snowy mountain
Swim with pigs in the Bahamas
See the mermaids in Weeki Wachee Springs
Have crepes under the Eiffel Tower
Visit the German Christmas markets
Ride a Vespa scooter through Italy
Swim with whales
Go to a bear sanctuary
Take a picture like Belle in front of a fountain with a blue dress on and a book
Go gold panning
Spend Groundhog Day in Punxatawney, Pennsylvania
Eat a fresh durian
Comment below with what you would add!
And please SAVE this for later or SHARE with a friend that may enjoy this!
Happy Travels,
Chrissy