Six places in the United States I hear calling my name. My Travel Wish List

Visitors to Volcanos National Park on The Big Island of Hawaii pose for photos in the eerie glow of the lava flow.
Photo: copyright Jerome Shaw 2013 / www.JeromeShaw.com 

I have set foot in 47 of the 50 states during my lifetime of travel.  Admittedly, some of the visits were quick hits like the time I made a dash from Connecticut into New Hampshire in search of a patch of snow big enough to shoot an overdue magazine cover.  Vermont had an equally short visit during a trip to Maine to shoot photographs for a travel article. New Hampshire and Vermont deserve better than a quick border crossings. I hope I’ll have the opportunity to explore Vermont & New Hampshire more fully but they don’t make this years US travel wish list.  

The two of the three states I have yet to visit do though. Along with a couple of perennial favorites and one state I have visited but haven’t been to its most famous city.  

In part one of My Travel Wish List I shared the background of my travel lists over the years.  In part two I listed my thirteen top international travel destinations and then 6 islands I want to visit in the next twelve months.  

Here are the six places in the US that are calling my name.

1. North Carolina

Mayberry and Mount Pilot are two famous places in North Carolina and I am not sure they are real. Even so, I want to see where Andy Taylor, Opie and Aunt Bea brought small town living to the small screen.  The Cape Hatteras Sea Shore and coastal North Carolina are another draw for me.  At the other end of the state are the Great Smoky Mountains and Blue Ridge Mountains. I want to see the historic barrier to westward expansion in colonial times.  History is the biggest reason I want to see NC.      

2  South Carolina

I admit to being almost entirely ignorant about South Carolina. The most recent addition to my knowledge base about SC is that they beat my beloved Cornhuskers in last year’s bowl game.  I need to know more.  Charleston has made its way onto my list of cities I want to experience.  Myrtle Beach is about the only other place in South Carolina that I can name without a map.  I’d like my readers to educate me. What are some other places I should see in SC?

  

4. Washington

There are several places in Washington State that have garnered my interest in recent years. One has a very personal slant.  My great Uncle Clarence Shaw lived in Gig Harbor.  Uncle Clarence lived life out loud in the front half of the twentieth-century.  He was a champion of Gig Harbor and certainly its chief tourism promoter.  Legend has it he established a contest for the roundest rock pulled from the Puget Sound each summer season.  He originated Roosterville and rooster races that became known across the US.  He was also a photographer as was his son Frank O.Shaw. A true renaissance man Clarence ran a sign painting business and drew cartoon for Colliers magazine.  I want to go visit place he called home for most of his life. While I am in the neighborhood I’d like to see Seattle again for the first time.

5. Louisiana

I have been to Louisiana. I have never visited its most famous city, New Orleans.  I plan to rectify that omission in 2013.  I likely won’t make it in time for Mardi Gras but I hear there is a pretty good party most nights on Bourbon Street. I am late to the party for sure and I should’ve found a way to get to N.O.long before this.  It is well past time for me to hear the music and taste gumbo in one of the most unique of American cities.

6. Hawaii

Hawaii could have easily made my list of Six Islands I’d Swim To if I hadn’t already given it a place here on my USA list.  I have made many visits to Hawaii. Oahu & Maui were my first big photography job when I was getting my start in travel journalism.  Yet, I still have never visited Kauai, Lanai or Molokai. And if that were’t enough reason to crave a return trip to Hawaii, I haven’t been to Oahu, Maui or Hawaii in over 15 years.  I have plenty to see and do in Hawaii, it may take two trips to catch up. 

Honorable Mentions: Alaska, Montana, Texas 

I have made two trips to Alaska, one for nearly a month, but I have barely grazed the banquet that is travel in the 49th state. Something above the Arctic Circle or out in the Aleutians are on my list. I have made many trips to Montana and enjoyed everyone, I expect I’ll enjoy the next one just as much.  There are two place in Texas I want to see; Austin and San Antonio.

Future posts

My Travel Wish Lists are composed of places I have yet to visit so in another post I’ll name the 6 places I have already visited that I want to return to.  The cherry on top of the wish list pie is a list of  my favorite places in Colorado and the neighboring states.    

#NorthCarolina #SouthCarolina #Washington #Louisiana #Hawaii #Alaska #Montana #Texas 

What is your favorite place in the United States?  Give me some advice on where my next trip in the US should take me.  Please share your Travel Wish List with me here in the comments and tell me why your choices should make my next list.

My #TravelWishList posts:
Part one - The History of My Travel Wish List and The Candidates 
Part two - 13-4-’13 - Thirteen Places To See 
Part three - Six Islands I’d Swim To 
Part four - Six Places In The US That Are Calling My Name 
Part Five - Six Places I’ve Been But want to Go To Again
Part Six  - My Favorite Places in Colorado And The Neighboring States

The History of My Travel Wish List

Brazil is one of the candidates for my 2013 Travel Wish List.  I'd love to go
and visit Jennifer and Beatriz in Jardim Redentor near Rio de Janeiro.
I'd also like to visit Belem, Fortalezza, Salvador and Florianopolis.

A couple decades or more ago during the work-lull between Christmas and New Year's Day I began making up a travel wish list. It was most often scribbled on a scrap of paper that I tucked in my desk drawer. In most years I never looked at it again until the next year when it was time make up a new wish list. It was my adult version of a letter to Santa Claus, dutifully filled out but never mailed. Even so, in most years, I'd always get to cross at least one destination off my wish list.

Then one year Sally McKinney, a writer I worked with as a photographer, casually asked me where I'd like go on assignment in the coming year. I did a mental review of the travel wish list tucked in my desk drawer and came up with Hawaii, Montana, Russia, Brazil and half dozen other places that consistently fascinated me. The reasons the locations made my list were varied and random. Montana was the only state in West I hadn't visited and Hawaii was a placed I'd been many times but knew it had much more to offer than I'd so far discovered.  I'd been drawn to Russia since my childhood because my brother had studied Russian in college and Russia's featured prominently in my childhood consciousness as our Cold War nemesis. Brazil was a new fascination, though the Amazon River caught my attention during a movie titled "The Pirates of Blood River" that featured prominently in my nightmares well into my adult life.

My #TravelWishList posts:

                    Part one - The History of My Travel Wish List and The Candidates 
                    Part two - 13-4-’13 - Thirteen Places To See
                    Part three - Six Islands I’d Swim To
                    Part four - Six Places In The US That Are Calling My Name 
                    Part Five - Six Places I’ve Been But want to Go To Again
                    Part Six  - My Favorite Places in Colorado And The Neighboring States

I noticed that something amazing happened over the next 2-3 years. First Sally called to ask me if I''d like me to photograph for her in Hawaii for a food & wine article. Then 6 months later the annual trips Montana for newspaper articles began, the first about the Robert Redford movie "A River Runs Through It." Soon she asked me to collaborate on whitewater rafting story in Costa Rica. Costa Rica wasn't even on my wish list but I an not dogmatic about these things, I am pretty flexible about my list which is good because the company I worked with in Costa Rica hired me the next year to go Russia for them and another company saw my images from Russia and hired me to photograph their river cruise in Ukraine.  

Of course there were several assignments that weren't on my wish list but they should have been, places like Finland and South Beach, Florida that should have been on that list and return visits Alaska and New Mexico. There were many minor successes along the way. I crossed off all but 3 US states from my travel list and got the opportunity photograph the Sandhill Crane migration in my home state of Nebraska and to take a llama tour in my adopted home state of Colorado.

A couple years later Sally called with a 10-day assignment in Brazil. In one of the saddest, most regretted decisions if my travel life I turned this job over to an associate because I already had a better paying gig in Colorado. Be forewarned: don't mess with the TravelWishList gods because it took me nearly 10 years to get another opportunity to travel to Brazil. 

You might have thought I'd be bright enough to see the connection between sharing my wish list with Sally and higher incidence of hits in my list but I guess I am a liiiitttllle sssslllooooow. I put it down to Sally simply being aware of my preferences and nothing more. 

The Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia along
with Tahiti and Bora Bora are candidates for my
Travel Wish List.

I pretty much went back to putting my wish list in the desk drawer, keeping my travel dreams to myself. That was until Twitter caught my attention in 2009. For some unknown reason I began sharing snippets of my desk drawer list in tweets. But this time I saw the global significance of casting my #TravelWishList to the winds and waiting for the travel gods to hear my travel prayers. 

Now this year I am codifying it and sharing it far and wide. I am breaking it down into 13-4-'13 top travel destinations for this year. I'm also listing 6 islands and 6 places in the US that I have never visited. So that makes 25 places. As a bonus I'm listing 6 places I have already visited but long to visit again. Plus  a list of a few places in Colorado and neighboring states that are my favorites and one place in Colorado, that 35 years after moving here, I have yet to visit.  

Here is the list of candidates (in alphabetical order) that I came up with from which my Travel Wish List is selected. 

Are your favorites on the list? 

Alaska Antarctica Argentina Austria Azores Bali Bhutan Bora Bora Botswana Brazil British Virgin Islands Canada Canary Islands Chile Cuba Costa Rica Easter Island Egypt England Estonia France Fiji Islands  Galapagos Islands Greece Guam Iceland India Ireland Italy Jordan Kamchatka Peninsula Kenya Kyrgyzstan Madagascar Maldives Marquesas Islands Mauritius Mexico Mongolia Morocco Myanmar Nepal New Zealand Norway Panama Papua New Guinea Peru Portugal Romania Russia Seychelles Islands South Africa Spain Sumatra Sweden Switzerland Tahiti Tanzania Trinidad and Tobago Thailand Tibet Togo Turkey Venezuela 

Curious facts:  There were no places on my list that started with D, H, L, O, Q, U, W, X, Y, or Z.  Do you have recommendations that begin with these letters?

The letter with the most destinations in "T" with seven.  "S" is second with six. 

Eleven are in the Pacific and fourteen on the Pacific Rim.  North America had the fewest locations with 3 but if you count the Caribbean you get 6 and what continent is Iceland associated with anyway? Seventeen are in Europe. Seven are part of South America. Nine are in Asia.  Two are in Central America.  Eight are in Africa.  Twenty-two are islands.

My #TravelWishList posts: 

Part one - The History of My Travel Wish List and The Candidates   

Part two - 13-4-’13 - Thirteen Places To See

Part three - Six Islands I’d Swim To 

Part four - Six Places In The US That Are Calling My Name 

Part Five - Six Places I’ve Been But want to Go To Again 

Part Six  - My Favorite Places in Colorado And The Neighboring States

Please share your Travel Wish List in the comments.

#Alaska #Antarctica #Argentina #Austria #Azores #Bali  #Bhutan #BoraBora #Botswana #Brazil #BritishVirginIslands #Canada #CanaryIslands #Chile #Cuba #CostaRica #EasterIsland #Egypt #England #Estonia #France #Fiji #Islands #Galapagos Islands#  #Greece #Guam #Iceland #India #Ireland #Italy #Jordan #Kamchatka Peninsula #Kenya #Kyrgyzstan #Madagascar #Maldives #MarquesasIslands  #Mauritius #Mexico #Mongolia #Morocco #Myanmar #Nepal #NewZealand #Norway #Panama #PapuaNewGuinea #Peru #Portugal #Romania #Russia #Seychelles Islands #SouthAfrica #Spain #Sumatra #Sweden #Switzerland #Tahiti #Tanzania #Trinidad and #Tobago #Thailand #Tibet #Togo #Turkey #Venezuela