Places to live before you die

Today I finished booking the hotel for our vacation in Hawaii this upcoming May, and realized that I wouldn’t want to live there. I have been to Hawaii once, and now my husband and I will return to the same Island so that we can share our experience. A “catch up” of sorts. Don’t get me wrong, I love Hawaii, and one of my bucket list items is to visit every island. I’d go back there for a vacation in a heartbeat any day. But I wouldn’t want to live there. In fact, even though I’ve done some travel, and have plenty more cities I’d love to return to (like Paris), there are only a couple of places I would want to live. I have to say that after our honeymoon I was surprised to learn that I wouldn’t want to live in Paris. Or Milan. In fact, I have loved coming home to Seattle after every trip, and even if I never move again I wouldn’t mind a single bit! (Well, maybe a little bit). Nevertheless, the following three places are on my “places to live before you die” list:

1. New York, New York

I know. Shocking. Everyone wants to live there. Well, I guess I am not an exception to the rule. When my family lived on the east coast, I used to make it to New York for one reason or another every six months. or so Every time I went to visit, I longed to stay. The energy, excitement, and diversity of the city called out to me, and I felt a little more at home in comparison to the small town where we lived at that point. I got to go on the top of the Twin Towers before they collapsed, and the next year to stand at Ground Zero.  Being there gave me a peep-hole into the collective pain of NYC at that time, as well as its drive to recover and move on. I wanted to be a part of it all. I wanted to be included. I wanted to be there full-time. Not to make it big, or to live the high life. I just wanted to be a small drop in the huge life of the city. The closest I ever got to fulfilling my dream was when I was wait-listed for a college application to NYU. Talk about crushing dreams. But we moved to Seattle after a little bit, and I got a chance to really make it my own, so I’m not complaining. But I do still have the itch to live in New York.

2. Venice, Italy

I can’t really explain what exactly is attracting me to that city as a place to live. Perhaps it is its age, secrecy, and history. Perhaps it’s how laid back yet full of life the city is. In contrast to New York, Venice is definitely not as fast paced. But it is most certainly a city with a large character of its own. Just like I was surprised that I didn’t want to live in Paris, I was shocked to find out that I would, in fact, want to live in Venice for a bit, although it’s quite small! I probably wouldn’t want to stay there for and entire lifetime, but a sabbatical of sorts for six months to a year would be ideal in that city.

3. Somewhere closer to the mountains of WA state.

Yes, this is the polar opposite of New York City. Lately though I’ve found a certain appeal in the stability and utter calm that the forest and the mountains exude. I would love to have a comfortable cabin on large enough acreage to have goats and sheep. I would love to have no cell phone reception there so that I could completely unplug and concentrate on nature, family, and God. It would require a lot of work, but this is somewhere where I can see not only raising a large family, but also retiring.

 

That’s it for now. I only have three locations in the world where I would want to live. Perhaps that will change as I visit more and more destinations. Do you have a place where you have wanted to live but haven’t had the opportunity to move to? What do you think is holding you back?