I’m 26 years old and I’m finally starting a bucket list. I expect that it will change over time. I’ll add to it as I see fit, and I won’t feel bad about removing something if my goals and ambitions in life change. For the most part, though, I think these are all attainable and that they’ll be important enough to me that I’ll follow through. This list doesn’t include things that I’ve done in the past. For instance, I’ve already gone skydiving, but I’m not listing that. This list only includes things that I haven’t yet done as of August 31, 2014.

I fully intend to 100% do all of the following.

• Visit every country - I’m hesitant to list this. It’s not that I don’t want to go to every country in the world–I just don’t want to go to every country for the sake of going to every country. This person visited every country in the world, but I think he went about it totally wrong. He counted visiting The Czech Republic because his train went through it from Poland to Slovakia. His time in Chile was 3 hours waiting for a bus to Peru. I want to see and experience every country, not stick a foot in and tick a checklist. Instead of going to the North Korea room, why not run the North Korean marathon? The goal of traveling the world should be about experiences, not ticking a checklist.

• Live on every continent - More than just visiting a continent, I’d like to lay down roots in every continent for at least 6 - 12 months. The only hard part about this might be Antarctica. I think living in Antarctica would itself be an incredible experience, but if I don’t complete this bucket list item, Antarctica will probably be the reason.

• Visit all 50 states - Like my issue with visiting every country, I don’t want to just drive through a state and tick the checklist. At the bare minimum, I should see whatever the state is most known for.

• Publish a book - I’m already writing a book about my Colorado Trail thru-hike. But I don’t have any plans to get it published through a real publisher. One day, though, I’d like to write a real book, that gets published and distributed.

• Complete an Ironman triathlon - 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bicycle ride, and 26.2-mile run. Bring it on!

• Complete a 100 mile running race - I’m not sure if this will be the Leadville 100 ultra-marathon or another, but running 100 miles in a 24 hour period is something I’m going to do!

• Hike the Triple Crown The triple crown of long-distance backpacking is thru-hikes of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), the Continental Divide Trail (CDT), and the Appalachian Trail. That’s about 8000 miles of hiking. There are other thru-hikes I would like to do eventually as well, but these are the big three in the United States. The Te Araroa Trail is a trail in New Zealand that goes from the north tip of the north island to the southern tip of the south island, and I’d really like to do that trail as well.

• See the northern lights - Duh.

• Bungee jumping - I can’t believe I still haven’t done this.

• Experience zero gravity - I’m crossing my fingers that trips to space are affordable in my lifetime. Going to space, even for a very short period of time, would be worth a lot of money to me. If that isn’t possible, though, I’ll settle for those planes that do parabolic arcs.

I have a lot to do!