Childhood dream travels

Ever since I was a fairly young child there has been some places on this globe I would loveto visit. So far I have not visited any of them. I wonder if I, together with my soon to be husband, will manage to visit some of them the next decade? I sure hope so!

So how was it that a Norwegian child of about 8-12 years old dreams about travels way beyond the normal tourist routes? The short and simple answer is that I’ve always loved maps. I spendt hours upon hours dream traveling around the world Atlas together with my parternal grandfather. Some places fascinated me by their history and some by their current cultures as well as their history, some by their animal life aboundancy and one place because the nations flag was my favourite of all the flags of the world.

I’ve been lucky that my parents from fairly early in my childhood took me to visit other countries and cultures. Opened my eyes to the world of travel. As a 9 year old I went on my first chartered vaccation. At that time this was not a mainstreem vaccation for the children from my birthplace. We later went to places that only recently had opened for charter visit and/or drove through Europe.

Iceland
Viking history, fascinating geography. The history of Vestmannaeyjar and Surtsey was one I grew up with. Europe’s larges glacier, geysirs, hot springs, vulcanos. What’s not to love? At least for me this was a dream place to visit, alas my family couldn’t agree less. So Iceland is still high up on my wanderlist. We need more than one visit to cover all we want to explore on this Island.

 

Kiribati

photo by http://www.kiribatitourism.gov.ki

The prettiest flag in the world. Or so I thought as a fairly young child. Back then I first never thought about actually visiting this Island country in polynesia. However I’ve never forgotten the flag and I’d like to see some parts of polynesia so why not Kiribati?

 

Mongolia

Photo by www.interasia.com.au

Land of the wild horses and the horse people! Land of Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan. As many young girls I too loved horses. The horse culture of the Mongols fascinated me. Luckilly they still have parts of this culture and I’d love to visit this beautiful and exotic country one day. And of course I hope to go horse back riding there as well.

 
Rapa Nui

Photo from www.easterisland.travel

Easter Island with it’s characteristic moai statues and fascinating, yet strange with a Norwegian’s eyes, history. I wanted to visit this island ever since I first heard of it. It will be combined with a week in Chile if we ever get there.

 

 

Ngorngoro crater

photo by www.tema.startour.no

Safari in Kenya and Tanzania is like a dreamworld for any animal lover. Since my childhood I’ve gotten an education in biology (terrestric zoology and ecology with additons in genetics). I have been to Uganda once, back in 2001. It was a trip with the University of Bergen where I studied at the time. But it isn’t Ngorongoro, I didn’t see Killimanjaro and not the big herds. So I still want to go! And of course I want to visit many more places if we ever go.

 

and many, many more entered the list as I got to learn about them. But these are the ones I can remember that I have wanted to visit for the longest.

As one who has studied biology and of course evolution as a major driving force in biological change I of course want to visit the Galapagos Islands, and think they deserve a mentiono here as well. I want to see some of what Charles Darwin saw back in September – October 1835, soon to be 181 years ago.