Since this is my very first post on TravelBloom, I wanted to write a bit about myself as something of an introduction. However, “About Me” posts aren’t that interesting to me as a reader, so I don’t think they’d be that interesting to you as a reader either. Instead, I’m going to tell you about 5 places that I would love to travel to, and why.

1. Vancouver, Canada

As a Canadian, I would love to explore more of my huge and beautiful country, but I haven’t been further west than Algonquin Park (not that far west, to all you non-Canadians)! Vancouver is such an amazing combination of urban centre and a hub for hiking and outdoor activities. I love big city energy and the variety of things to do and places to go, but also love to get out into nature and explore. Vancouver is such a great city to do both, and to get to see more of my own country.

2. Yosemite National Park, California, U.S.A.

On the subject of the great outdoors and the west coast, Yosemite National Park is high up there on my arbitrary list of places I want to go. Extraordinary mountains, waterfalls, valleys, rivers, and just about every other natural beauty I could hope for! I love camping and getting fully immersed in nature, and I would love to put together a hike-in camping trip with my brother here in the park. Bonus for the quality of rock climbing and bouldering in the park; even though it’s been a while since I’ve been climbing, I would still bring my gear and play around on some boulders!

3. Japan

Japan is probably the longest-lasting place on my dream travel list, starting with every weird 12-year old girl’s manga-drawing phase (that everyone definitely had and whatever let’s not mention it again). Still, I’ve never fully recovered from my interest in visiting the country. Of course I would love to explore Tokyo, a prefecture with so many different wards to explore that it is enough to occupy an entire visit. But Japan is so much more than Tokyo, and I would like to experience some rural areas or smaller towns, go snowboarding and visit hotsprings in the north, and experience some of the other things that Japan has to offer. Plus, different regions means different regional foods, and I’d be lying if I said that the food wasn’t a huge reason why Japan is on this list!

4. New Zealand

Besides the obvious natural spectacle New Zealand has to offer (and believe me it does), it holds a special place on my travel list because that’s where my parents met. I think it’s really special that two Canadians met each other so far from home, and I would love to visit the place where they met. Lame and sentimental? Maybe. But I’m a lame and sentimental person. And sentimentality aside, this country is absolutely stunning. It’s the closest thing we have to Middle Earth, and yes, you’d best believe I’ll be going on a tour of Hobbiton, but also the Tongariro Crossing (Mordor) and Mt. Sunday (Edoras, capital of Rohan, my favourite kingdom of Middle Earth).

5. Nottingham, England

This is a bit of an unfair addition to this list because I’m currently awaiting approval on my visa to move here (!!!), but the more I’ve been looking into this city the more excited I am to explore every single part of it! Nottingham seems to have a really cool, artsy vibe, with lots of neat bars and iconic music venues. It’s also got some amazing history, like the City of Caves, a literal city of caves underneath the city that dates back hundreds of years, and are attached to a pub that might be the oldest in Britain (claiming to have been established in 1189). For a Canadian where a building from before 1900 is considered old, that’s mindblowing. For a city I hadn’t heard of 6 months ago, it’s firmly cemented itself on the list of places I really want to visit, and I’m only getting more and more excited to move here!
PS: Thanks for being such an apparently obscure city that you don’t have any good stock photos for this post!

These five places are only the tip of the travel iceberg for me, and you can expect a continuation of this list soon!