Forget the Bucket List, you Need a Travel F**k-it List!

Title image: Travel experiences not worth having

We've all heard of a bucket list, a list of things you want to do before you 'kick the bucket'.  F**k-it lists, however, are much less common. f**k-it list is basically a list of things that you fully intend to avoid for the rest of your life. After a year like 2021 I feel like maybe it's time we all wrote one, here's why:


As someone who takes just about any opportunity possible to experience just about anything good that this world has to offer, some of my friends associate me with the very concept of FOMO (the Fear Of Missing Out). When one of them stumbled upon an article on JOMO, they felt the need to share it with me. 

JOMO is obviously the Joy of Missing Out (and, yes, also the first name of a very famous South African soccer player).  JOMO is that feeling you get when you decline an invitation or, for some reason, are given permission to miss that thing that you didn’t really want to attend anyway. I don’t know if it’s because I’m an extrovert, but I will choose to risk a bad experience going out any day over the expectation of a decent experience staying in. I don’t relate well to the concept JOMO.

2021 has not really been the year we expected it to be. I don’t know about you but in 2020, I believed that if I could just make it to the end of the year, things would be better. 2021 started off feeling a lot like 2020. Then the vaccine came out and I’m so grateful that its rollout happened faster than I anticipated. 

Towards the end of the year, things were looking up. Travel was happening, life seemed to be returning to something closer to normal and I was literally invited on the media trip of my dreams! An all-expenses-paid, more-than-a-week long, international travel experience that filled me with excitement beyond anything I’ve experienced since 2019! It felt like I had won a really big, expensive, exciting prize. A specific prize that I had been fantasising about for years and never fathomed I would get to experience.  

Yes, I knew there was a fourth wave coming but I also assumed that between my two vaccinations and my youth (sort of), it wouldn’t affect me. And then Omnicron came around and crushed all my dreams! By the time the world realised that it wasn’t that bad, it was too late, my trip was cancelled. 

I’ve been feeling very stuck in different aspects of my life and I really believe that literally moving your body to a different part of the planet, even temporarily (i.e. travelling), is a great way to shift your mind, your perspective and your trajectory. For the last two years, I have been fantasising about international destinations that I don’t seem to be able to travel to in a way that is safe, affordable and doesn’t require long and expensive quarantine periods. I know I am not the only one who is feeling stuck and a bit frustrated by all this as well as the unpredictability of it all. 

So, in order to maintain a positive state of mind, one that is filled with gratitude and not bitterness, I have decided to try to apply the concept of JOMO to travel. Instead of focusing on the places I want to travel to but can’t, I’ve decided to forget about my bucket list for now and focus on my travel F**k-it list instead, filled with places or experiences that I have zero intention of experiencing and thoroughly enjoy missing out on.
*I will reconsider for a large enough sum of money or enough free stuff. 

My Travel F**k-it List:

Here are 10 travel destinations or experiences not worth having, all illustrated through some bad photoshop for your enjoyment:

1. Antarctica 

As much as it would be cool to be able to say that I’ve been to all seven continents, this one I can skip. I don’t need to go there. I don’t like being cold, I have seen penguins, I have experienced perpetual twilight (from a cosy cruise ship in the Arctic) and I don’t need to prove to any flat-Earth theorists that the world does not in fact end there. I’m good!  

Unhappy girl on boat near glacier archway

2. Bungee jumping

Nope, don’t need to do it! I sky-dived, it was great. I know what an incredible adrenaline rush feels like when you find yourself plummeting towards the earth. I do not need to discover whether or not my spinal cord absorbs the impact of the motion that occurs when a cord around my feet pulls me back from my death. It’s fine. 

Bad photoshop of blogger bungee jumping

3. Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail

I know that this is very trendy right now but it looks like a lot of dangerous, hard work. Of course, since Cheryl Strayed’s success with Wild, writing and self-publishing a book about your hike is all part of the experience now too. I’m going to skip that part as well.

Tired hiker lying near sign for the Pacific Crest Trail

4. Visiting a silent retreat or a yoga retreat with a focus on meditation

Firstly, I’m an extrovert. It’s not that I can’t go inwards, I can, I do, lots. I just need to speak to people. I just do. Not being able to speak to people sounds depressing AF. And, as for meditation, I respect those of you who can do it but I can’t. I cannot still my mind. The closest I ever come to meditation is playing Candy Crush: So mind-numbingly inane, I love it! I’ll stick with that, thank you.

Awkward girl at yoga class

5. Running with the Bulls in Pamplona

If I wanted to risk personal injury or death, I could think of a number of ways I’d rather do that and none of them involve stampedes or goring. 

Bad photoshop of running of the bulls in Pamplona

6. Flinging Tomatoes at La Tomatina

While we are on the subject of Spain, La Tomatina is a festival in Valencia where the inhabitants of a small town throw tomatoes at each other. As a South African, wasting food generally goes against our culture and is super cringey to us. Over and above that, I have weird texture issues and can’t bring myself to handle cut tomatoes let alone eat them. If someone threw one at me I would definitely cry. 

Girl scared of tomato

7. Visiting a hammam or Moroccan bath

No judgement to you if having a stranger rub salt on your breasts while being surrounded by a group of equally naked tourists of your gender in a pool is your idea of a fun time but I think I’ll sit this one out. (At least that was how a friend of mine explained her experience to me.)

Uncomfortable tourist at hammam or Moroccan bath

8. Watching a live sex show in Amsterdam or a ping pong show in Thailand

I’m just not that kind of girl.

9. Polar bear plunging or ice swimming

Apparently swimming in icy water can actually make you high but I’d still rather not be high and be warm instead.

bad photoshop of girl polar bear plunging or ice swimming

10. Camping basically anywhere

Packing and carrying a vast amount of stuff, so you can pitch a tent from which you can try to eat, go to the toilet and sleep, while also trying to stay warm, dry and clean, just sounds like work. And let’s not forget the part where you have to fend off wild animals and bugs after you’re tired and grumpy from trying to sleep on a slowly deflating mattress set on ground that is uncomfortably sloping in an awkward direction. 

Unhappy camper girl


So thank you, 2021, for sparing me these experiences!
(...Except for camping. We still could have done that one.) 


Please let me know what's on your f**k-it list in the comment section below?

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Highlights from 2021:


With absolutely no international trips, this year I really tried to explore the Western Cape:

  • I went looking for the light at the end of the tunnel on an underground tunnel tour. And found it!  (That blog post is coming soon.)


What I’m looking forward to in 2022:

  • Hopefully leaving the country
While my plans to visit country number 58 may have to wait, I am confident...well, there’s a definite possibility that I may make it over the border in the next 12 months. 
(*subject to whatever the eff COVID decides to do next)


  • Hopefully going on a cruise 
The suspension of the cruise line industry really helped me to realize just how much I miss cruising. I even wrote a blog about how to cope with the industry’s suspension for those of us who are cruising-obsessed

I am so excited to see that the cruise line industry has started to relaunch. Not helping my cruise-craving is NCL’s Embark - The Series. If anyone is following it or would like to check it out, the latest episode is out now:  EMBARK with NCL: Adventure Alaska, Part 1 and Part 2.


  • Definitely probably going on more media trips
Despite the pandemic, over the past two years, the Sharonicles has actually really been gaining traction. We’re starting to get more trade exchanges, media trips and paid promotions with some exciting experiences on the cards (watch this space.) Who would have guessed that staying in one place could actually take a travel blogger quite far?  

Whether I'm travelling or staying at home in 2022, I will be creating content about it.


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Thanks so much for following the Sharonicles. Wishing you all a happy festive season and a surprisingly kind 2022!

Travel experiences not worth having - Forget the Bucket List, you Need a Travel F**k-it List!

7 comments:

  1. I surprisingly agree with a lot of this, despite being an introvert. Except I'm still on the fence on whether I would turn down Antarctica or not. I can't decide if it's because I want to go, or I like the idea of myself wanting to go.
    I've also realised I'm perfectly happy not trekking to Macchu Picchu, or climb Everest, and I'm ridiculously contented with the idea of never doing any type of bike touring sort of travel.

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    1. I totally hear what you're saying about liking the idea of wanting to go. I want people to think of me as an adventurous person who is up for anything but I'm definitely not up for anything.
      Thanks for the comment.

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  2. Thanks for sharing the JOMO concept, I'm already a big fun of it! �� I tend to get a boot lazy and I enjoy a cozy day at home, I guess. But as a travel lover, I do love adventures, even though they turn out a fail, as you say! We share the yoga/meditation visit, in our f**k lists. But Antarctica is actually on the very top spot of my bucket list! �� Not sure how to reac to the ping pong show listed together with the sex show. I'd avoid both as well, but.. Are they somehow related? Am I missing something? ��

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    1. In Thailand a ping-pong show is a show where ladies shoot ping pong balls (and other items) out of their lady parts ...I believe. Obviously I have not experienced this. So yeah, I would consider them related.
      Thanks so much for the comment. I hope you get to go to Antarctica.

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  3. Hahah! I loved the post. Thank you for the inspiration.

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  4. Israeli Lawyer Moshe Strugano says, Connecting with new places, new people, and loved ones enriches your world.

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