The Makings of Wanderlust — Chrissy Barbeau

The first thing you should know about me is that I love maps. I love to explore google maps, the snapchat map and I have a collection of paper maps from travels I have taken and maps for trips I hope to take. I blame this pure wanderlust on the world map wallpaper that covered 1½ walls in my childhood bedroom. I would spend hours reading it. Finding all the countries with mountain ranges. Counting islands in the pacific. Comparing the size of one country to another. I loved reading the legend and scale. As my fascination grew I started to randomly pick a spot on the map and look it up in the family set of Britannica encyclopedias. I made up games with my younger sisters and friends who would play; it was basically an ‘I spy’ game but I would say things like ‘name five countries that start with the letter A’ or ‘find 5 mountain ranges’.

I had never thought to choose my top 100 or narrow down the list at all, my thoughts had always been that I wanted to see it all! I wanted to see the mountains that made up the small triangles on the wall paper, I wanted to see the snow that made up the top and bottom, I wanted to see for myself why Greenland was white on the map and Iceland was shown green. I had a strong desire to see it all. My heart would skip if I ever heard of someone’s trip to the states or Mexico.

Now when I see a location I like on a movie or TV show, I look up where the filming location was, do a little research into the area and if I like what I see and read, it goes on my scribbled wish list. Some locations are from novels, from Instagram friends, from my genealogy and from simply spinning a globe and doing some research.

After being homeland-locked the past few years, I decided to start typing out some of the locations that I wish to one day step foot on. Now, obviously, my list is FAR FROM COMPLETE and I no longer live in the house with the wallpaper map, but the list is slowly growing nonetheless.

*Iskwasum Lake, Grass River Provincial Park, Manitoba - Chrissy Barbeau*

I plan to share the list with you in the posts to come and so far I am working on typing them out in a somewhat organized list. And I must say that this has turned into a project on its own - for some locations I didn’t include enough info (ie: country) and am having to look them up again. Unsurprisingly a few trends emerged from the list including locations with magical waterfalls, breathtaking viewpoints, unique landscapes and mind-boggling bridges.

I tend to add to my lists weekly (if not daily) so you may want to check back here every so often for some travel stories and inspiration. In the mean time, why not open a map or spin a globe and learn a little bit more about the world we all live in.

*Photographers gather for the golden hour, Mira Flores, Lima Peru - Chrissy Barbeau*

Yours Truly,