What landmark (man-made or natural) do you want to see before it’s gone?

Do you ever think about the places or landmarks you wish you could visit? Maybe you know you want to travel, but you can’t settle on where to go. This conversation might help you decide where you want to go. It may give you the push you need to get going and get there.

When we're thinking about traveling or thinking about going somewhere, it's easy to say, oh, I'll just I'll do that tomorrow. Or I'll do that next year, or that's in my five-year plan. If you want to do something, or you want to travel somewhere, or there's something you want to accomplish, go do that thing.

Here's my light-hearted not so subtle suggestion… Get off your butt and do it because tomorrow might not come. The thing might not be there. You might not be here, the person you want to go with might not be here. There is absolutely no reason to wait. If you have learned anything from listening to me, I hope you have just started doing the thing you’ve been dreaming about doing.

What landmarks are on your list?

There are a few places on my list that I haven't gotten to see yet. I've gotten to see a lot of things because my family and my parents were very big on traveling. So I've had the opportunity to see a ton of stuff. So thanks, mom. Thanks, Dad. A few of things on my list are the Taj Mahal, Versailles, the Egyptian pyramids, the hanging gardens, and the glacier.

That is a really brief list. Someday, I will make a comprehensive list of all the places I want to go. Now I want to hear from you. What do you want to see before it's gone? This includes man made, historic, or natural, whatever gets you excited. Leave your answer in the comments or leave me a message on Anchor here.

Ready for a few follow up questions to that question? If you've been following along with the Legacy Recorder, you know that I love asking follow up questions and making you think about how you feel about a topic, how you feel about someone or something, and how that impacts your life and what you're going to do about it going forward.

Follow up questions

Why do you want to see that landmark?

I love asking that question. Because it makes people think about the importance of something, why they want to do it, and it makes them kind of stop for a second and go “Hmm, you know, I don't actually know why”. Often, they will spend a some time exploring that.

If you happen to be having this conversation with someone else, then you are able to find out, from them, why that thing is happening for them or why they're thinking about it. This might lead to other areas of their life that you might not have been able to talk about before. The first person account of their feelings is an incredible resource to have access too.

What do you think you will feel when you are standing there?

I love being in a new place, especially the ones I've always wanted to go. There are also those places and trips that fall into my lap that I didn't know I wanted to see or wanted to be. When I’m standing in a place, whether it's something that has massive historic value to me, as a person, or two, my culture or society at large, there's a huge, usually, depending on what it is, a wave of emotion that just crashes all over me. I like to just stand there and process and absorb and not even necessarily sort through what I'm feeling at that moment. Giving myself the opportunity to enjoy being in that space.

• Is that something you have ever experienced?
• Where were you?
• Why do you think it affected you that way?

Do you think you will be different after visiting the landmark?

When I visit a new place, or I visit a place that I've been wanting to go for a long time, I, sometimes I feel different afterward. And sometimes I don't. I do think that we, our worldview are widened through travel. When we travel when we experience new places, we meet new people, that widens our worldview, and gives us a better understanding of the world at large and the world around us.

Traveling informs our own perspective of the truly small communities we live in every day. We don't live at large, we're not constantly traveling, we're not constantly doing things, we spend most of our time in the same place, which there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Traveling deepens my awareness and broadens my perspective and helps me understand my community better every time I travel. It also helps me identify places and things that I want to help improve, or groups of people that I might previously not have been aware, needed, help or wanted help.

I’ve also been inspired when I see creative solutions for problems that are happening in our communities. Some of the same problems are everywhere. Being able to see other communities’ solutions to those problems, is just amazing.

Additional follow up questions to ask

The last few questions I have for follow up questions are

• Who would you take with you?
• Do you like traveling solo?
• Do you want to take mom?
• Do you want to take your spouse?
• Do you want your kids to see it?
• How do we make it work?

Those are a few questions that you might want to use either to plan your travel or write about a trip you’ve already had. You can also reframe these questions, and use them to write the narrative or write a story about a previous travel experience or a previous experience you had visiting a landmark that you haven't been able to write about.

Thinking about everything in a storytelling perspective

Reframing our conversations and interactions with others in the storytelling framing gives a new depth to the way we can talk to each other. We no longer need to only gather facts. There is a purpose and framework to ask about their feelings and wants and needs regarding a memory or moment. While the objective for you, might be to get the information as quickly and efficiently as possible, you owe it to the storyteller you are working with to consider their feelings and what they can gain from the conversation.

I think about everything now in terms of…

• how do we tell a story?
• What does it look like from a legacy perspective when major events happen?
• What do they mean to me and the people they happen to?
• What can I contribute to the narrative of that moment from a legacy perspective?
• And finally, how can I help a person tell a story that they've been trying to express?

Feel free to use these questions to create a narrative of how you're feeling about a specific landmark. I would love to see it! If you would like to share it, feel free to tag me on any of the social platforms, email me, or leave it in the comments below. If you have any questions about this or anything else about storytelling, feel free to put them in the comments.