When our kids were still home, we did not have any kind of "bucket list" for them. We knew our kids well enough that if we attempted exposing them to these types of things, it would go over like a led balloon. The battle was not worth it!
We made "vacation" a "vacation" for every one. We (adults) set the location based upon our finances at the time. (and we didn't have unlimited funds by any means either!). So our destinations has to be a practical, yet fun for everyone.
My son, from a very early age, was heavily into technology. Gaming, and computers, ... we're talking 25 years ago here! So we learned if we were going to have a meaningful, fun, and peaceful camping experience, we needed to throw something in there that centered around technology! We found things, like standing along the side of the road, looking at a gigantic hole in the ground, simply gave him no interest.
My daughter had a passion for pets. Call her the "Ellie Mae" of the Beverly Hillbillies. She couldn't have cared less about looking at gigantic holes in the ground, or spiraling stone castles reaching for the sky. She would have been more interested in the donkeys you ride to go to the bottom of the Grand Canyon than the canyon itself.
So our "vacations" always included their interests. We figured, if they REALLY wanted to look at that gigantic hole in the ground, they would probably do so when they were adults, old enough to remember it, and old enough to appreciate it, if they REALLY wanted to then.
I think our choices were solid. My son, when he graduated college went to Japan for a short while and absorbed himself in Japanese technology. He's now a computer programmer working on contracts with different government agencies!
My daughter, after getting out of the Navy as a Nuke, moved to Iowa, and finally fell back into the area she loved the most. She got an equine degrees (horses), and since has had opportunity to work with a variety of animals, in different types of industries. She love it!
Have either one of them seen the Grand Canyon? No, I don't think so. But I do think our encouragement, focusing on their interests, while we enjoyed ours camping, helped attribute a "little" bit to their success in life!
In spite of it all, the kids did see some pretty phenomenal stuff: Table Lake rock in Branson, Mo; Navy Pier in Chicago, Ocacroke Island on the Outer Banks of NC, Washington DC, Gettysburg, Florida, Gulf Shores Alabama.
The one place we did insist on taking both kids to when they were about 12 and 14, was the hospital they were born in. They were born at DeWitt Family Hospital on Fort Belvoir, Virginia. I was in the Army when they were born. We went to the floor and wing and they got to look in the delivery room door where they were both born. I think THIS had the biggest impact on both of them. And that's something they'll long remember.
