Five Bucket List Experiences You Can Enjoy at Home, Shingles Vaccine Guidance, and the Link Between Net Worth and Risk Tolerance

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A “bucket list” to-do item doesn’t have to mean airports, long itineraries, or physical strain. Many meaningful experiences can happen right at home — often with more comfort and depth than travel allows. Here are 5 satisfying moments you can enjoy without going anywhere, each offering a sense of completion and achievement.

Choose one decade of your life and write two pages about it — where you lived, where you worked or went to school, who your friends were, current events of that time period that influenced you, what you worried about, and what surprised you. Add names and dates. You can work away at this over several weekends, placing your pages in a simple binder. It’s deeply grounding and often becomes a treasured family keepsake.

Major institutions regularly stream concerts and plays. Watch a full symphony performance from the Berlin Philharmonic, an opera from the Metropolitan Opera, or an award-winning Broadway production, all offered through streaming services. Dim the lights, silence your phones, and treat it like an evening out — without leaving your house.

Choose one favorite family recipe you’ve always wanted to perfect — bread, soup, a main entree or a holiday dessert. Make it once a week for a month, adjusting small details each time and keeping notes. By the end, you’ll have your own perfected version, ready to pass along down the family line.

Select just 50 of your favorite printed photos (not the thousands that you may have tucked away in albums or shoeboxes). Write a sentence on the back of each — who’s in it, where it was taken, a rough date or timeline, and why it mattered. This focused project feels achievable and leaves something tangible behind for loved ones.

Enroll in a short online course on a topic you’ve always been curious about: art history, astronomy, music appreciation, or creative writing. Set a regular viewing time and commit to finishing it. Completion itself becomes the bucket list moment.

These bucket list experiences aren’t placeholders for “real” adventures. They are real, in and of themselves — reflective, meaningful, and deeply personal.

“The Fold-Down Table by the Window”
From the life overview of Arthur B., 89, Worcester, MA. Shared with permission.

When my wife and I first married, our apartment kitchen was barely wide enough for two people to pass without turning sideways. The only place to eat was a small wooden table bolted to the wall beneath a single window. It folded down on squeaky hinges and folded back up when we needed the space, which was often. We ate most of our meals there, elbows tucked in, knees nearly touching, listening to the radiator hiss like it had something to complain about.

One winter evening, during a snowstorm that erased the street outside, the power went out halfway through dinner. We lit two candles we’d received as a wedding gift and finished our soup in near silence, watching steam curl into the cold air. Snow piled against the window, muting the city until it felt like we were the only people left awake. My wife joked that the table made every meal a date because there was nowhere else to look but at each other.

That table wasn’t sturdy. One leg wobbled, and the varnish peeled near the edge where hot mugs were set down too often. But it held up through long talks, arguments that softened before too long, and plans we were still inventing as we spoke them aloud. It bore quiet witness to who we were becoming.

Years later, when we moved on, the table stayed behind. But the closeness it demanded—the way it made room for nothing unnecessary—followed us wherever we later ate.

***

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The Internet Archive’s Great 78 Project
A large collection of digitized 78 rpm records from the early 20th century, covering popular music, spoken word, and regional styles. The recordings are presented simply and offer a clear sense of what people actually listened to at home nearly a century ago.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art – Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
An organized, readable way to explore art and material culture across time without needing prior knowledge. Short essays and high-quality images make it easy to spend a few minutes on one object or follow a longer line of interest.

National Film Registry Essays (Library of Congress)
Background essays on films selected for long-term preservation because of their cultural or historical value. The writing is clear and measured, offering context without assuming you’ve seen the films or studied cinema.

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Take a few minutes to jot down your thoughts. Even a few sentences are a memory preserved for loved ones.

Paper address books work—until one page tears, a phone number changes, or the book disappears into a drawer forever. A digital address book keeps everything organized, searchable, and safely backed up. You don’t need to be “good with computers” to use one, and you can still keep it as simple as you like.

A digital address book is just a list of contacts stored on your phone, tablet, or computer. Most people already have one built in.

If you use an Android phone or Gmail, Google Contacts is already available. If you use an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, Apple Contacts comes preinstalled and is explained clearly here.

To get started:

You can add email addresses, mailing addresses, and notes later—or not at all. The biggest benefit right away is search: type a name and it pops up instantly. No more flipping pages.

Digital address books can back themselves up automatically. If your phone is lost or replaced, your contacts come back when you sign in again. For Windows users, Microsoft Outlook also includes a built-in address book that syncs across devices.

If you’re comfortable going a step further:

You can also scan business cards using your phone’s camera—most contact apps offer this feature now.

Using a digital address book doesn’t change how you keep track of people; it just makes the information easier to update and harder to lose.

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Unscramble the letters to find a famous person, event, or object! Be the first to reply with the correct answer, and we’ll send you a free gift in the mail.

Today’s clue: Blockbuster thriller about a great white shark.

SWAJ

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