Health, Beauty and Lifestyle with Denise McNamara

Maybe 2025 is the year you will fulfil a lifetime’s dream and visit that destination that has been niggling the nether regions of your brain.

That woman in Carraroe with the €7 million in her back pocket from the Lotto must surely have already started on her list.

Travel company Kuoni recently ranked the world’s best bucket list destinations based on Google search data for 119 bucket list places to visit in 219 countries.

Do they make yours?

Top of the global bucket list is the cluster of 1,200 islands southwest of Sri Lanka and India called The Maldives, which is renowned for white sands, clear water, overwater bungalows and incredible marine life.

Maybe see it before global warming and rising sea levels destroy it.

In second place is Niagara Falls on the Canadian and American border. There are multiple viewpoints to witness the roaring waters such as Horseshoe Falls, American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls but many opt for a boat tour.

The third best travel bucket list experience is seeing the Mona Lisa at the Louvre Museum in Paris. Painted by Leonardo da Vinci, it attracts a non-stop queue of art and history enthusiasts who want to see that enigmatic smile for themselves.

Another tropical paradise comes next, this time Bora Bora northwest of Tahiti in French Polynesia. Its overwater bungalows, coral reefs and stunning turquoise waters attract an avalanche of honeymooners.

Next up is the Northern Lights – if you missed them around Ireland a few months back, head to Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Greenland and Finland for the best chance of seeing this spectacular light show.

Stonehenge In England, the Taj Mahal In India, Times Square in New York, the Burj Khalifa In Dubai, the world’s tallest skyscraper, the ancient Roman city of Pompei, the Sagrada Familia church by Gaudí all make the list.

Cinque Terre on the Italian Riviera, the UNESCO world heritage site Chichén Itzá  in Mexico and a trek through the Himalayas, which stretches across Bhutan, India, Nepal, China and Pakistan, are also up there. Floating on the Dead Sea between Israel and Jordan is definitely not an option right now.

If some of those seem a little out of reach, I continued to daydream by checking out the Conde Naste Travel magazine’s bucket list of European destinations.

The ones on the list that caught my imagination was taking the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express from Istanbul to Paris, stopping off in Budapest.

Pictured: The Maldives tops the global bucket list of dream holiday destinations.