It may be a quiet, faraway place known by just a handful or a bustling city that millions of people visit. We travel for different reasons and expect different things from it, but one thing is certain: "Once we travel, the voyage truly never ends," as author Pat Conroy, who wrote The Prince of Tides, said. It is "played out over and over again in the quietest chambers; the mind can never break off from the journey."
We should always have a new dream destination after each one is fulfilled so we have something to look forward to and dream about.
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NINI RAMOS LICAROS, businesswoman: If I had to choose a dream destination, it would be Africa. The continent seems so vast and exotic. I would love to go on one of those luxurious safari rides, spotting big game and exploring the grasslands. Africa has such a mystical quality to it. It is, after all, the cradle of life. Furthermore, there are plenty of great African tours available to people.
Nowadays, all I need to do is call up my travel agent and decide where to go. Africa is one of the few places in the world I have yet to explore. It is truly my final frontier.
WYNN WYNN ONG, jewelry designer, with daughter Stephanie: In each place that I have traveled to throughout my life, there is one thing I seek. It is the sense of connection. When I merge effortlessly with my surroundings, I know I am home. It is when I am closest to my core.
That feeling once overcame me in the middle of the Rajasthani desert as I stood on a rooftop garden. It was dusk and a flock of wild peacocks were perched, with their tails trailing, on different dead branches of a giant tree close by. As the sun sank, one by one, they started their mating cries. Each call pierced the cold night.
The feeling also came to me as I climbed the steps of a 16th- century temple in Bagan one dawn. As I walked to the edge of the base of the stupa, the sun rose and bathed the red soil. In that moment, I felt the thousand temples before me, the thorn trees, the scarlet plain, and I, were one. My dream destination can be any place. Some places are the result of serendipity; some are just old haunts where the perfect circumstances arise.
RICKY TOLEDO, Firma owner: Outer space. That would be the ultimate experience.
MANNY DEL ROSARIO, advertising creative director: My dream destination would be Prague.
LULI M. ARROYO, Foundation for Information Technology Education and Development Inc.: I’d like to visit Tanzania. I’ve never been to the African continent, and I would like Tanzania to be the first country there for me to explore. I’d love to go to the Olduvai Gorge, then visit the island of Zanzibar. I met Julius Nyerere, who can be considered the father of Tanzania, on one of his visits to the Philippines in the 1980s. I cherish the memory of that meeting, of his kindness to a wide-eyed young girl in the midst of prominent officials at a luncheon in his honor given by my maternal grandparents. He took the time to tell me stories of his country, and I would like to visit Tanzania one day to honor his memory.
GIGI R. MABANTA, Rustan’s vice president for fashion: Amanjena in Marrakech, Morocco would be my next destination since, being a creature of comfort, I like to be pampered the whole day.
ARIEL LOZADA, director: It’s been my dream to have a holiday in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Would be fascinating and inspiring to be in Warsaw and other parts of Eastern Europe.
ANTON MENDOZA, architect: Egypt, because through the pain of men it became beautiful. Just like our soul, it will only become beautiful after it has gone through a lot of pain.
MILA SANTOS, homemaker: My perfect dream place is Africa. To see the migration of animals on the Serengeti and lie in the sand dunes of Namibia.