“Making a list and checking it twice.” I know, that’s a phrase from a song about Santa Claus coming to town, and he’s already come and gone for this year. But January — specifically New Year’s — is also a time for making lists.

Most of us make at least one resolution, if not an entire list of intentions. We have every intention of breaking bad habits and instilling new ones: Lose weight, eat healthier, exercise more. Those are the perennial pledges. And if we’re lucky, they merit our attention for a month or two.

We’re all usually better off with a list of countable or accountable items: losing a specific number of pounds or walking a specific number of minutes or miles a day. Reading a certain number of books in a year or month fares better than a vague notion of wanting to “read more.”

That’s why travel bucket lists work. If you specify the exact places you want to visit, they just may become a reality and not remain a pipe dream of “someday” travel.

I’ve tried to keep my resolution list to two items this year: Get out and walk for 30 minutes every day, and create a bucket list of travel destinations.

The walking is something I used to do but have drifted away from as I sit for longer and longer hours at my desk. It’s become especially important since my husband retired and now bakes more and more bread — in the kitchen right next to my home office, where I must endure the aroma of fresh-baked loaves. Right now, in fact, he’s working on a two-day recipe for rye bread, and two loaves of challah have just come out of the oven. The only reason I am not tearing into them is that they are intended for our New Year’s breakfast of French toast.

Unfortunately, my travel bucket list seems to change with each new issue of Global Traveler I edit. I fall in love with so many new places each month, I’d need a dozen or so lifetimes to see them all. In the January 2019 issue alone, I’m lured by the spa on board the Viking Star reviewed in the Spas column and thrilled at the prospect of seeing polar bears — and Northern Lights —in Manitoba, Canada. But the one place I keep thinking about is the Jurassic Coast of England, featured in the January Friends & Family article. This one seems like a real possibility to me. Not only does the region offer spectacular scenery and satisfy my curiosity about history and geology, it’s a perfect place to combine travel with my love of walking. Wouldn’t it be fun to fulfill a goal of walking the 630-mile South West Coast Path that edges the coastline? It can be done in weeklong jaunts covering a chunk of the path at a time.

It may still be a lofty goal, but it’s one that can serve as inspiration for my daily walks here at home — pushing myself to walk farther each day — until I feel fit enough to tackle the rugged path along the Jurassic Coast. After all, according to the Tao Te Ching, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Whatever your goals — travel and otherwise — take them a step at a time, and have a happy, healthy New Year!

— Jan Hecht, senior editor