Bookstores brim with titles such as 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die and—for the high-minded—Fifty Places to Go Birding Before You Die.

Type some variation of ‘balloons’ and ‘Turkey’ into TikTok and you’ll ... But you don’t need to get in a balloon to see the action. With a fear of heights, I ticked this off my bucket ...