The term "Bucket List" became part of our lingo after director Rob Reiner released a movie of the same name in 2007. The film depicted two two terminally ill cancer patients -- portrayed by Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman -- on a madcap round-the-world race to do all the stuff they'd always wanted to do. Since then, the idea of creating a checklist of things that you aim to accomplish or experience during your lifetime has become a pervasive cultural meme.

That's particularly true for those of us in our forties and fifties, who are just awakening to the realization that we don't want to be like the guy futilely chasing after the sinking sun in that old Pink Floyd song "Time," or like Harry, the protagonist of Ernest Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro, who who lies dying in a tent in Africa and thinks of all the memories he'd been planning to turn into novels someday, but now never will. (Poor Harry -- if he hadn't been in such a Lost Generation existential funk, he might have realized that he actually had lived a life so rich and full of adventure that a lot of less daring souls would envy him.)

For birdwatchers like me, one of the highlights of the holiday season is the National Audubon Society's annual Christmas Bird Count. It's a chance for experienced birders to monitor the health of their local avian community, but it's also an opportunity for would-be birdwatchers to get a taste of a fascinating hobby while participating in one of the world's oldest "crowd science" efforts.

In this 112-year-old tradition -- started as an alternative to Christmas bird-shooting competitions -- groups of bird lovers head out one day between Dec. 14 and Jan. 5 to record the number of species and the number of birds they see. Last year more than 60,000 people tallied more than 61 million birds, according to the Audubon Society.

Traveling over the Thanksgiving or Christmas holidays? If you haven't been in an airport recently, you'll notice that things are a little different this holiday season.

Here are five changes you can count on as you head out of town for the holidays.

A Southern California entrepreneur and his family, who set out on a three-year sailing journey this summer, have docked in Puerto Rico while waiting for hurricane season to pass.

Scott Leonard, CEO of a wealth-management firm in Redondo Beach, says the family planned to reach the southern Caribbean, out of the hurricane track, by September. He's found, though, that sailing from place to place can take longer than expected.

Patti Booterbaugh's Italian sojourn was not nearly as glamorous as Julia Roberts' foray in Eat, Pray, Love. There was no wine tasting, no slurping up pasta at a little bistro in Rome and definitely no basking under the Tuscan sun.

Instead Booterbaugh spent two months on two different farms, where she pulled weeds, picked vegetables and helped prepare meals. She loved it.

Swirling, sniffing and sipping are great ways to spend a vacation. But with so many rich wine regions to choose from, it can be tough to choose the best trip for you.

So I decided to consult the experts and asked cookbook authors, travel writers and wine entrepreneurs to share their favorite wine getaways.

Lake Forest, Calif., resident Robyn Cole, 56, had always wanted to enjoy retirement with her husband, John, but the differential in their ages created a dilemma.

"If I had waited until I was 65, he would have been 77," says Cole, a former golf course marketing director. "I told him, 'I want to be playing with you, not going to work while you go golfing or to the beach. And I want us to have more years to do things together.'"

SecondAct readers are an adventurous bunch. They're constantly tweeting about trips and posting amazing travel pictures on their blogs and Facebook pages.

We love to hear about all of those exciting getaways. We figure other readers would be interested, too.

While other people celebrate birthdays or anniversaries with parties or perhaps a fancy dinner out, Gary Sarinana and wife Ana Ochoa spend special occasions on the road, driving an 80,000-pound Kenworth T660 truck through the backroads of the United States.

Sarinana and Ochoa, both 49, are a driving team for an international freight transportation company based in Ann Arbor, Mich. The couple started driving together eight years ago after Ochoa quit her job teaching high school Spanish to join her husband, who left his career as a U.S. Customs agent in 2001 to become a truck driver.

Scott and Mandi Leonard and their three children are set to depart on a 50-foot sailboat for three years, traveling to more than 100 countries. But the California couple insists this is not just a sailing trip.

"It just happens to be that the home we're going to live in and our mode of transportation is over the water," says Scott Leonard. "It isn't about going from point A to point B -- it's about the experience of really seeing all these different places as a family."