Now that the term "bucket list" -- dream vacations to take before you kick the bucket -- has firmly rooted itself in popular culture, it's time to pioneer a better term.

Yes, the drive to see places in the face of looming mortality lights a certain fire under the seats of armchair travelers, but the whole "live like you're going to die tomorrow" idea has never worked for me. If that were the case, I would be spending the day updating my will and saying my goodbyes -- and that's depressing, not life affirming. When I travel, I'm pulled by curiosity, beauty, and the sweet promise of adventure. And I suspect I'm not the only one.

I started thinking about this recently after my three-year-old son approached me on a Thursday with a great, but logistically challenging idea. "Can we go to Australia this weekend?"

Related Link: Best Places to Go in Australia

When a kid is asking you to hop a long-haul flight on two days' notice, it's a sure sign he's ready for a bucket list. But as he's the type to ask a lot of questions, I knew I wouldn't be able to introduce the concept of a "bucket list" without veering wildly off course.

So instead, we started an adventure book.

When I imagine a bucket list, it's a hodgepodge of travel aspirations. But the visual I get with an adventure book is a story that I'm writing with my travels, chapters I'm planning ahead to, and memories that I will bring back and carry with me for a lifetime.

10 New World Heritage Sites That Should Be On Your Bucket List

And unlike bucket lists, which seem geared to the individuals who lug them around, adventure books can be a shared work of a family -- a place that holds the travel aspirations of everyone. Best of all, an adventure book can be a physical object to be looked through, passed around, and added to as a group of travelers-in-the-making.

Related Link: 8 Trips You Have to Take Before You Die

That's why I'm dumping out my bucket list and opening the first page of my adventure book.

Now I just need to choose the journal (right now, the list is on a single slip of paper). I'm thinking something leather and vaguely Indiana Jones-ish. Here are my top three:

Lama Li Classic Leather Journal ($22 on Amazon, Prime shipping)Fair Trade Leather Bound Travel Journal ($26 on Amazon, plus shipping)Classic Leather Bound Journal ($30 on Amazon, plus shipping)

Goodbye bucket list. Hello adventure book.

More from zzdtravel.com:

4 Things Every Solo Female Traveler Should Look for in Hotels (That You Might Not Even Know Exist)The 10 Cheapest Caribbean Islands to Visit, RankedSome Pretty Crazy Things Have Gone Down in These 9 Iconic Hotels

More from SmarterTravel:

The Travel Skills Every Child Needs10 Beaches That Should Be on Your Bucket ListHow to Save for a Dream Vacation

Read the original story, Why I’m Ditching My Bucket List, by Christine Sarkis, who is a regular contributor to SmarterTravel.