As a travel company currently adhering to the need to stay safe at home, we can’t help but explore alternative ways to travel. While it’s important, for now, that we band together as a global community to help keep each other as healthy and safe as possible, we also recognize the importance of keeping our spirits up. In fact, anxiety and sadness have remarkable effects on our overall health. As frequent travelers, we are naturally inclined to have an “itch” for adventure and understand how it feels to become stir crazy when you stay too long in one place.
Personally, I have minimized my time watching the news and it has helped lessen my anxiety ten folds! I also came across this article that helped put some of this craziness into perspective – Your Only Goal is to Arrive.
Of course, we don’t mean to minimize anyone’s current stress and the situation surrounding COVID-19. These are unprecedented times, filled with great uncertainty. As a bit of salve for the travel-hungry, we decided to compile easy ways you can stay positive and staycation from your own home! Just as books allow us to travel in the imagination, technology now allows us to virtually visit everything from Machu Picchu to the world’s finest museums – beyond their opening hours! Our inner explorer has an insatiable appetite for experiencing new cultures, so we scoured the web and brainstormed ways you can now “travel” from the comfort of your home.
Read on for travel-inspired ways to scratch the adventure itch and staycation with ease:
~Try a new recipe from a destination you love (or where you’re longing to go!):
Travel with the senses by cooking something inspired by your travels! We’re inclined to love this option, (hello, Delectable Destinations!). Cooking something from a destination where you’ve traveled will allow you to revisit the happy memories. If you always said you wanted to make a dish you discovered abroad, now’s a great time! We have plenty of inspiration throughout the blog. If you want to bake something sweet, try a delicious Lemon Cake from Mamma Agata on Italy’s Amalfi Coast. For a taste of Spain, we love this Paella recipe from Chef David on our Andalucia trip. Note that you can substitute chicken in this one. Finally, we recently shared a delicious butter chicken recipe from Chef Neha Gupta, where we do our cooking classes in India.
Let the scents take you on an olfactory journey to somewhere else while cooking and eating!
~Experience Some of the world’s most famous sites with a virtual museum visit:
In the wake of mass closures, many museums have opened up their virtual doors. While it’s certainly not the same as experiencing a museum in person, you can at least look forward to avoiding lines and crowds. You can now visit the Louvre, Athenian Acropolis, and The Vatican virtually! Click here to check out more amazing places you can visit virtually while staying home.
~Virtually cross off bucket list national parks and natural destinations:
Ever dreamed of visiting Banff National Park or Bryce Canyon but haven’t crossed it off your list? Love the idea of nature but perhaps you don’t do well with the outdoors? Many Canadian and American national parks, as well as other natural world wonders, are now offering virtual tours you can enjoy from home! Click here to check out five options. This time, you can leave your sunblock, Camelbacks, and hiking boots at home (because, well, that’s where you’ll be:)).
~Get in touch with nature: Live stream the northern lights:
In the wake of coronavirus quarantine measures, there’s also a sudden influx of ways to experience nature from afar. Have you ever wanted to see the northern lights? Guess what, now you can live stream them! Turn down the lights and enjoy a relaxing, mystical experience without stepping foot outside of your home.
~Learn a language for a destination you want to visit (or revisit!):
Have you always felt romanced by the prospect of speaking a Romance language? Perhaps you studied a language in high school or university only to have lost it in recent years. Now is a great time to pick up the language you may not have had time to learn for an upcoming destination. It’s also great for your brain health! Learning a new language helps improve memory and keeps the mind sharper over time. There are so many apps and tools now at our fingertips! Duo Lingo and Memrise are popular options. If you’ve been wanting to reconnect with a friend in another country who can help you with a language, now may be a great time to have a phone call and work on your conversational skills in that language. Be patient with yourself and let it be fun!
~Watch a travel-inspired movie:
Why not give movie night, which I’m sure many of us are having a lot more often than usual, some travel-infused flair? Watch a movie set in your favorite destination, which you may pair with a glass of wine, tea, or another spirit from said destination for an immersive experience. If you’re seeking inspiration, we’ve got you. Click here for Conde Nast Traveler’s 50 Best Travel Movies of All Time.
~Look through old travel journals, scrapbooks, and photo albums… and maybe organize them, too!:
If you’ve ever kept a travel journal that you’ve since failed to open, now is the time to reread your accounts of past adventures. Similarly, taking the time to look through photos from trips of yore can bring joy to your days at home. Try to make this activity mindful: don’t rush it! If you’re at home with someone you’ve traveled with, you may enjoy reminiscing together (and perhaps feel inspired to cook something you ate on a said trip). It’s also a great time to organize photos, be them digital or physical. If you have an external hard drive or a memory card full of photos you took that have been left in their digital form, take the time to peruse, edit, and catalogue them.
We have started a project called DD Chronicles and posting our past adventures on Facebook & Instagram. Since we are home, might as well travel virtually! It truly is a joy to look at all our trips and see how Delectable Destinations grew over the years. Check us out and follow along!
We get it, virtual experiences can never substitute for the “real” thing, but unique times call for unique measures. We hope you find some joy, inspiration, and perhaps even a new dream destination from this list!
Please stay safe, stay well, stay home, take care of you and your loved ones, a stranger in need, in a safe loving way. Remember to embrace the joy in the little things right now.
It won’t be long before we are together again and enjoying a glass of wine, surrounded by friends and family. Be Well!
