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“To travel is to live.”
If you’ve ever travelled, near or far, you’ll know this famous quote by Hans Christian Andersen to be true. After all, there’s just something so magical about getting on a plane, exploring new places and immersing yourself in different cultures.
That said, given that international travel restrictions aren’t due to be lifted until May 17th in England (at the earliest!), all of our travel hopes and dreams have been put on pause.
If this date feels like forever away, we totally hear you. However, there are some travel-related activities you can do at home in the meantime to boost your mood, reignite your passion for travelling and help you to look forward to a future full of adventures.
Here are 10 of them. (Thank us later!)
1. Write a Travel Bucket List
First things first, make a list of all of the places you want to visit once normality resumes.
These could be staycations in the UK, such as York, London or Edinburgh, or they could be far-flung destinations like Singapore, North Island, New Zealand or Cancun.
Either way, grab a fresh notebook and get scribbling to put yourself in a more positive mindset. You could even print out a map of the world, mark on it the places you’d like to go and then stick this up on your wall like a vision board.
(And vision boards are a great way to motivate you to work towards your goals!)
2. Plan Your Next Trip
Just because you’re unable to physically go on your next trip doesn’t mean that you can’t plan it. Right?
Pick a location, check out flights and find accommodation — and write all of this info down in your travel notebook.
Then you can simply refer back to it when we’ve been given the go-ahead and book the trip faster. Why? Well, because you’ve already done all of the hard work when it comes to planning, of course!
3. Organise Your Travel Photos
If you’re a keen traveller, it’s likely you’ve got streams and streams of travel photos that are hogging your camera roll (or computer hard drive).
Have a few hours to spare for home activities? Why not go through these photos and organise them into folders?
It’s also a good idea to back up all of your travel photos using an external hard drive just in case your technology becomes temperamental. (Hey, it happens to the best of us.)
4. Make a Travel Scrapbook
Once you’ve sorted through your travel photos, you could make a travel scrapbook of your latest escapades.
Each one could even have a theme, such as the following:
- Continent or country, i.e. North America trips
- Travel partner or group, i.e. family adventures
- Date or year, i.e. 2019 escapes
The choice is yours!
Either way, this kind of activity can unleash your creativity, help you reminisce happy memories and make you feel good every time you look through the photos. Winning.
5. Adorn Your Home With Travel Decor
Giving your home a bit of a makeover is a great way to stay productive and improve both your living environment and your mood.
You could create a room in your house that’s entirely travel-inspired and features travel-related items.
For example, make your bedroom a coastal haven by printing a beach SVG on cushions and canvases. Alternatively, give your kitchen a seaside feel by printing a sea turtle SVG on glasses and mugs.
The possibilities are endless!
6. Clear Out Your Travel Wardrobe
Research shows that a cluttered home can be a stressful home. By reducing clutter and owning less, you can minimise stress and feelings of overwhelm.
Get prepared for your next trip by having a holiday wardrobe clear out. Donate, gift or sell items that:
- No longer fit
- Are falling apart (and not fixable)
- You don’t absolutely love
Instead, curate a collection of travel fashion staples that you can wear and re-wear for every type of trip.
You can also go through your travel beauty items and throw out anything that’s passed its expiration date.
7. Clear Out Your Travel Equipment
Just like your travel clothes, shoes, accessories and toiletries, your travel equipment needs reviewing every now and again.
By travel equipment, we’re talking about your plug adaptors, padlocks, pillows, etc.!
If anything no longer works or is on its last legs, it may be time to say goodbye so you can make room for replacements.
8. Shop Online for Travel Items You’re Missing
You know how hectic life could get pre-pandemic and how big your “life admin” to-do list was on a weekend?
Make the most of the quiet time by shopping for the travel items you’re missing in your stash post-clear out.
This will ensure that you’re fully prepared for when travel resumes, which saves you time, energy and money at a later date.
9. Go on a Trip Virtually
If you’re really missing travel and it’s affecting your everyday happiness, this is one of the home activities for you. Did you know that you can now travel virtually?
That’s right — grab yourself your fave drink, sit back and relax as you wander the globe from the comfort of your living room.
- This YouTube channel allows you to ride some of the most popular rides at Disney World for free!
- Use Google Street View to transport you directly to a location you’ve always wanted to see.
- Watch travel vlogs on YouTube to get tips and tricks on places you plan to visit in the future.
- Go on virtual museum tours, such as the Prado Museum in Madrid and the Louvre in Paris.
- Download The Ascape VR 360° World Traveller app, which you can use with or without a virtual reality headset to look around hundreds of destinations worldwide.
And the best part about travelling virtually? No passport required!
10. Create an Instagram or Pinterest Account for Travel Quotes
Lastly, there’s no better way to fall in wanderlust than by gathering awesome travel quotes.
It’s also a good idea to save them so you can refer to them whenever you need a bit of a pick-me-up. Therefore, why not start your own travel-inspired Instagram account or board on Pinterest?
This will also enable you to meet a community of like-minded travellers so you can find comfort in the fact that you’re not alone and support each other through this difficult time.
Finding Home Activities that Inspire You to Travel
Having to adjust to non-essential travel being illegal has been hard for all of us.
Sure, these home activities that remind you of why you love to travel aren’t going to compare to physically stepping foot in a place (even if you’re exploring the Maldives virtually in full-screen mode). However, they’re better than doing nothing at all. Right?
Plus, it shouldn’t be long before we can travel properly again and tick off items on our travel bucket lists. In the meantime, be sure to keep your wanderlust spirit alive!
Katie Davies is the Yorkshire-based freelance writer who founded Trendy Tourist. Since 2017, she has written for over 100 companies on a range of subjects, from fashion to marketing. When she’s not producing content, you can find her shopping, exploring a new place or sitting somewhere having a cup of builder’s tea.
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