armchair tourism example

Armchair Travel: 16 Ways To Travel The World From Home

Got the wanderlust but you’re not able to travel anywhere at the moment? That’s okay – you can become an armchair traveler and explore all the places you want from the comfort of your bed.

You’ll need a computer or a smartphone, a good internet connection, and an idea of a place you want to explore. Nothing else is required for armchair travel, and if your interest is peaked, you can read all about armchair travel right here in this detailed guide!

What Is Armchair Travel?

Armchair travel is kind of like a staycation, but instead of exploring the local attractions, you don’t even have to leave the house. It’s discovering new places from the comfort of your chair, hence the term armchair travel.

It can include anything from looking over photos from your past trips to spending hours on Google Earth, walking around the streets of a city you’ve never been to. It’s pretty much just detaching yourself from your current surroundings and immersing yourself in things related to a different country so that for a moment you actually feel like you are there.

It’s as simple as reading a book about Paris while listening to Edith Piaf and eating a croissant.

16 Ways To Travel The World From Home

Technology has come far enough to allow us to travel the world from the comfort of your own home. Well, not quite, but it’s almost there – you can explore the streets of any country in the world from the comfort of your bedroom, you can learn about the best restaurants, and you can even do virtual tours of museums and other famous attractions – you just have to zoom in enough on the world map. That’s the beauty of living in the age of virtual reality and 360-degree images.

I’m just getting started, and here are even more armchair travel ideas that will help you explore your dream destination from home!

Read Travel Blogs

Just because you can’t hop on an airplane and head to a new destination doesn’t mean you can’t learn about it and explore it. Reading travel blogs is a good way to explore new countries through the eyes and lenses of other travelers.

It’s a form of virtual travel that allows you to draw from other people’s experiences. The key is to find a travel blogger you can relate to and whose content you enjoy reading. Immerse yourself in their content, and sooner than you know it, you’ll become an expert on a destination you’ve never even visited.

There are thousands of travel blogs run by people from all around the world, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find at least one that you enjoy.

Virtually Explore US National Parks

Most US National Parks offer virtual tours that are absolutely perfect for an armchair traveler. You can explore any national park you want from the comfort of your home, and you can even peek inside museums and other unique attractions that the national parks have.

Of course, it’s not the same as reaping the benefits of a hot spring inside a national park, but it’s a great way to explore nature and get to know more about the national parks. There’s also the added benefit of not having to deal with snakes, bugs, and the changing weather that’s so common in the NPs.

Head to the Google Arts & Culture website to see all the 52 national parks and historic sites from the US that have made their collections available for digital exploration. You can also see loads of other famous attractions from countries all over the world here, but more details on that later.

Read A Travel-Related Book

If you’re a bookworm, this is the easiest way to become an armchair traveler. Find some travel-related books that you enjoy reading and allow yourself to live in their worlds for the next few days.

Also, a travel-related book can be anything. It could be the autobiography of your favorite artist who recounts all the places life has taken him to, a proper travel guide to a different country, or even a fiction novel set in a foreign country.

Travel guides and coffee table books related to travel are the safest options if you’re not an avid reader. From travel guides through the US to detailed exploration of Italy’s best beaches – there are countless travel books out there, and you just need to search for one that’s about the destination you’re most interested in.

Those who prefer fiction have even more options. I can’t help myself and I have to recommend Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole series – the popular crime novels are set in Norway, primarily Oslo, and the detailed descriptions of the city’s top sights will truly transport you to the Nordics for a moment.

Listen To Travel Podcast

Not a big fan of reading or watching TV? Put on a travel podcast then and listen to other people recount the details of their latest trips. You’ll hear some fun and interesting stories for sure, but you may also learn about the inconveniences that might arise should you choose to travel to the same destinations.

We Travel There is a great podcast hosted by Lee Huffman. He interviews locals from all around the world, so every episode is about a different city. The local attractions and best places to visit are usually highlighted in each episode, making this podcast worth checking out even when you’re planning a travel itinerary.

Where To Go is also a great podcast, mostly because it’s hosted by the team behind DK Eyewitness travel guides. They’re some of the best travel guides out there, and the podcast episodes truly give them a run for their money.

Watch Travel Vlogs On Youtube

There are countless travel vloggers trying to make a living by doing the one thing they love most – traveling. You can support them and help them make their dreams come true by consuming their content and exploring the different countries of the world from the comfort of your own couch.

Finding a travel vlogger you like shouldn’t be too challenging, especially with so many different options out there. The key is to find a person you genuinely enjoy watching, otherwise, you won’t be able to focus on the travel destinations!

You can also find live camera streams on YouTube from countries all over the world. They usually include short snippets from various cameras, but it’s a great way to get a glimpse of distant landscapes and everyday life in foreign countries in just a few minutes. Plus, if you see a stream that you particularly like, you can always just find that specific live camera and refer to it whenever you want.

Enroll in A Travel-Related Course

If you still enjoy learning and you’ve particularly interested in travel, why not enroll in a travel-related course. Working on yourself and furthering your education is always a good thing, and you never know what opportunities may present themselves after you’ve completed the course.

I’m not saying enroll in a five-year college course about tourism, but you can take various online and offline courses on a myriad of topics relating to travel. The best way to get started is to get acquainted with all the different diplomas and certificates that are relevant to the tourism industry.

There are dozens of them, and there are many ways to earn them, from attending free online courses to enrolling in MBA degree programs.

Learn what it takes to become a travel agent, get a certificate that allows you to be a tour guide in your hometown, or complete a flight attendant training program. There are countless travel-related courses you can take, and you just need to see which ones interest you the most. This can also increase your chances of getting a job with one of the travel companies if that’s something you are interested in.

Additionally, you can also enroll in language-related courses. They usually include learning about the culture, literature, and history of the country whose language you’re learning, plus learning a new language is always a great idea.

Cook Your Favorite Dishes From Around The World

Exploring a new country means exploring its cuisine and getting to know all of its different flavors. So, if you’re feeling like traveling somewhere but you can’t actually go to that country, you can try to make it – or at least a tiny bit of it – in your own kitchen.

Turn to YouTube or one of a million different recipe websites, and find a dish you enjoy from the cuisine of the country you want to visit. Tacos will immediately fill the room with staple smells from South America, a good curry can never not remind you of India, and sushi is entirely self-explanatory.

So, if you can’t go on a trip right this minute but you’re desperate to at least feel like you’re traveling, just make your entire kitchen smell like a street full of food vendors from that country!

Watch TV Shows Related To Travel

Sometimes it’s enough for a show to be filmed at the right location for it to become extremely popular. Emily in Paris proved that – despite the fact that the show was criticized for a number of different things, it remained extremely popular and mostly because of the fact that it’s filmed in Paris.

People love to tune in to see Lily Collins strolling down the cobblestone alleys of Montmartre and enjoying croissants with a fabulous view of the Eiffel Tower, and I have to admit I’m also guilty of binging both seasons.

It doesn’t have to be a show about one specific city – there are countless travel shows that will satisfy your wanderlust for a moment, and many of them feature a different city or country in every episode. Put on some of Anthony Bourdain’s classics – No Reservations and Parts Unkown are still some of the best shows that combine food and travel!

The Grand Tour is another gem that covers remote destinations from around the world, and it’s particularly interesting for car lovers. But you don’t have to be into cars to appreciate the humor of Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond, and you certainly don’t need to know anything about vehicles to admire the spectacular landscapes that are featured in the episodes of this humorous travel show.

Watch Travel Movies

If you don’t want to commit to an entire TV show, you can just put on a travel movie. Into The Wild is a textbook example of a travel movie, and probably the best-known film in the genre. But a travel movie can be almost anything, as long as it’s set in the place that you’re yearning to visit.

I get the urge to travel to Sicily whenever I watch Godfather, and I doubt anyone would consider that a travel movie. But the beautiful landscapes that Al Pacino escapes to are so fascinating that, for a moment, it’s entirely possible to forget you’re watching a movie about mobsters.

The entire Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight trilogy showcases the beauty of spectacular European cities – Vienna, Paris, and Greece, in that order. Mamma Mia also depicts the beauty of Croatian and Greek islands, and it’s a great film to put on if you’re dreaming about a beach vacation.

Wild, starring Reese Whitherspoon, follows an inexperienced hiker setting out on the Pacific Crest Trail. The entire movie was shot on location, so it features the actual highlights of the iconic US long-distance hiking trail.

Go On A Virtual Tour of World’s Famous Museums

Some of the most famous museums in the entire world offer free virtual tours, and you should take advantage of that. J Paul Getty Museum, London’s Natural History Museum, and Musée d’Orsay in Paris have all made their collections available for virtual exploration.

Head to Google Arts & Culture again to go through the collections of these museums. You can even browse the various digital collections they have by genre or time period, so finding a collection curated specifically for you is easier than ever.

Learn A New Language

Learning an entirely new language is the best form of armchair travel. Not only does it get you closer to the culture of a country you’re fascinated by, but it’s also a way of developing a new skill that you can use for the rest of your life.

Learning a new language isn’t exactly the easiest thing you can do to satisfy your wanderlust, but it’s certainly the most useful one. You’ll particularly be happy you took up that happy if you manage to travel to the country whose native language you’ve mastered!

Also, keep in mind that learning a new language usually includes learning about the history and culture of that country, as well as reading a few books written by the nation’s most prominent writers. So, you’re not just learning how to talk to locals on your next trip, but you’re also getting a complete guide to the most important landmarks and attractions of the country you choose!

Plan Your Next Trip

Do you already have a destination in mind for your next trip? Then why not start planning it right now. You don’t have to purchase airplane tickets if you’re not sure when you’ll be able to go, but it’s a good idea to start researching other details that will come in handy during your trip.

Look at hotels and AirBnBs to see where you would like to stay and be sure to check out all the top tourist attractions and things to do at the destination. You can even make little maps for any future trip, and you can refer to the map when you actually arrive at that destination.

If you often go on road trips, you already know just how much planning goes into them, if you want things to go smoothly. You can get a head start on your next trip right now – it will get you excited about the trip, plus you can plan out a good chunk of the road trip.

Reminisce About Your Past Trips

Nothing can transport you through time and place quite like a personal photograph. Blow the dust off your online albums and take the time to go through all the 2365 photos you took on that trip to Rio de Janeiro. It can’t be just me that takes a million photos wherever I’m in a new city, and it can’t just be me that never looks at them again.

Take the time to go through the old photos and choose your favorites. You can even print them out if you like and create a travel collage to hang on a wall. Or you can just turn them into a throwback post.

You can also use this opportunity to make room in your phone for photographs you’ll take on your upcoming trips. Delete any blurry shots, images you don’t like, or images that you have a dozen copies of, and create some space for the photographs of places you’re yet to visit!

Create A Travel Scrapbook

Now that we all have amazing cameras in our pockets, it seems like we’re always taking photos, but never taking the time to go through them. Do you remember going through your childhood albums, and how happy you’d be when you saw that one photo you have a great memory of? Or when you looked at images from your travels as a kid?

You can still do that now, even if you’re a full-blown adult. You can even create an album if you want, but a travel scrapbook is a bit more fun. Go through the photos of the last (or any) place you visited, and select the ones you like the most and you want to have in your travel scrapbook.

If you need some travel inspiration, why not dedicate a few pages to every destination you visited. Print out your favorite photos with your friends and family, but also of the landmarks you liked and any places that stood out. Put all the photos in the scrapbook, and be sure to write little captions beneath the photos.

If you do go through with this, two decades from now, when your travel memories start to fade, you’ll be thrilled every time you lay eyes on your little travel scrapbook.

Play A Travel-Themed (Board) Game

Why not try a travel-themed board game to satisfy your itch for a quick trip? Trekking The World is one of the best-selling board games out there, and it’s great for families and friend groups of up to five people. You play the game by racing to visit as many countries in the world as you can and you collect souvenirs along the way. It’s extremely fun, and a great way to learn about some of the most popular destinations in the world.

The World Game is a travel-themed card game for up to five players. It tests your knowledge of geography by asking you to name the capitals of countries, point them out on a map, or guess their flag. It’s a fun card game, but only if you’re into geography.

It’s worth noting that board games aren’t the only types of games you can play that are related to travel. If you’re into gaming, you’ve got even more options when it comes to armchair travel! Many recent AAA games are set in existing cities, and most of those open worlds are incredibly detailed and pretty true to life.

Not all the details will be identical, but it’s important to point out that the reconstruction of Notre Dame will be done with the help of Ubisoft’s drawings that they used to recreate the iconic church in their Assassin’s Creed Unity game.

You can walk through the streets of London, New York, San Francisco, Paris, Tokyo, and many other cities if you’ve got a computer that can run newer AAA games. If not, just try Geouesser – the online game is one of the best things for armchair travel, especially if you want to explore places off the beaten path.

Socialize With Fellow Travel Enthusiasts on Social Media

If all else fails, turn to social media. Go on Reddit, Instagram, or even Facebook and find a group of like-minded travel enthusiasts with whom you can share travel stories and photos. This is also a great way to meet new people and make friends, and you could potentially travel with those people sometime.

But it’s a way of armchair traveling that only extroverts will consider, so it’s definitely not for everyone. You could be one of those people that lurk around the groups and forums, taking in all the stories and images, but not sharing anything with strangers.

About the Author Anna Timbrook

Anna is the co-owner of expert world travel and can't wait to share her travel experience with the world. With over 54 countries under her belt she has a lot to write about! Including those insane encounters with black bears in Canada.

Mastering Armchair Travel: 10 Ways to Enjoy Travel from Home

Last Updated: April 1, 2021

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In a time when the farthest I travel is literally from my desk to my fridge, antsy has become my middle name. And as a travel blogger unable to travel, I suppose you can say I’ve kinda been fired. From a job where I’m the boss.

Despite this setback however, I have discovered the wonders of armchair travel, and wow – what a world.

You heard me – armchair travel, as in the art of vicarious travel from the comfort of your armchair, bed, bean bag, or hey, even the toilet (I’m not here to judge).

And I mean sure, armchair travel may not command the same glittery glamour as necking aperitivo in Milan or gliding through Switzerland by train , but it’s travel you can do in your underwear AND nobody will even call the cops.

So, if you’re feeling weary from gazing blankly out the window or simply want to read something that will distract you from the bleary news ticker, here’s a guide to the wonderful world of armchair travel, with 10 (actually satisfying) ways to enjoy travel from home.

Editor’s note : the following methods will feel more like real travel if you are also cradling an infant-sized margarita. My jokes may also seem funnier. Carry on.

Save this guide to armchair travel for later!

You’ll be very glad you did.

1. Binge travel blogs & videos

Let’s begin this post with a Christina signature move, shall we? Pure desperation.

Please, if you find yourself in need of some mindless entertainment while weathering this dystopian storm, try to support independent creatives as much as you can.

Reading blogs (if you’re here right now, wow you’re super ahead) and watching YouTube videos is an incredible free way to help keep your favourite creatives’ businesses afloat.

So yes, allow me to quickly hurl my YouTube channel at you real quick. Catch!

It’s a tough time for businesses and individuals all around the world, but freelancers and small business owners are especially feeling the pinch (particularly in the travel industry), SO if you crave something to fill your boredom gaps, please consider supporting the many bloggers, vloggers and creatives in your life.

We need you more than ever! And we’re free. SO FREE. * relentless sobbing *

2. Snoop around on virtual museums and apps

For my fellow museum lovers, there’s an easy way for you to get your fix while nestled in the arms of your own comfy bed.

Many of the most famous museums in the world actually have virtual tours that you can do, including the Louvre, the MET, the British Museum, and more. Click here for a huge list I put together.

To get your culture fix, I can highly recommend the Google Arts and Culture website and app . It’s filled with interesting articles about art, culture, and history intrigue.

PLUS it has the most incredible feature called “Art Selfie” where you snap a selfie and they compare it to their archives to find your fine art doppelgänger. See below for the fair maiden I supposedly resemble.

Download for iOS | Download for Android

3. Find the hidden gems of the world with Secret Door

So this is a really clunky website that screams early 2000s, but I am still mildly obsessed with it.

Long story short, Secret Door is a site where you open a virtual door and it randomly brings you to a hidden gem of the world via Google Street View. Imagine Chat Roulette (throwbackkk!) but for quirky places around the world. Much like a girls’ outing involving tequila, you never know where you’ll end up.

For example, one visit brought me to an eerie art museum in Spain, another brought me to a colourful Willy Wonka inspired candy shop, and my last visit dropped me off RIGHT on the train tracks of the Bernina Express !!

NOTE: I find that the site can be a little glitchy, so I usually have to reload it each time I want to re-open the door, otherwise it won’t work properly… but still, give it a try here ! It’s cool.

4. Explore a random place on Earth with MapCrunch

In a similar vein, there’s another website called MapCrunch that ALSO drops you off in a random Google Streetview location, except it doesn’t necessarily focus on unique/hidden gems… it literally drops you off anywhere.

You might be thinking “why would I want that, Christina? Why?”

WELL, besides getting to catch a glimpse of daily life somewhere completely random in the world, this site was actually the source of a viral internet game of the early 2010s… basically, if (on desktop) you navigate to the MapCrunch Options tab, you can check a box on the bottom the says “Stealth” which will drop you off in a random Streetview location without telling you where you are…

The objective of the game is to pretend you woke up in this random location and somehow navigate your way “home” by finding the closest airport. Tough right? Can you imagine? A great game to play with friends if you want to race. Might be more fun if you’re mildly drunk, but what in life isn’t?

5. Spy on worldwide webcams

Okay, this fact might either be really cool or really creepy depending on your persuasion, but did you know the world is covered with cameras that stream everything live to webcams 24/7?

(Alright, I admit it does sound a little creepy when I put it that way)

Nonetheless, checking out these webcams is prime armchair travel material. Sites like EarthCam have live HD webcams from all over the world, so you can quickly check in on Times Square or the balmy waves of the Maldives all while eating guacamole by the fistful in your other hand. In fact, I’m writing this article while watching sunset at the Eiffel Tower! (I will save my guac for later.)

NOTE: While not live, if you get tired of staring at webcam footage, you can also go for an HD view of the world by checking out Full Screen 360 where there is plenty of 360 degree eye candy from interesting places around the world, from beautiful Cinque Terre to even my beloved Munich!

6. Stream some wanderlusty movies or TV shows

In the world of streaming, Netflix is of course king, but if you want to expand your horizons (or take advantage of something free!), you can register for a free one month trial of Amazon Prime Video and binge their huge library of free content (or otherwise rummage through their very extensive paid offerings).

In terms of recommendations, I have a list of great travel movies to watch here.

Show-wise, here are some quick recommendations:

Departures – One of my favourite all-time travel shows. It’s about 2 Canadian guys that hit the road and travel the world through personal connections/friendships, so you get a good mix of tourist sights and local secrets/know-how. It’s a little dated now (originally recorded in 2008), but guess what? These legends have put a lot of full episodes on YOUTUBE for FREE! Check them out here.
An Idiot Abroad – A hilarious and mildly offensive show that’s great if you want something a little different than your standard travel programme. It’s a documentary series that follows Karl Pilkington, a guy with zero interest in travel and global cultures…. being forced to travel by his friends Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais. If you like Ricky Gervais humour, this is a must-watch. Watch it here.
Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown – Like many travel enthusiasts, I adore everything from Anthony Bourdain, but there’s just something about Parts Unknown with its incredible visuals and storytelling that makes it my favourite. Watch it here.

7. Cook up global inspired dishes

If you often find yourself traveling for food, sending your tastebuds on their own lil voyage might be the most delicious form of armchair travel you can enjoy right now… all the better if you’re learning to make it yourself (because then your gluttony can be disguised as self-actualization.

Trust me, I’ve been doing it for years).

Where can you get free ideas and tutorials for recipes?

Honestly, YouTube is such a wealth of information these days that I can guarantee you’ll find a video teaching you to cook any foreign dish of your choosing!

If you’re feeling especially fancy though, you can also purchase online cooking classes! This is an amazing way to support local businesses who might be suffering otherwise due to the dip in tourism.

8. Enjoy a country-inspired night in

Combining points 6 and 7, for extra dorkiness points, consider hosting a country themed night-in. Simply pick a special film that’s focused on a destination and cook a meal (or order one in if you feel like it) related to that destination.

You can even have a watch party with friends on Skype (or do a group viewing on Netflix Party ) and all tackle the same recipe together before/after.

Some ideas for your country inspired soirée:

Watch Parasite and make ramdon – not the most wanderlusty combo but this is the best movie I’ve seen in years so I have to recommend it
Watch Amélie and have roast chicken + creme brûlée – you’ll see why if you watch the movie. Bonus if you buy some fresh raspberries to eat from your fingers
Watch Eat Pray Love and Pizza Napolitana or Spaghetti all’Amatriciana – truthfully, the spaghetti will probably be easier to make from home…
Watch Crazy Rich Asians and dumplings or Hokkien Fried Mee – in addition to wanderlust, a bonus side effect of this movie is it will make you feel incredibly poor and alone

9. Cozy up with a good travel book

At a time when we’re constantly bombarded with one distressing headline after the next, boyyy does it feel good to curl up with a nice book far away from the horror-show that is social media.

So, treat yourself to some wanderlusty reads! Blogs are great, but there’s something unbeatably satisfying about holding a book.

Now, while I prepare myself for excommunication from the League of Extraordinary Bloggers for saying that, let me think of some recommendations…

I’ll be very honest, I haven’t read a ton of travel memoirs, but one hilarious classic I can wholeheartedly recommend if you’re looking for a good laugh is What I was Doing While You Were Breeding. Otherwise, if you want something more conventionally travelly (but a tad cliché), I did also enjoy Eat Pray Love. Please let me know in the comments if you have any travel memoirs that you would highly recommend!

Otherwise, if you’re looking for some non-travel related reads, I’ve been really into memories from awesome female comedians lately, and both Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? and Bossypants are great.

NOTE: If you don’t mind reading off a Kindle, you can click here for a free month of Kindle unlimited… all you can read!

10. Try actual virtual reality

Lastly, despite being a millennial who works on the Internet, I am shockingly out of touch with technology and how far it has come. Did you know for instance that virtual reality travel is a thing now?

Like, not just in testing phases, not just a clunky pixellated prototype, you can literally just buy an entry-level headset online that uses your phone?

… I only discovered this while researching armchair travel options for this article, and I have to say this one might just take the cake.

There are all sorts of apps that you can download on your phone (both free and paid) that allow you to enjoy really cool virtual reality travel experiences all around the world.

Better yet, there are full-blown YouTube videos now that can be watched in VR mode, which is how I spent my lockdown Spring in Europe taking a taxi ride through New York City, enjoying an overwater villa in the Maldives and even gliding through space , all of which I just did in my pyjamas in Munich.

If you’re interested in this, I got this set for really cheap and it works great!

Any more ideas for armchair travel?

I’m all ears! I hope you enjoyed this read… and safe travels (from the couch).

My Go-To Travel Favourites:

🧳 Eagle Creek: My favourite packing cubes

💳 Wise: For FREE travel friendly credit cards

🍯 Airalo: My go-to eSIM

🏨 Booking.com: For searching hotels

📷 Sony A7IV: My (amazing) camera

✈️ Google Flights : For finding flight deals

🌎 WorldNomads: For travel insurance

🎉 GetYourGuide: For booking activities

Travel career break resources

A complete guide to armchair travel: how to see the world from your home.

Is it possible to travel without leaving your home? With a little creativity, yes it is! While there is no substitute for the real thing, there are still ways to experience the world without actually going anywhere. Being confined during lockdowns really helped us to use our imaginations to bring the wider world into our homes while dreaming and planning for the future. Welcome to the world of armchair travel! In this guide, we explore the many ways you can bring the whole wide world into the place you live.

This site contains links to some products and services we love, which we may make commission from at no extra cost to you.

In this article:

What is armchair travel?

The term ‘armchair travel’ has been around for a while, but its focus used to be on sensory travel experiences for elderly and physically incapacitated people. But in the post-pandemic world, the term has gained a far broader meaning.

With people travelling less for a variety of reasons – restrictions, climate change and financial challenges to name a few – many are seeking ways to have worldly experiences through other means.

Armchair travel is all about discovering the world without actually going anywhere. Whether that’s through virtual experiences, planning a future trip or bringing the world into your home, there are many ways to do it. Let’s begin.

Armchair travel: discover the world through popular culture

So much of the world’s best literature, music and cinema has been inspired by places and journeys. When real travel is not possible, there is an endless supply of books, movies, documentaries, music, podcasts and other media we can draw upon to connect ourselves with the wider world.

Art inspired by travel provides a form of escapism like no other. It can transport us out of our living rooms to anywhere in the world, and make us dream about another existence, and explore new possibilities.

Get lost in a travel book

I once heard it said that if you have enough money to pay the rent and buy books, then you are rich. It’s a comforting thought that even when you cannot actually travel, you can still experience it vicariously through the words of others.

We recently compiled 35 of the best books about travel chosen by bloggers around the world. It’s a mixture of classics and underrated gems, and stories about places and personal journeys. These are three of our favourite travel-inspired books:

In Patagonia

I read Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia on a 24-hour bus ride into the region. The anecdotes and vivid descriptions made me hungry for exploration.

Notes from a Small Island

Bill Bryson writes about his farewell trip around the UK. Notes from a Small Island taught me so much I didn’t know about my homeland.

Lisa raved about Cheryl Strayed’s self discovery on the Pacific Crest Trail told in Wild for weeks after reading it. The movie is pretty good too.

Find travel inspiration on the screen

Reading isn’t everyone’s idea of fun, but most people love a good movie every now and again. A great story set in a stunning location is the perfect recipe for firing up some wanderlust.

We’re working on a compilation of the best travel movies to share with you soon (I’ve never had more fun in researching an article), but for now, here are a couple of trailers for our favourite travel-related flicks:

I’m biased because Patagonia is my favourite place. The movie doesn’t feature the region’s prettiest parts, but has gorgeous nighttime shots, and lots of rural Wales too.

Funny, compelling, fast-paced, and beautifully shot in the medieval city of Bruges. I saw this a week after going there, and the direction really does justice to the place.

Listen to travel podcasts

Of all the advancements in media technology over the last couple of decades – and there have been many – I think the emergence of podcasts is my favourite. The freedom to dip in and out of episodes at any time has even made me enjoy doing house chores. Exercise is also a lot more fun with earphones in and a good podcast on.

There’s a lot of great innovation out there when it comes to travel podcasting. Here’s a selection of some of the very best currently available. These are three of my go-to travel podcasts:

World Nomads Travel Podcast

A travel insurance provider that runs a podcast featuring inspiring traveller interviews .

World Wanderers

Hosts Amanda and Ryan bring you on their journey – Lisa and I featured on an episode a while back.

Travel Like A Boss

Johnny FD interviews location-independent entrepreneurs and digital nomads about their lifestyle.

Build your own travel soundtrack

Whenever we feel like reminiscing about our travels, Lisa and I open a bottle of wine and stick on some tunes that remind us of being in at a Buenos Aires asado night, an island party in the Philippines or a road trip in New Zealand.

If you’re dreaming about a future trip, do a bit of research and put together a playlist of songs that are popular in a country you want to visit. Here’s a cracking playlist I found that takes me right back to South America. The latin beats will be sure to get you fired up for future adventures (although unfortunately it does include Despacito , sorry about that…).

Alternatively, try listening to some songs with a travel-related theme, like a road trip or a particular place. Here’s a playlist of travel songs I put together with a mixture of classics and obscure belters.

Build your skills for travelling tomorrow

Travel is brilliant for learning new career skills , but there’s nothing to stop you getting started at home beforehand. If there is a particular skill you want to develop on your next trip, then why not do some groundwork ahead of time, whether by reading up or taking an online course. Here are some examples:

Learn scuba theory

Becoming qualified divers is one of the most fulfilling things we’ve done while travelling. SDI’s e-learning programme helps you start your scuba education.

Learn to blog

Blogging is a great way to record your travels, and you can also make it a source of income. Learn how to do it by taking the Blogging Fast Lane course .

Learn a language

Prepare for future travels by learning some language basics. I’m working on my Spanish, and my go-to resource is The Spanish Dude YouTube channel.

Ways to see the world from home

It’s true that there’s nothing like the real thing, but today it’s easier than ever to bring travel experiences into the place you live. The growing popularity of armchair travel has led many major attractions around the world to create simulations and replications that can be digested through a computer screen or television.

Virtual tours

If you fire up YouTube and simply search for “360 virtual travel tours” you will find an extensive supply of panoramic videos to explore landmarks and cities around the world. Below I’ve picked out four of my favourite virtual tours in South America, three of which are places Lisa and I have been, along with another we hope to visit soon:

Patagonia, Argentina and Chile

This creation by The Guardian gives an insight into Patagonia, the most incredible place we’ve seen. Check our Patagonia itinerary to plan your own trip.

Machu Picchu, Peru

One of the Seven New Wonders of the World, this virtual tour explores the legend of Machu Picchu. Here’s our beginners’ guide to hiking the Inca Trail .

Angel Falls, Venezuela

Deep in the Venezuelan jungle, Angel Falls is the world’s highest uninterrupted waterfall. This 360 depiction shows why it’s high on our bucket list .

Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro

We preferred the view from Sugarloaf Mountain on our two days in Rio , but this 360 video shows the breathtaking landscape around the iconic statue.

Virtual museums and art galleries

Google Arts & Culture has partnered with museums around the world to make their displays accessible through virtual tours and exhibitions. Meanwhile, a growing number of museums and galleries are creating online experiences. Below we’ve picked out three cultural hubs we’ve visited on our travels that you can explore through Google’s project.

MASP, São Paulo

This art museum was a highlight of our time in the southern hemisphere’s biggest city. The virtual tour gives you a peek at the latest exhibits.

Maritime Museum, Sydney

We paid a trip to the Australian National Maritime Museum when we were in Sydney. Now we can revisit the stories of the sea online .

Doge’s Palace, Venice

We began our two days in Venice by perusing the fabled Doge’s Palace. The virtual tour enables you to see the highlights without all the crowds.

Take a random journey on Google Earth

Remember that “I’m feeling lucky” button under the Google search bar? Well, they’ve introduced it to the Google Earth interface, allowing you to pay a random virtual visit to places of interest around the world.

I just gave it a test ride, and in the space of a few seconds it took me to the San Miguel stratovolcano in El Salvador, Palmerstone Island in the Cook Islands and the Wat Traimit buddhist temple in Thailand (which we actually visited in real life during our week in Bangkok ). Give Google Earth a whirl and see where it takes you .

Channel your creative spirit

Digesting virtual experiences is one way to feed your travel bug at home, but an alternative that can be even more rewarding is to create worldly experiences of your own. A few months after we returned home from a round-the-world world trip, Lisa wrote about ways to keep your travel passion alive at home , with a strong focus on creativity.

Here are six ways you can channel your creative spirit at home to bring travel vibes into your everyday life:

Travel-inspired home decor

Bring the world into your surroundings at home by decorating with a travel-inspired twist. Here are some ideas for travel-themed home decor.

Try photography at home

Another great skill to build that will come in handy when you travel. Get the camera out and practice with rooms, objects, pets and people.

Take photos of the stars

If you have a garden or outdoor space, head out at night and try your hand at astrophotography. Our guide to the Elqui Valley explains the basics.

Write world-inspired poetry

Put pen to paper and write some poems inspired by places you’ve been or dreams of future travel. You could even write a travel-themed novel.

Do a worldly jigsaw puzzle

There is an almost hypnotically therapeutic quality to jigsaw puzzles. We love spending an afternoon solving one with a travel-related image.

Create a travel mood board

Get yourself a pinboard (I have one with a world map on it) and fill it with images and tokens that make you think about places you’ve been.

Dream and plan a future trip

If there is no travel on your immediate horizon, it could be the perfect time to dream up a future trip. Our 101 guide to planning a round-the-world trip walks through the vital steps, beginning with the dreaming stage. Reach out to friends who have travelled, immerse yourself in travel-themed popular culture, and write down some ideas.

With more time on your hands, you could go a step further and use the chance to start planning a travel career break .

Bring the world into your kitchen

Discovering new tastes and cooking traditions is one of the things we love most about travel, and thankfully it’s a joy that’s easy to take home. Cook up some international cuisine and it will bring the flavour of your travels into everyday life.

Here are three of our favourite cuisines to cook at home – enjoy with an exotic beer or a suitable bottle of wine:

We took a cooking class in Vietnam and loved it. At home we turn to My Vietnamese Kitchen to make our favourites like pho and bun cha.

After gorging on ceviche, causa and other Peruvian cuisine for a month we bought Andina to try and recreate some of the recipes at home.

Lisa has become a pro with Italian cooking since our tour of wineries in Umbria . To get on top of the basics, get a copy of Mastering Pasta .

Have you found any more ways to feed your love of travel while at home? Let us know in the comments below.

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Alex trembath.

Alex is the co-founder and lead content creator at Career Gappers. He is an award-winning communications leader with 20 years of leadership experience, a career that has taken him across the world working with international organisations. Alex has travelled to over 50 countries and is a passionate advocate for blending work and travel by taking career breaks, sabbaticals, workations and business trips.

Armchair Travel: How To Virtually Explore The World

Want to travel but haven't got the funds or the time? No problem! You can explore the world from the comfort of your own home with armchair travel. Here's how.

Ways to travel the world virtually from the comfort of your armchair

What is an armchair traveler?

Armchair travel is the act of exploring a place, learning about a culture, or going on an adventure without leaving your home. It's the perfect way to learn about new cultures and destinations, and it can be a great way to escape your everyday life for a little while.

Being and armchair traveler doesn't mean you're lazy, it just means you're resourceful! There are endless ways to armchair travel, and with a little creativity, you can go anywhere in the world without even stepping out your front door.

Related: Why people like to travel

How to armchair travel

There are many ways to armchair travel, but some of the most popular methods include:

Travel Blogs

Well, I suppose I would say this, wouldn't I?! But travel blogs are a fantastic resource for armchair travelers.

Whether you're planning a road trip, searching for information on a dream destination , or just looking for some inspiration, travel blogs are a great way to explore the world from your armchair. You can even interact with other travelers and get first-hand insights and recommendations.

Here at Dave's Travel Pages for example, you will find blog posts relating to bicycle touring as well as how to plan a vacation in Greece . My site is the perfect inspiration for armchair travel lovers!

Vlogs are also a good way to find out information about different places around the world, and to see things you normally wouldn't. Watching YouTube videos, like this one from Kleftiko Bay in Milos, Greece sure does make you want to visit there!

Social Media

Social media is a powerful tool that can be used for much more than just staying in touch with friends and family. With a little bit of exploration, you can use social media to armchair travel.

Start by following some travel bloggers, pages, and hashtags on your favorite platform. This will help you find interesting content and accounts to follow.

Other people's travel experiences can be a great source of inspiration and information for your own armchair travels. Following along on someone else's journey can be a great way to see the world without even leaving your home.

You can also use social media to connect with people from all over the world. Joining online communities and groups is a great way to learn about new cultures and make friends from different parts of the globe. Who knows, you might even find some armchair travel buddies!

Virtual Tours

One of the best ways to armchair travel is to take advantage of the wealth of information and experiences that are available online. There are now virtual tours for some of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, and they're a great way to explore a place without even leaving your living room.

You can find virtual tours for museums, historical sites, natural wonders, and more. Many of these tours are interactive, which means you can explore at your own pace and choose what you want to see.

While virtual travel experiences can never replace the real thing, they're a great way to get a taste of a new place. Some even allow you to see ancient sites as they were meant to be seen – without the crowds!

Some virtual tours you could look for include:

Sistine Chapel
Machi Picchu in Peru
Western Australia
National Parks
The Great Wall of China

Books are the most popular way both plan a future trip and to armchair travel. When you read about a destination, you can almost feel like you're there.

If you want to learn more about a specific place, try reading books set in that location or by authors from that culture. A guide travel book like Lonely Planet or Rick Steves can also be a great resource. Did you know I have a guidebook about Milos now available on Amazon?

For armchair travel, fiction books can be just as good as non-fiction. If you want to explore a new culture, try reading a book set in that country. You can even read books in translation to get a taste of another language and culture.

They can transport you to new places, teach you about other cultures, and give you a different perspective on the world. If you're not sure where to start, try reading some travel memoirs, novels set in different countries, or even cookbooks from around the world.

You can also read books about how to stay safe when you eventually do travel such as this one: Looking for Lemons .

If you're looking for travel inspiration, nothing quite beats a good travel movie. There are now travel channels and entire networks dedicated to travel content, so you're sure to find something to suit your interests.

Whether you want to watch documentaries about far-flung places, learn how to cook local dishes, or just see some beautiful scenery, there's a travel movie out there for you.

Don't know where to start? I've got a complete guide here to the best movies to inspire wanderlust .

Travel Songs and Playlists

Let's not forget the power of music! Songs can transport you to different places and times, and they can be the perfect way to set the mood for armchair travel.

If you want to explore a specific destination, try finding songs about that place or by artists from that culture. You can also find travel-themed playlist on Spotify and other music streaming platforms.

Here's some great songs to add to a travel playlist you can have in the background as you travel from the comfort of your armchair!

Google Earth

For people who want to explore the world from the comfort of their own home, Google Earth is a must. This free program allows you to see satellite images of almost anywhere in the world.

You can explore cities, landmarks , natural wonders, and more. You can even take a virtual tour of some of the most popular tourist destinations. Google Earth is a great way to get a bird's-eye view of the world and to armchair travel to far-flung places.

National Geographic

If you want to explore the world without leaving your home, National Geographic is a great place to start. This website has a wealth of information about different cultures and destinations, as well as beautiful photos and videos.

You can learn about different cultures, find travel tips, and even plan your next trip. National Geographic is a great resource for armchair travelers and anyone who loves to explore the world.

Put a big map on the wall

No armchair traveller should be without a map! Not only will it help you plan future trips, but it's also a great way to track the places you've been virtually.

Talk to family and friends

What better way to learn about the world than to talk to family and friends who have traveled?

They can tell you about their experiences, recommend places to visit, and even provide some insider tips. If you don't have any friends or family who have traveled, try joining an online forum or social media group dedicated to travel.

Tips On Virtual Experiences and Travel Inspiration

Here's a few quick tips to get the most out of armchair travel:

Find a comfortable spot to relax in and make yourself comfortable.
Put on some music or background noise that sets the mood and helps you relax.
Make sure you have everything you need within reach, including snacks and drinks!
Have a map handy so you can follow along with the places you're reading about or watching.

How to find new and interesting places to explore online

Do a search on Google or another search engine.
Check out websites like National Geographic and Lonely Planet.
Browse travel-related social media groups and forums.
Watch travel movies and shows for inspiration.
Ask family and friends about their experiences.

The best free armchair travel websites and apps

Some useful websites and apps include:

Lonely Planet
Travel Movies and Shows

The benefits of armchair travelling The great thing about armchair travel is that it's easy and affordable. You don't need to spend money on airfare or hotels, and you can explore the world from the comfort of your own home.

Armchair travel is also a great way to learn about different cultures and destinations. You can watch documentaries, read books, or even talk to family and friends who have traveled.

And, of course, armchair travel is the perfect way scratch that travel itch and to explore the world if you're unable to travel due to health reasons, financial challenges, or other constraints.

So what are you waiting for? Start planning your next online experiences and begin an armchair adventure today!

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Armchair traveler final thoughts

An armchair traveler is an individual who explores the world from the comfort of their own home. Equipped with nothing more than a curious mind and an insatiable thirst for knowledge, armchair travelers embark on virtual journeys through the pages of books, magazines, documentaries, or the vast expanse of the internet. These intrepid adventurers live vicariously through the experiences of others, allowing them to traverse distant lands and cultures without ever leaving their living room. So, if you're someone who dreams of faraway places but can't pack a suitcase just yet, join the ranks of armchair travelers and let your imagination take flight!

Destinations

Wild Junket

Armchair Travel: 45 Fun Ideas to “Travel” Without Leaving Home

Last Updated on June 9, 2020

Sometimes travel isn’t an option — whether that is due to illness, financial issues or personal circumstances.

Right now, it’s a global pandemic that is sweeping across the world, putting a halt on travel. Whether you are stuck at home in a lockdown or a self-imposed quarantine, there are some creative ways to feed your travel addiction .

From joining online travel communities to taking virtual tours of UNESCO sites, here are my armchair travel recommendations to help you “travel” without leaving your home.

Table of Contents

How to Travel Without Leaving Home

Explore museums virtually on your laptop, take a digital hike around america’s national parks, take virtual tours of the world’s unesco sites, read travel books, read travel blogs, join an online travel community, take an online travel-related course, learn a new language, watch travel-related shows on netflix, watch travel vlogs on youtube, indulge in travel movies, start scratching your world map, make a travel scrapbook, get a travel coloring book, make jigsaw puzzles or models of your favorite places in the world, entertain your kids with travel games and books, create multicultural crafts and activities, cook exotic dishes from around the world, order food delivery.

Many of the world’s musuems have been forced to temporarily shut their doors. But that doesn’t mean that we’ve lost access to the countless treasures housed by these great museums.

Thanks to the extensive Google Arts & Culture project, we can now access more than 2,500 art spaces from around the world online, and many offer virtual tours. This is the perfect armchair travel activity for museum buffs.

Remember that COVID-19 still poses a threat while you’re surfing the web at home. Hackers are creating thousands of fake pandemic sites to steal your personal information. Make sure to use a COVID-19 scam site checker before going to any suspicious sites.

Here are some museums worth checking out virtually:

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam — View over 164,511 pieces of artwork from the revered art museum in high-definition. The museum’s most famous art pieces include Vermeer’s The milkmaid and Rembrandt’s Self Portrait.
The Tate, London —This respected museums houses the foremost collection of British art dating back to the the Tudor era and including a large holding of J.M.W. Turner’s work.
Guggenheim Museum, New York — This contemporary art and architecture museum has over 200 works viewable through Google’s portal.
The MET (Metropolitan Museum of Art), New York — One of America’s best museums has 26 virtual exhibits and over 200,000 documented works of art from nearly any era.
Musée d’Orsay, Paris —Check out the virtual exhibitions and 278 pieces of art from 1848 to 1914, including include Van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles .

Google Earth has rolled out virtual tours of some of the most beautiful national parks in the United States. The map and satellite imagery masters at Google Earth have put together a series of guided virtual tours of 31 national parks around the country .

Now you can literally travel without leaving your home and take a digital hike on Google Earth. It may not be the same as lacing up your hiking boots and inhaling the crisp clean air of the wilderness, but they’re pretty neat nonetheless. Here are the national parks offering virtual tours:

Acadia National Park
Arches National Park
Badlands National Park
Big Bend National Park
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park
Bruce Canyon National Park
Canyonlands National Park
Channel Islands National Park
Cuyahoga Valley National Park
Death Valley National Park
Denali National Park
Dry Tortugas National Park
Everglades National Park
Glacier National Park

death valley united states national park - virtual tour - virtual travel

Not just that, Google Earth has also recently launched Heritage on the Edge , an online experience that uses 3D maps to showcase a handful of UNESCO World Heritage sites facing the looming threat of climate change.

The goal was to digitally preserve the legacy of the landmarks. For now, you can enjoy a zoomed-in view of the moai on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), the ancient city of Chan Chan in Peru, and the coastal city of Kilwa Kisiwani in Tanzania .

Not only will you be able to interact with 3-D models and 50 exhibits, but you’ll also have access to expert interviews and information on how to conserve these historical sites – an important lens, self-isolating or not. Check out this list of best virtual tours around the world .

The best travel books are often the ones that have the power to transform you as much as a journey does. My love for travel books was probably the reason why I became a travel blogger and writer .

I have always been obsessed with travel books, especially biographies of adventurers who have embarked on extraordinary journeys. Reading George Orwell’s Burmese Days when traveling in Myanmar made the trip all the more special. And reading Escape from Camp 14 before my trip to North Korea definitely piqued my interest in the hermit kingdom.

If you have a long list of books you’ve been wanting to read but never had the time for, this is the best time to hit that list. Check out my massive list of 50 best books on travel .

Escape from Camp 14 (by Blaine Harden)— One man’s remarkable odyssey from North Korea to freedom in the West.
Desert Flower (by Waris Dirie) — A true story of Waris’ escape across the dangerous Somali desert to London as an internationally renowned fashion model; and ultimately to New York City, where she became a human rights ambassador for the U.N.
The Kite Runner (by Khaled Husseini) — A fictional book about the struggles of a young boy Amir amidst the backdrop of an unstable Afghanistan.
Burmese Days: A Novel (by George Orwell) — A story of the waning days of British imperialism, by an Englishman living in a settlement in Burma.
Into the Wild (by Jon Krakauer) — The remarkable story of a young man’s solo adventure in Alaska.
Gratitude in Low Voices: A Memoir (by Dawit Gebremichael Habte)— A man’s true story of how he fled his homeland of Eritrea during the war to find solace and success in America.
It’s Our Turn to Eat (by Michela Wrong) — The story of a Kenyan whistle-blower

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TIP: I recommend getting a Kindle Paperwhite if you don’t have one. You can store a ridiculous amount of books on it and read it at night without ruining your eyesight. You can buy books individually or sign up to Kindle unlimited (first month is a free trial).

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The pandemic has affected many small businesses, travel companies and websites. I am one of them — my blog’s readership and income have dropped by over 80%. It’s heartbreaking to see all that I have worked hard to build in the past 12 years be reduced to nothing.

Of course I’m not the only one. So many travel bloggers are worried about possibly losing their livelihood. I ask for your support — just read travel blogs and websites whenever you can. There’s no need to make any purchase; just reading and scrolling can help us out at times like this!

Here are some of my best travel stories:

World’s Most Remote Islands
Spirits and Spells: Voodoo Culture in Benin
12 Interesting Facts About Madagascar
A Photo Essay of Tajikistan
Iraqi Kurdistan — The Other Iraq
Travel in the Caucasus: Where East Meets West
Asmara, Eritrea: An Art Deco City in Africa

Other travel blogs and websites with brilliant narratives and inspirational stories:

Roads and Kingdoms
Uncornered Market
Atlas & Boots
The Candy Trail
Candace Rose Rardon

read travel blogs - things to do quarantine - armchair travel

Looking to connect with like-minded travelers virtually? There are plenty of online travel communities catering to specific types of travelers, from solo female travelers to extreme travelers who like to veer off the beaten trail.

Extreme Travel — A Facebook group I set up to connect with curious travelers seeking out the extraordinary in unusual places like North Korea, Iran and Sudan.
Every Passport Stamp — A Facebook community of travelers planning to travel to every country in the world. They have strict rules and requirements, so please join only if you share the same goals as everyone.
Travel Community — This massive Facebook group caters to all travelers from different parts of the world. Currently, there are quite a few positive discussions in light of the pandemic.
Wanderful — This is a leading network for female travelers. The brand is currently giving away 500 free one-year memberships (typically $69/year).
Girls Love Travel — A Facebook group for female travelers covering all kinds of travels and destinations.

If you have always been interested in travel photography or sketching, this is the best time to sign up for a travel-related online course. There are tons of virtual workshops and courses on Skillshare and Udemy .

Here are some interesting travel-related courses worth checking out:

Travel sketching — Take an adventure into your imagination with illustrator and children’s book author Mike Lowery.
Oil painting — A fun and informative course that will teach you basics of mark making, glazing and oil painting.
Travel street photography — Learn popular street photography techniques, as well as composition, lighting, and photo editing for visual storytelling.
Drone photography — Up your skills from beginner to professional drone photography with this step-by-step vide guide.
Travel writing class — Learn to write travel tales readers (and editors) will love and sell your freelance writing to newspapers and magazines.
Travel poster illustration : Design your favorite city and place in Procreate5.

travel related online courses on skillshare

I have always had a special interest in languages — they are the best way to connect with locals and cultures when traveling. My first experience learning a foreign language was in college, when I took French and Spanish classes. Eventually I took intensive Spanish courses in Madrid. I also took Arabic classes after that, and recently finished my 6-month Dutch course here in Amsterdam.

Technology has made it really easy to learn a language online these days. Here are some apps and online courses I recommend:

Duolingo — A language app that helps beginners to build up vocabulary. It is free to use and has many languages available.
Mindsnacks — Another app that offers free language-learning games to help you learn vocabulary, grammar, practice your listening.
BBC Languages — Free online language lessons, with crosswords, videos and quizzes accompanied by audio. Courses covering 40 languages, including Urdu, Icelandic and Slovak.
Verbling — Interactive language lessons with a native teacher over video chat. You can choose the teacher you prefer, schedule the lesson and pay her hour.
Lingoda — Similar to Verbling, Lingoda also offers video lessons with native teachers. But it offers monthly plans and a free 7-day trial.

learn a language - armchair travel - things to do quarantine

Many of us are turning to Netflix to entertain us and feed our wanderlust. Forget depressing series like Outbreak, check out the following travel-themed shows that will sure to uplift you in hard times like these.

You can even use the new Google Chrome extension Netflix Party to watch these shows with your friends online. Just click the extension button to create a “party” and share a link to the event with whoever you want to watch the program with. The extension also allows all party members to group chat about the show in real-time.

Dark Tourist — Definitely top on my Netflix’s favorites list, this show covers lesser-known areas and unfamiliar cultures. Check out the episodes on Pablo Escobar’s hitmen, vampires in New Orleans, and Japan’s suicide forests.
Larry Charles’ Dangerous World Of Comedy — Another of my favorite shows (cos I love travel and comedy), this travel show follows film director, Larry Charles, around the world seeking out how comedy is done in war zones, in slums, and beyond.
Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner — One of the many foodie travel shows on Netflix, this is what I’ve been binge-watching lately. Chef David Chang brings big-name celebrities around the world and dives in local food scenes, from Phnom Penh with Kate McKinnon to Marrakech with Chrissy Teigen.
Conan Without Borders — One of my favorite talk show hosts, Conan O’Brien, gives a non-traditional and humorous take in this travel series. He lightens up the mood before delving into serious topics, like the humanitarian crisis in Haiti or the war in Israel.
Our Planet — This nature series is Netflix’s very own Planet Earth, narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

dark tourist netflix - travel shows on netflix

Don’t have a Netflix account? Youtube actually has some high quality videos from vloggers and videographers who are out there doing some great stuff. Here are some of my favorite Youtube channels:

Drew Binsky — This unique vlogger brings viewers to unique places and he always has an interesting story to tell. Some of his videos are insightful and educational, such as these ones on Equatorial Guinea and Congo.
Karl Watson — Karl produces quality travel documentaries that are professional and definitely inspirational. His videos tend to cater to younger millennial looking for some adventure.
Migrationology — Foodie travelers have to check out his awesome food-focused videos. He’ll bring you on street food tours in Pakistan, feast on home-cooked food in Iran, and try top-notch Wagyu beef in Japan.
WildJunket — Shameless self promotion here: I’m not a Youtuber or vlogger, but I do have some short travel videos on my Youtube channel. Watch me jump off a canyon in New Zealand , drive around Iceland on a campervan , and l earn about voodoo in Benin .
Eva Zu Beck — This girl has interesting vlogs from the world’s least visited places, including Syria, Pakistan and Yemen. She shows us some of the world’s most beautiful hikes, remote islands and delicious food along the way.

And for movie lovers out there, you are spoiled for choice when it comes to movies about traveling . I have been inspired to go to certain destinations thanks to these travel movies, and I hope they will inspire you too. Check out my giant list of 60 best travel movies of all time !

Secret Life of Walter Mitty — Embark on an adventure with magazine writer Ben Stiller (as Walter Mitty) as he goes in search of a photojournalist from the streets of Manhattan to Greenland and the Himalayas.
The White Maasai — Based on a non-fiction memoir, this German movie sparked my interest in Africa almost 12 years ago. It tells the story of Corinne’s trip from her home country of Switzerland to Kenya , where she met and fell in love with a Maasai warrior and builds a home with him in the savanna.
The Motorcycle Dairies — This movie traces back to where it all began for Ernesto “Che” Guevara (Gael García Bernal), whose road trip across Latin America with his pal Alberto Granado (Rodrigo de la Serna) opened Che’s eyes to political injustice.
Slumdog Millionaire — One of my all-time favorite movies, this Oscar winner tells the story of an Indian Muslim from the Dharavi slum in India. He is a contestant on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire ?”, and is one question away from the grand prize.
Wild — This movie follows the journey of Reese Witherspoon as Cheryl Strayed, as she treks 1,100 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail after the devastating loss of her mother.
Tracks — Another non-fiction movie based on the adventure of Robyn Davidson, who traverses across the r ugged landscape of Australia with only four camels and a beloved dog for company.
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel — A story about a group of aging Brits who follow advertisements and arrive in India, with the promise of a second act.

secret life of walter mitty - armchair travel movies

This is the perfect time to reflect on past travels, and think about how far we’ve come. Get a scratch map and spend time scratching off the places you have been! It’ll bring back some beautiful memories and get you excited about future travels.

I have a scratch map myself and it’s great fun to come home from a trip and scratch off a new country each time. My friends got me this scratch off world map when we moved to Amsterdam and it’s the best travel gift I’ve ever gotten. I hang it on a cork board with push pins, where I also pin souvenirs or memoirs (like bus tickets) from each trip. It’s such a great way to keep travel memories alive!

scratch off world map - things to do in quarantine

Another awesome thing to do to bring back beautiful memories is to make a travel scrapbook. The scrapbook could be based off one epic trip you’ve done. Perhaps an awesome adventure in Southeast Asia , or a Silk Road overland trip . It could also be a collection of all your travels from the past.

Since Kaleya was born, I’ve been wanting to make a special travel album packed with photos, postcards, brochures and stubs I collected during our trips together. It would be an awesome thing to look back on with Kaleya when she grows up. Perhaps now is the time to start making one!

I have my eye on this vintage style scrapbook album , but technically you can use any notebook to create an album of travel memories.

travel scrapbook album - travel without leaving home

Coloring is scientifically proven to have countless health benefits for adults. It can help relax the fear center of your brain, the amygdala, and help you stay calm and mindful.

I enjoy coloring with my daughter when I get the chance. It not only soothes me, but also brings back wonderful memories from places I’m coloring.

Here are some excellent travel coloring books designed for adults:

Lonely Planet Ultimate Travel Coloring Book
ColorIt — Around the World in 50 Pages
Travel Between the Lines — Inspirational Coloring for Globetrotters and Daydreamers
Crayola City Escapes — Color Your Favorite World Cities

Growing up, I did lots of jigsaw puzzles with my family during our free time. It was how we spent quality time together.

You can easily find jigsaw puzzles of all kinds for both adults and kids, whether that’s 3D puzzles of iconic landmarks or traditional puzzles of landscapes. I love making 3D puzzles with my daughter!

1000-piece jigsaw puzzle of world’s greatest attractions
CubicFun 3D puzzle of Notre Dame de Paris
LEGO built-it-yourself kit of New York city skyline
ROKR 3D wooden craft puzzle of an airship

Now that school is closed in many parts of the world, parents who are stuck at home with kids will need as many resources as they can. To keep your kid engaged, here are some travel-related ideas to pique their interest in the world.

The books from Lonely Planet Kids are educational, interactive and fun. Kaleya has a few of this Let’s Explore series of sticker activity books and she absolutely loves them.
Inspire your kids with this book, Explorers: Amazing Tales of the World’s Greatest Adventurers , written by yours truly!
Teach your kids geography with the Beginner’s World Atlas from National Geographic, suitable for kids ages 5–8.
An interactive world map is a fun and engaging way to teach kids about the world. It has over 1000 facts about countries, capitals, oceans, and languages, that your kids can learn through interactive quizzes!
Join online read-alouds and activities organised by your kids’ favorite authors — here’s a full list .

my daughter with Explorers - travel without leaving home

Another fun thing to do with kids that can pique their interest in travel is creating art and craft or products from other cultures. My daughter loves making Japanese origami and it always brings back fond memories from Japan for both of us.

Adults can also enjoy making multicultural crafts together — it’s a great way to learn about a culture and engage with it without actually traveling. Here are some other ideas:

Make Mexico’s Day of the Dead masks
Make Japanese origami
Make a Native American rain stick
Make a Japanese karp kite
Learn Aboriginal dot painting from Australia

day of the dead skulls - crafts to travel at home

Food is one of the best ways to engage and connect with a culture and destination. Some of my favorite dishes I’ve tried around the world, include the Moroccan chicken tajine (slow cooked stew), Hungarian beef goulash, and the traditional Japanese ramen. I’m not a great cook, but I enjoy making Mexican tacos, Vietnamese pho, and Indian prata from time to time.

But you don’t have to travel to tickle your tastebuds — sometimes you learn even more about a cuisine by making it in your own kitchen. Here are some great websites that provide excellent recipes from around the world:

All Recipes
BBC Good Food
Serious Eats

moroccan tajine - make it yourself travel without leaving home

Can’t cook or don’t enjoy cooking? I recommend looking at your local takeaways and trying something brand new. If you live in a multicultural city like I do, there are lots of international cuisine to choose from: from Nepalese to Mongolian, Ethiopian to Peruvian.

Support your local restaurants and give them some business to help you make it through the pandemic! This is seriously armchair travel at its best.

What other things are you doing at home to get that “travel” experience? Share your armchair travel ideas with me in the comments field below!

Disclaimer: Some of the links above are affiliate links. That means I get a small commission when you purchase anything through my links. AT NO EXTRA COST to you. Thank you for your support!

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travel at home - things to do in quarantine

Nellie Huang

Nellie Huang is the founder of WildJunket. Originally from Singapore, Nellie has traveled to over 140 countries across 7 continents. As an adventure travel blogger, she has a special interest in unusual destinations and deep experiences. Her work has appeared in many major publications including BBC Travel, CNN and LonelyPlanet.com. Read more about her here and get more life updates from her on her Facebook and Instagram .

The Comments

Marc Latham

Comprehensive fun list, but I have one more… I virtually travelled via the internet and wrote fiction books creating a storyline (vegetarian werewolf protagonist looking for its origins years before Missing Link did similar with a bigfoot) using real celebrities and places along the way, with Simpsons inspiration. I think it helps you find new places, learn more about places, and remember them; for me it was nostalgia too, as I virtually travelled places I’d passed through, but didn’t know much about at the time.

Travel Advice: Ultimate Guide to Armchair Travel

Ultimate guide to armchair travel.

Never did I think that as a travel blogger I would be writing a post about not travelling. But that's exactly what armchair travel is and exactly what those of us who love travel are realising is our reality for the foreseeable future.

Before I go any further, let me be clear about how I feel about this.

BRILLIANT. FANTASTIC. WONDERFUL.

No, I'm not being sarcastic, I'm being very serious. Not travelling right now is saving lives. Hundreds of thousands of lives. And that is what makes me more than happy to not be travelling right now, and I hope you feel the same because I shouldn't need to tell you how dire the current situation is; it's all over our news and social media feeds. If you are interested, here's how you can do lots of fun virtual travel in Amsterdam, because as you can imagine the streets and canals of Amsterdam are pretty empty and tourist-free right now!

It's not just about what's happening now, either. In the future, there will also be times when not travelling is a good thing. In fact, there are many good arguments already supporting the fact that we should travel less. I don't want to go into them too deeply, but I know for certain for my family, that we will be doing fewer trips, travelling less far away, and spending more time at home researching, planning, and preparing for upcoming travel, as well as more time at home after a trip, doing things to cherish the memories of previous travel we have done together as a family .

So, what is Armchair Travel?

Armchair travel is what the name suggests; travelling from your armchair. Or from your sofa, your bed, your kitchen table, anywhere in your home, because actually we don't have an armchair in our house. It's a term that means travelling without travelling; to explore the world in other ways other than by physically moving from one place to another.

The good news is that right now is the best time in history to do some armchair travel. In fact, while researching this post I realised that actually some of the ways we can travel at home are just as interesting as the real deal, and some of them, for a multitude of reasons are quite incredible and life-changing when you think about how they can open up the world to people who can't physically travel to certain destinations for whatever reason. But I'll talk a bit more about this later.

How to Armchair Travel: The Best Ways Travel Without Travelling

In my mind, we all do lots of so-called armchair travel without even thinking about it, be it researching a destination on Pinterest, looking at someone's lovely travel snaps on Instagram, cooking a dish from one of your favourite countries, or just reading a book set in a place we have never been before.

But right now I know that some people will be missing long-planned and saved for trips and so maybe it's worth specifying some ways we can do some active armchair travel to broaden our horizons and go some way to step into the small void that not travelling is making some of us feel right now. So let me share some brilliant armchair travel guides that some well-travelled, knowledgeable travellers and travel writers have been sharing.

This happens to be one of the most comprehensive guides to virtual travel I found on the Internet and it happens to be written by my good blogging friend Nellie from Wild Junket. And this post has some other worthy ideas , as does this one which is more focused on offline activities , and I really liked this post for focusing on how you can "feel" like you're travelling and most of the ideas are for when you are stuck at home. There are some extra suggestions in Abi's post on armchair travel on her blog Inside The Travel Lab too. Extra bonus points to this creative post which is a How To guide to recreating a business class travel experience in your own home!

This post is also a great list of not just armchair travel ideas but more ways to feel better about the current difficult situation right now. And if you're the kind of person who thrives from getting organised and travel planning is as much fun as the actual travelling (no, I'm not like that either but some people are!) then this post has lots of practical tips for getting ready for your next trip when it's possible, and this post has some creative ideas for making the most out of previous trips too .

And if you're just finding the concept of not-travelling quite hard, then maybe just take it back a step further and just take some time to settle into being at home for longer than you'd like. My friend and fantastic travel writer Leyla has some tips for how to manage being stuck at home . Also one way I'm trying to visit more places while staying at home is cooking, here's a great selection of recipes from around the world you can try .

Maybe we will also be able to step outside our doors more often and explore our immediate surroundings soon and if so then you may want to have these romantic staycation tips if you and your partner miss travelling together.

If food is the way to your heart and wanderlust, you'll love this round-up of fifteen international cookbooks from regions all over the world, and below you can find more destination specific recipe books and cooking ideas.

The Best Virtual Tours

There are many, many more virtual tours around the world than you would think. Not only is Google Earth pretty comprehensive in where it covers now, and how easily you can explore it, but destinations themselves are making it easier for you to explore their destinations virtually.

I also urge you to check out Google Arts & Culture as they have a number of tours of landmarks including heritage sites and national monuments online that you can explore virtually for free.

This is a list of over 60 virtual field trips you can take online right now , and this is another comprehensive list of those that are free ,

This blog post is a great round-up of virtual tour experiences for destinations all over the world and this list has some great additions for the US & Canada , and for a real adventure here is how you can walk the entire Appalachian trail virtually .

If you are more about the journey than the destination, then you may want to check out some of the MANY (and I mean it, there are LOTS) of cockpit view plane videos there are on YouTube with journeys all over the world. AND if you love train travel, you need to spend some time watching these Train Driver view videos on YouTube . Some of the most scenic train journeys in the world are here, and you'll get to see it all from an angle you couldn't actually enjoy in real life anyway. Thanks to my pal Mike for linking to this!

The Best Virtual Museum Experiences

More and more museums are moving or improving their exhibits online. While some have long had online curations, exhibitions or section to bring their museum to people at home via the Internet, it's fair to say museums are going to have to do more of this in order to stay relevant, stay popular, and supported financially in many cases.

I've written up the best Amsterdam museums doing virtual tours here, but there are so many great museums all over the world that are now instantly available to us right now, albeit in a very different way to what we are used to.

This post rounds up some of the world's best museums with online virtual tours right now, as does this list , but is shorter so may not feel as overwhelming! And if you are into art then here are the best European art museum virtual tours right now. I've also listed my favourite Amsterdam museums with virtual collections and activities here .

And if you're interested in castles, here are some virtual tours of castles around the world, and specifically some virtual tours of French chateaux .

The Best Armchair Travel Reading Lists

If you've hung out on this blog a bit before, you'll know how much I love reading and also how much I believe that books have real power to take you places. They're the ultimate old school mode of virtual travel. And in addition to my list of best books set in Amsterdam over here, I've shared several reading lists for kids to help them nurture a love for travel and a curiosity for the world. You should start with these travel-themed baby books and then move on to the best travel books for kids aged 2-6 (approximately!) .

And I'm not the only one recommending reading as a great way to travel figuratively. Below are many more book recommendations and reading list for your to peruse at leisure!

Here's a reading list that will fuel your wanderlust for long and adventurous journeys by The World in My Pocket travel blog. And here's another comprehensive reading list of travel books to keep your wanderlust levels up!

And if you are interested in historical books about travel or ethnographic research - that is the study of how people, cultures and communities live their lives - then Ethno Travels has a reading list for you. Alternatively, if you love the outdoors and are missing it right now, enjoy this reading list of books about adventure and the great outdoors .

If you want to tick off a list of books that will take you on a tour of the world, this reading list has 16 book recommendations ,

The Best TV Shows, Movies & Podcasts to Inspire Travel

Can I be honest about something I probably shouldn't admit on a travel blog? I'm not a HUGE fan of travel-related movies, TV shows, documentaries or podcasts. Books are a different matter. I love books about travel; give me all the travel books. BUT visual or audio travel content just doesn't appeal to me in the same way. Having said that there are obviously a few stand-out shows you must, must, must watch if you love this planet and its many varied natural beauties of our world, like Planet Earth, Our Planet, and Blue Planet. Luckily for you, there are many people out there who know more about the great travel-related TV shows you can indulge in write now for shots of wanderlust.

Travel around the world by watching some great TV shows set in lots of different countries. Here's the best of Netflix's travel shows (and an alternative list with some different ones here )

The Travel Sisters have got a monster list of travel movies you have to watch , and there is enough variety here to find something for anyone, or to keep you busy for many months if you want to work through all of them.

This is a great list of travel-themed documentaries you can watch right now. And if you're missing being underwater scuba-diving right now my lovely friend Annika has a few ideas for how you can bring the deep blue into your own home.

And if podcasts are more your cup of tea, this is a great list of travel podcasts worth checking out ,

The Best Destination-Specific Armchair Travel Guides

As I mentioned above if you're missing a trip to a specific destination then the below armchair travel guides cover some of the world's most popular places, and even if your destination isn't there, maybe you can find one that sparks your interest.

Here's how you go on a virtual tour of Rome , or for Venice , here are the best books to read about or set in Paris and a list of movies to watch to get you in the mood for France , a reading list for "travel" to Ireland , and another for Iceland, and when I'm feeling homesick for my old home city London, I will be checking out these London virtual tours .

Here's a reading list to transport you to Colombia , another for Cuba , and this blog post has everything you can do virtually to enjoy the US-state of Virginia, and another blogger did a round-up of the virtual tours for museums in Philadelphia . Finally, my good pal Victoria has put together a list of great California-inspired cookbooks ; I want them all!

One beautiful island in Europe that I would love to go back to is Crete, and this post sharing great books about or set in the Greek island is really lovely. And if you'd like a more general literary inspiration to travel to that beautiful country, here's a great reading list of 25 books set in Greece .

This is a great list of movies set in the Middle East region , here are 15 books you should read about Jordan , and here are some things to do to travel to India virtually, the best books for travel to Sri Lanka ,

For those who have had to postpone travels to Australia, this is a list of books to get you all inspired for travel to Australia, while here are some great Australian museums you can visit online .

My good friend and Glasgow-based blogger Kathi has a fantastic reading list for books on, about or set in Scotland and Migrating Miss blog has put together a list of some amazing films set in Scotland for you to fall in love with that beautiful country.

The Best Armchair Travel Activities with Kids

When I first realised I wouldn't be travelling with my kids for quite some time I had a few days when I just couldn't get my head in a place where I could see how easy it would be to do travel-related activities with my kids aside from the obvious things like reading travel books for children or staring at maps with them (both of which are very valid things, and you can start them reading and travelling young with these travel books for babies ).

But after a while I slowly realised there is so much you can do with kids to get them interested and excited about travel. One of the best examples of immersing yourselves in a destination and doing a variety of activities related to that place. Nobody explains or demonstrates this better than Chelsea on her blog Pack More Into Life as she has started a full-range of virtual travel experiences with her son and outlines all the way you can do it with your kids too. I loved the ones for China and England and can't wait to see where they "go" next.

Here's a post on how to take virtual field trips with kids , I will be working my way through this list of virtual museum tours that are great for children , and may also incorporate some of these travel-themed activities into the homeschooling (ish) I'm doing with my eldest these days. Here are some tips for teaching world geography to kids right now (and most are easy on the bank account too!). And you can get kids more involved with the planning side of travel with these great prompts and download now you have a bit more time (if you're lucky!) to do so! Finally, and save this one for a rainy day perhaps, you can even "go" to Disneyland virtually !

In terms of things you can watch and listen to with kids, I loved this list of travel- or geography-related podcasts to listen to with kids , and here are some amazing live webcams in zoos and animal sanctuaries and some more wildlife cams that you can watch around the world,

And depending on your kids' age (older may be better) you can also check out some of these video games that will inspire travel or show you other parts of the world, and you could all take part in this 30-day travel-at-home challenge . By the way you don't need kids to do this!

That's it for this list but I will keep it updated with new ways you can enjoy armchair travel now and always. And if you'd like to save or share this post, here are some pins you can save or share.

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The Rise of the Armchair Traveler: The Beautiful Escapism of Planning a Vacation You Can’t Take Now

In my home office, I list the vacations Adam and I are planning to take on a white board that hangs on the wall. The white board is a constant work in progress; destinations are added, removed, and shuffled almost daily. I use the list as a regular source of inspiration, a reminder of all that I have to look forward to when it’s time to use a few vacation days and explore the world.

This year, for the first time in more than a decade, the list has remained static. It has been weeks since we’ve made a change to our travel plans, and it will be many more weeks before we do. Like all of you, COVID-19—the coronavirus—has upended my plans for 2020. With much of the world now facing a period of social distancing and stay-at-home orders aimed at eliminating the virus and minimizing the lives impacted by it, travel is simply not on the horizon in the near future.

We could all use an escape right about now. A vacation, if you will.

Enter the rise of the armchair traveler.

There has never been a better or more needed moment to start planning your next vacation— even if you’re planning a vacation you can’t take now. If you could use a mood boost or an escape to a far-off place, here’s why armchair travel can get you through this surprising global turbulence.

Armchair Travel Boosts Your Happiness

When you think about it, the study’s findings make sense. Looking ahead to something positive prompts feelings of joy or excitement in many of us. If you’re looking for a way to seek happiness from home, armchair travel can provide you with the same sense of anticipation and excitement without the typical need to spend money or worry about vacation logistics.

Armchair Travel Can Help You Focus

The positivity associated with planning a vacation doesn’t change whether you are setting dates and scheduling time off or keeping your plans fluid and abstract. A 2017 study 2 published in eNeuro found that participants who were given something to look forward to were more likely to stay focused on their long-term goals. When you think about it, the findings are not surprising: many of us can relate to the concept of “working for the weekend,” where we diligently dial into conference calls and write up meeting minutes as we wait for Friday evening and two weekend days of carefree bliss as our reward. The promise of the reward—a fun weekend—inspires us to power through more challenging situations.

There has been nothing easy about the last few weeks, but the thought of a reward—such as a vacation—might be just the thing to keep us focused.

Armchair Travel Helps Us Escape

There’s a beautiful escapism that comes with planning a vacation, and we’ve never needed that escapism more than we do right now. In a world that constantly reminds us about the negative, the scary, and the ominous, we need moments of peace and levity for balance. That’s why allowing yourself to get lost in Pinterest, fall down the Wikipedia rabbit hole, or disappear into a sea of Instagram photos might be the very escape you need. Knowing that planning a vacation can boost your happiness and improve your focus, it may be your very best tool in the fight against anxiety, boredom, and the unknown.

Tips for Planning a Vacation You Can’t Take Now

Planning a vacation you can’t take now is a great way to let your inner armchair traveler daydream about the corners of the globe you would love to explore while focusing on building your happiness. Here are a few ideas to help you incorporate some healthy escapism into your day!

► Think about the future

► Don’t check your calendar

The fun of planning a vacation you can’t take is that dates don’t matter. Wondering what it would be like to spend Christmas in a cabin in the fjords—even though you would never miss the holidays with your family at home in the city? Let your imagination guide your planning and forget about reality for a little while. When you don’t need to worry about limiting your vacation time to specific dates or locations, you’ll have the chance to truly escape into the joy of researching and learning about a new place without the added layer of wondering how to make it work with your schedule. You may even stumble on some ideas for how to make your dream vacation work for you; for example, if the cabin is beautiful at Christmas, would it be just as nice in February?

► Share your plans

► Keep Your Notes

Although even in a good year we’re limited to no more than three or four weeks of paid vacation time, we often have multiple vacations in the planning stages. In addition to the research-backed happiness and positivity we find from anticipating these trips in the future, we’re also prepared for when we stumble upon great flight deals or even a few days off that we can put toward a weekend trip. If you indulge in some armchair travel, keep your notes or bookmark interesting links so that you have a head start to truly planning a vacation once it is safe to move about the globe again. In addition to browser bookmarks, tools like Microsoft OneNote, Evernote, or Google Docs make it easy to organize your research.

Enjoy Escapism through Armchair Travel!

Tierra del Fuego National Park, Argentina

Adam and I have traveled many roads alone over the years, and they have connected us to incredible experiences and people all over the world. For the next few months, we travel together with you. We prepare, we cancel plans, we take precautions; someday soon, though, we will pack, we will wander, and we will explore the planet and the connections that unite us. We can’t wait for that day to come.

There will be plenty of vacations to take when coronavirus is no longer a threat. In the meantime, stay home, stay healthy, and stay curious.

Looking for more travel tips? Here are a few of our posts from the archives!

5 Ways Vacation Time Can Help You at Work

Bleisure Travel: Blending Vacation and Business Trips

The Traveler’s Guide to Iconic American Food

Don’t Get Sick on Vacation: How to Stay Healthy When You Travel

The Rise of Armchair Travel: The Beautiful Escapism of Planning a Vacation You Can’t Take Now

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Jaunty Everywhere

Travel + Lifestyle

Armchair Travel to Enrich Your Life

10 ways armchair travel will enrich your life.

Armchair travel.

You wake up in your dream location. Stretched ahead of you is a perfect day of sightseeing, eating, and enjoying yourself. The weather is ideal. You’re ready for an adventure.

And then there are the other 50 weeks of the year.

If you only have 2-4 weeks of vacation, but an insatiable desire to travel, what can you do?

Become an armchair traveler and fill in the gaps.

What is armchair travel?

The term ‘armchair’ has a negative connotation – as in ‘armchair quarterback.’ It means a person is not directly involved in an activity, but has an opinion and advice to offer.

We’re going to co-opt the term and give it a positive spin.

Armchair Travel is delving into this fantastic, vast world and learning as much as our hearts desire – vicariously.

Does armchair travel preclude going into the world as a “real” traveler?

And at it’s best, as you will soon see, armchair travel inspires the buying of tickets and booking of excursions.

What do you get out of curling up in your armchair with a proverbial globe? Let’s see…

Benefits of armchair travel

1. shear enjoyment.

Armchair travel is worth the time for the sheer joy of exploring a place, a culture, or a period of history.

It’s a hobby.

And like any hobby, it doesn’t have to have a practical purpose or product to justify the time spent. An hour getting lost in a faraway place is pure delight.

2. Feed the imagination

This delightful pastime is good for the imagination.

Learning about a distant setting is a way to build a memory palace rich with images and sensory details.

Our view of the world and the people in it broadens our perspective and helps us to empathize with others.

3. Places you can’t or won’t go

There are a few places in the world we can’t or won’t visit.

In any given year, there are a handful of politically closed countries, places the ordinary passport can’t gain access to.

Some locations are just too arduous or expensive – the North Pole, Antarctica, and the top of Everest come to mind.

Then there are the places beyond our comfort zone. Travel is a great way to stretch our limitations, but we all have a threshold.

These road blocks don’t stop us from learning more about a place.

We can climb mountains in our minds, even if our bodies don’t join in. We can write imaginary checks to exotic places that our bank accounts can’t cash. We can get behind borders in our living room that we wouldn’t dream of approaching in real life.

4. Time travel

Travel includes different periods in history.

Back to the Future, notwithstanding, we can’t jump the time continuum. Armchair travel will take us to places 100’s of years from reality. It may be an incomplete view, but it’s the only view we’re going to get.

5. No access cultures

Outsiders can’t experience certain lifestyles, chains of DNA, or traditions. Armchair travel allows us to peek behind the curtain.

When a journalist, archaeologist, or historian gains access to a people group and then shares the experience with the world, we all gain.

Occasionally, someone on the inside will tell the world about their personal experience – oppression and abundance, prejudice and acceptance, tradition, and ritual – human experiences that we will never know become accessible.

6. Stress free travel

In armchair travel, no money changes hands (unless you count my book budget).

Little planning is needed to sit down with a good book.

Jet lag doesn’t exist in the armchair.

You will always come back from your virtual excursion rested and refreshed.

7. Learn a thing or two

Armchair travel stretches our intellect.

Like empty hangers in the closet, learning about the world adds to our ability to collect and organize new information.

If you read a novel set in Estonia, the next time the Estonian economy gets mentioned in the news, you will perk up and take notice.

Playing geography-based board games will give you a mental picture of the world that just begs for countries to come up in conversation.

Taking a virtual tour of Yosemite National Park will have you on the edge of your seat when an issue of conservation is debated in Congress.

Knowledge is dangerous?

Knowledge is power.

8. Inspire your get up and go

Armchair travel, at it’s best, makes us want to go and see for ourselves.

How many books would you need to read about Italy before starting a pasta-inspired savings account?

And I don’t know about you, but scrolling through my travel-heavy Instagram feed continually adds sights to my bucket list.

Seeing others travel, the world helps us realize what’s possible. Things that were foreign and even scary don’t seem so intimidating once we get to know a place.

9. Double the fun

As we’ve pointed out many times, anticipating a trip is almost as much fun as the trip itself.

Research proves this.

According to studies, pre-trip enjoyment peaks for eight weeks before a vacation. Studies have also found that most of our pleasure comes from before and during a trip – the afterglow of travel is often more aftermath.

Armchair travel takes advantage of the pre-trip phase and makes the most of it.

laptop covered in post-it notes and scraps of paper

10. Enrich your onsite experience

And once you’ve got boots on the ground, all that armchair travel research will only add to the richness of the experience.

Understanding the history, cultural nuances, geography, and traditions will make every part of the trip better.

Ideas for armchair travelers

Books are my go-to entertainment any day.

Fiction, non-fiction, and guidebooks are the tradition and staple of the armchair traveler.

There are so many excellent resources for finding travel-centric books.

Here are my two favorite book search engines:

Book Browse

TripFiction.com

For children’s books by US States:

Reading Through the States by Wrapped in Foil

And if you want a towering stack of TBR’s:

Goodreads has a discussion page with a massive list of location-based book resources – Around the World in 80 books

Travel magazines are like little dream guides that arrive in your mailbox each month to inspire a fresh crop of locations to covet.

Beautiful pictures, well-told stories, and vetted resources make curling up with a magazine the perfect rainy day mind excursion.

Some of my favorites are:

Lonely Planet

Food and Travel Magazine

Sunset Magazine

Movies, foreign films, documentaries, and vlogs provide billions of hours of travel video footage.

Searching for the gems will take some work.

Try specific search terms:

foreign films set in [country]
foreign films about [country]
travel documentary about [country]
movie set in [country]

The more specific your search query the more targeted the list.

Flixable.com is the best way to search for Netflix and Disney+ offerings. The website has multiple filter options so you can find what you want.

For documentaries: Search YouTube , Netflix, or whatever streaming service you subscribe to.

Here are a few curated lists to get you started:

The Best Travel and Adventure Documentaries on Netflix Right Now

15 Travel Documentaries That Tell Inspiring & Compelling Tales of Wanderers

YouTube Travel Videos: 30 Best Vlogging Channels to Follow

Vimeo travel is another source.

Vimeo Travel

Traditional media has to keep the advertisers happy. Mainstream media outlets must choose locations and attractions that will attract masses of readers. And with print media, you have to wait for the information to come to you.

The internet however, has democratized information.

Travel bloggers are not bound by these parameters.

You will find blog posts that go into more detail, with more honesty. And with good searching, you can find information on the most obscure vacation spot.

Another advantage is the variety of travel styles represented by an army of travel bloggers. Budget, family, luxury, solo, female, multi-generational, special-interest, or backpacking – you can find someone on the world wide web that travels like you.

And, of course, we have a soft place in our hearts for travel blogs, but we think they make enjoyable reading for armchair travelers.

Newish to the information scene, podcasts are ideal for armchair travelers.

Because you don’t have to be sitting in an armchair.

You can learn about destinations while driving, doing housework, or exercising.

Our favorite travel podcasts:

Extra Pack of Peanuts

Zero to Travel Podcast

Indie Travel Podcast

We Travel There

Break Into Travel Writing (for travel bloggers)

52 Perfect Days …coming soon. When we can travel again, Alexa (from Break Into Travel Writing, and 52 Perfect Days) will be launching a new travel podcast. It’s going to be great – stay tuned.

Virtual Tours

There are countless virtual tours available online.

From museum tours to live cams of the Great Barrier Reef, you would never have to leave home.

The Louvre (France)

The Great Barrier Reef

US National Parks

UNESCO World Heritage Sites Virtual Tour

8 Top World Heritage Sites You Can Explore in Street View

Still want to go?

Virtual tours will help you hone in on what you would like to see in real life.

Games for travel buffs abound.

Check out this review of the 28 Best Map Based Strategy Board Games

Puzzles help inspire and preserve memories.

Springbok, White Mountain, and Ravensburger are the most common brands of puzzles that we buy. They’re all high quality, widely available, and there are 100’s of puzzles to choose from. Dowdle puzzles make our favorite city puzzles.

Here are a few beautiful puzzles to inspire you:

If you want a real challenge, try a 3-D puzzle:

Coloring books are a stress-reducing way to combine your love of the world with a little self-soothing activity.

These activities are sources of playtime for armchair travelers.

Italki is my go-to source for language learning. Search the database for a suitable language conversation partner or tutor and get started immediately.

Italki for Travelers: 15 Rewarding Reasons Why Travelers Need Italki

These travel classes also make great gifts for the travelers in your life. Taking a class is another way to enjoy an experience, rather than acquiring more stuff – a goal many travel enthusiasts have in common.

Some people in our house really like Google Earth. A lot. I mean, a lot.

Others enjoy pouring over atlases, and maps.

Whether digital or paper-based, studying maps is catnip for armchair travelers.

There are also many specialty and colorful children’s atlases to choose from. If you don’t want to invest in a copy, check your local library.

Bonus points: Print a blank outline map and fill it in with major features.

Sources for free outline maps:

World Maps Online is also a quick source for basic outlines of countries .

You’ve probably noticed the scratch-off maps on the market. Travelers use these as a fun way to track places they’ve been.

But there are other creative ways to use these maps:

Mark books read by country
Film and videos watched
Podcasts listened to
Cuisines tried
Wines tasted

My prized travel souvenir is my National Park Passport notebook.

If your not as obsessive, a smaller version is available:

I enjoy adding new stamps and stickers when we return. I use it to plan trips, making sure we include National sites on our itinerary. And then, I love pouring over it and remembering the places we’ve been.

Sorting, editing, and displaying photos and travel videos is sometimes viewed as the chore of travel.

But it could also be thought of as the trophy case of the traveler.

And just like a champion bowler loves to dust his shelf of statues, we can relive our experiences as we curate our travel memories.

Travel memories come in many forms:

Travel journals

Scrapbooking

However, you keep your memories safe and sound, schedule a rainy afternoon, and permit yourself to enjoy the process.

Traveling to Portugal by armchair

As an example, here is the armchair travel plan I made for Portugal. We are planning a month-long trip through the country. Our original departure date was interrupted by the Pandemic, but we will reschedule.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying learning about the country – it’s history, culture, food, and language.

The first thing I do when I become interested in a location or culture is to make a booklist.

Using my local library, general internet searches, and the two travel book search engines I mentioned above, I start a list of potential books.

I like a variety of fiction, non-fiction and guidebooks.

Then I take a closer look at each book. Ideally, I order books from the library so I can evaluate them in person.

I also use Amazon to take a ‘look inside,’ and I read reviews or synopsis online.

When I’ve narrowed the list down to a manageable size, I either buy the books or earmark them on my library hold list.

For Portugal this is the stack of books I curated:

I have three novels

A history guide

The Traveler’s History of Portugal by Ian Robertson – this is a hard-to-find book I happened to have on my shelf.

And a guidebook

After reading our travel magazines, I rip them up and file the articles in a file box. When it’s time to plan a trip, I pull out the relevant articles and reread them.

I find magazines better for enjoyment and inspiration than serious planning.

When I knew a trip to Portugal was on the horizon, I pulled the few articles in my file box and added suggestions to our list.

We are long-time superfans of Rick Steve’s Travel show. If Europe is on the agenda, Rick Steve’s is the first stop. He has a few episodes of Portugal, which we watched several times. Most of the back episodes are available on YouTube.

We also watched videos from travel vloggers we like:

Wolters World

Samuel and Audrey – Travel and Food Videos

These media personalities are not native Portuguese. Ideally, you will want to find something produced in the country by native speakers.

I’m learning Portuguese, and for homework, I watch a soap opera called ‘ Os Nossos Dias .’ Yes, I’m blushing, but there’s not much European Portuguese TV available in America.

Some countries will be more challenging than others when it comes to video. There is plenty of Brazilian Portuguese available, but I don’t want to confuse my language study with a different dialect.

I did find one video about Portugal on Kanopy . Our library system provides a subscription to Kanopy. Try asking your librarian what databases or streaming services are available. You might find a treasure trove of options.

A few of my favorite Portugal blog posts are:

A Dangerous Business Portugal series

A Portuguese Affair – A Blog About Portugal

Indie Travels 42 Amazing Things to Do in Lisbon

Julie Dawn Fox – In Portugal

As I plan specific pieces of a trip, I search for blog posts – by town, by sight, or by museum. This is how I gain valuable information and inside tips on how to save money, avoid long lines, or suss out the best local restaurants. Nothing beats a well-written blog post by a fellow traveler.

I subscribe to many travel podcasts.

By searching the back catalog of the ones I enjoy most, I gathered a list of episodes to listen to.

Most podcasts maintain a blog – or at least a webpage – with a list of episodes. Many podcasters also include show notes, transcripts, or fully-fleshed out blog posts.

These are two of the episodes I listened to about Portugal:

Extra Pack of Peanuts Destination Diary Portugal

Indie Travel’s Travel in Lisbon and Faro in Portugal

No virtual tours so far.

I enjoy reading and listening far more than watching. So, to be honest, I rarely seek out visual sources.

If you love falling down the YouTube rabbit hole or watching movies, you will probably love adding virtual tours to your armchair trip.

There’s not much available in the American marketplace from Portugal or about Portugal.

I’m intrigued by a game called Coimbra from Portugal. The shipping is pretty steep. I will look out for it on our travels.

Coloring books, games, and puzzles make great souvenirs for our family because we use them.

My big learning project is the Portuguese language. I started to build vocabulary using Memrise courses.

When I had about 200 words under my belt, I started taking video lessons through Italki.

I wish I had started the Italki lessons even sooner.

We live in an amazing time when you can learn subjects and skills that used to require an expensive and time consuming traditional class.

I’m blessed with three patient, native Portuguese teachers that I rotate between – conversing and learning two times a week.

The rest of the week I continue to build vocabulary on Memrise and work on basic grammar in a workbook.

This is the primary system I would use to learn any language; Memrise, Italki, and an inexpensive grammar workbook.

I also use a website specific to Portuguese, called Practice Portuguese . It’s a European Portuguese learning platform. The site employs video, audio clips, a podcast, interactive grammar and vocabulary lessons, and more.

It’s creative, fun and motivating – I can’t recommend it enough.

We pour over the maps in our guidebooks.

I also printed a stack of blank outline maps of Portugal and traced the major landmarks using an atlas.

Eventually, I would like to be able to fill in an outline map with the major geographic features and towns, by memory.

This activity creates a mental map of the country. It’s invaluable as we plan the specifics of our trip. I also get a sense of satisfaction in just knowing a little bit about the world.

Map tracing and/or drawing is a surprising stress-reducer.

I prefer souvenirs without dust.

Our family loves to travel. Now that our kids are grown, and we often go independent of each other, we get together and watch travel slide shows from our various trips.

We will come home from Portugal with 1000’s of photos. These will be all the souvenirs I need.

And, we will make a ceremony of scratching off a coveted European country on the map hanging in Jody’s office.

Before a trip, when the travel takes place in the armchair, my memories consist of a bucket list of places to see, things to do, and foods to taste that I make as I read.

When we return, sorting photos and organizing them into manageable files will allow me to relive the experience at my computer.

I love scrapbooking. When the kids were little, it was my main hobby and creative outlet. I took a long break during the teen years when it felt like my main hobby was ‘taxi driver.’ Now that my evenings and weekend time is more discretionary, I’ve picked it up again. I’m playing around with ways to document our trips.

red and yellow striped lounge chairs sitting on a world map

In Summary:

The 10 benefits of armchair travel:.

Feeding the imagination
Access to places you can’t or won’t go
Time travel
A window into hidden cultures
Stress-free travel
Inspiration
Doubling the anticipation
Enriching real-life travel

11 Ideas for armchair travelers

RESPONSIBLE TOURISM , TRAVEL RESOURCES

The explosion of armchair travel: how to do it ethically.

With the explosion of armchair travel that came with the recent global travel restrictions, there is one thing I have noticed. There is just as much unsustainable armchair travel as there was unsustainable travel before the coronavirus outbreak.

You want to travel, I get it! But keep the principles of sustainable travel in mind when you choose your mode of armchair travel. There is so much more to sustainable tourism than the environment. I like to consider 3 different sides of it and if one of them is not respected, or if you have a doubt if it is, then it’s probably better to skip it.

Those three pillars are respect to the locals, animals, and the environment.

That means, that if you support an activity that gives money to the local economy, like pay a local for a chained monkey to dance, you support one third of the sustainable chain, you feed a local family. But on the other hand, you step on one third too, and that is animal welfare. You pay for that monkey’s miserable life in chains, probably being beaten to obey.

So that’s an activity you don’t want to support. Now, that goes for armchair travel too. There are millions of alternatives out there and I will give you a few tips in this post to help you choose the right ones.

But first, let’s look at what armchair travel is.

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. That means that if you make a purchase through one of those links, I will get a small commission at no extra cost to you. If you have any questions about these services or products, feel free to ask me.

Indian woman working at the tea plantations in Munnar

Armchair travel meaning

Finding a satisfying definition of armchair travel was not easy. In 2018, the Collins dictionary rejected a new suggestion to defining armchair traveler: “someone who finds out what a place or location is like by watching travel programs on television, looking at internet websites about travel or reading books about travel.”

The rejection was based on already having a definition for it : “An armchair critic, fan, or traveller knows about a particular subject from reading or hearing about it rather than from practical experience.”

I sensed certain negativity over the mentions of armchair travelers in my searches. Considering armchair travelers as better-knowing because they have read/seen about the destination but not actually traveled themselves. And this might be true to some extent, absolutely!

Thinking about all the people that advised me from traveling to India because it was dangerous to travel there as a woman. Or everyone that advised me from traveling to Iran because they are all criminals.

Yes, there are people that think they know better when they haven’t traveled to a place themselves. Personally, I don’t think of these as armchair travelers, but more likely people that believe everything they see in the news.

Armchair travel, on the other hand, can be something wonderful for everyone that don’t have the chance to travel. It isn’t anything new, as people have always enjoyed seeing documentaries about far-away cultures and reading books about round the world journeys. Oral storytelling has been an important part of different cultures for as long as we know.

To me, armchair travel is anything that takes you to distant places from the comfort of your own home. It could be a good travel book , a travel movie, travel documentary, a virtual tour, a YouTube video, looking at travel photos, you name it.

Plant a real tree from the comfort of your home with Click A Tree

Armchair travel to avoid

Armchair travel means you bring the world to the comfort of your home, thus it gives a certain distance to the activity you’re doing. This doesn’t mean it is ok to practice unsustainable armchair travel activities.

Unethical tour companies

Just like when you travel in real life, you should research the company you choose for virtual tours and make sure they don’t support unethical activities.

It might not always be easy to know, but as long as you do an effort and look at a few alternatives it is easier to make a sound decision.

As an example, I was asked to collaborate with a tour company that does vegan tours. Sounds ethical, right? But when I researched the company, I saw that they also included unethical dolphin shows on other tours. That was a resounding no from me.

How can you be a responsible armchair traveler?

If you have hung along on my blog for a while, you know I’m a big advocate of ethical animal tourism and I have written extensively about unethical animal tourism activities to avoid . Among them, zoo’s.

Unfortunately, zoo’s have become an entertainment arena where animals are not looked after as they should. Animals show distress from not being in their natural habitat and are bred to show off their cute babies to tourists.

The zoos serve the tourists and not the animals. That’s where the issue lays.

Luckily, there are ethical ways of exploring wildlife virtually, and you can check out live cameras set up by waterholes or join virtual safaris. Just make sure you join an ethical safari company.

Aquariums are really just the same as zoos merged in water. During my research, I even came over a whale shark in an aquarium. I have no words.

These are creatures that need a lot more space to move than what an aquarium can give. They are migratory fish which means they swim far distances in the wild, and females can cover up to 67 kilometers in one day !

A general rule of thumb is to never support any tourism business that keeps animals in captivity.

There are many ethical alternatives to aquariums like going on a 360 virtual underwater tour, like this one with National Marine Sanctuaries :

Another ethical alternative is The Dolphin Swim Club who works with ethical virtual experiences of swimming with wild dolphins. Not only for your amusement but also as a cruelty-free alternative to therapy with captive dolphins.

READ MORE ABOUT ETHICAL ANIMAL TOURISM HERE

Ethical armchair travel ideas

Share travel stories with friends and family.

Being an armchair traveler together with family and friends can be a lot of fun! Share your travel memories together, all the fun parts, your favorite destinations, your least favorite destinations, your travel mishaps, etc.

Make sure you include ethical learnings from your travels through your stories too. Talk about the time you did something unethical on your travels and explain what you learned and why they shouldn’t do the same when they travel next time.

This is a great activity to do over video chat too if you are quarantined in different places.

Quarantours

A Quarantour is an online tour with a local guide in any destination. Cooee is a platform for local guides all over the world to register to do online tours. During quarantine, they will do it from their home and talk about their country, how it is to be in lockdown in their country, and anything you are curious about.

I did an awesome Quarantour with Andrés in Costa Rica. I was meant to travel in Costa Rica in May, but the coronavirus pandemic put a stop to that trip. That’s why I thought it would be a great experience to do a virtual tour with a local guide instead.

We had a great chat, I learned a lot, and enjoyed talking about travel in Costa Rica and especially the sustainable part of traveling in the country. This is an activity I recommend highly!

Watch sustainable travel documentaries

Why not watch documentaries that encourage sustainable travel? There are plenty out there and I wrote a roundup on my 10 favorite sustainable travel documentaries so you can pick and choose which ones you’d like to see.

Sustainable travel documentaries can be both educative and inspiring and not all of them showcase the negative side of tourism. There are many that expose stories of sustainable tourism done right and the positive impact it causes on the destination. Those are my favorites!

Plant trees to create habitat for animals from the convenience of your home

Virtual museum tours

If you love going to museums when you travel, why not watch virtual museum tours from home too? You can now enter the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican in Rome or Le Louvre in Paris without traveling.

There are hundreds of virtual museum tours you can do around the world, so search your dream city and see if you find something you like.

Online cooking classes with locals

If you like cooking, you can travel the world by doing online cooking classes with locals. There are many platforms to choose from, like With Locals . This is a great way to chat with people from other parts of the world and to make a great meal at the same time.

To top up the experience, why not decorate the table as if you were in the country you’re cooking from?

Read cultural travel books

There are many great travel books you can read that are educational on the culture of the country they are set, even if the books are fictional. I have a few favorites, like Three Cups of Tea , Shantaram , and In Arabian Nights .

See here for a full overview of my favorite travel books

Make sure your armchair travel is ethical

Order takeaway from your favorite international restaurant

For those who don’t like cooking or just don’t have the time, I’m sure there are plenty of local international restaurants you can order takeaway from. This way, you support a local travel business at the same time as you fill your senses with the taste and smell of your chosen country.

I, for instance, love ordering food from the Indian restaurant down the street and it was the first thing I did once they were allowed to do takeaway again!

If you have options where they pack the food in biodegradable boxes, even better!

Virtual tours of US National Parks

Have you dreamt of visiting the US National Parks but can’t get there? Don’t worry! Now you can visit them virtually .

While it’s always better to walk in nature that seeing it on the screen, these national parks are so beautiful that it’s actually worth it! And this way, nature gets a little break from your footsteps.

Plant a tree with Click A Tree

Read sustainable travel blogs

There are plenty of responsible travel bloggers out there, focusing on sustainability, social enterprises, and altogether how to improve the way you travel.

A few that I really love are Uncornered Market , Veggie Vagabonds , Green Mochila , and The Nomadic Vegan . They are all passionate about the planet with its inhabitants and how you can become a better traveler.

Learn a new language

There are plenty of apps to help you learn new languages, like Duolingo. However, there are even more fun ways to learn languages with a local teacher. And you can easily do this online with sites like Verbling and FluentU .

Plan your future responsible travels

Why not research sustainable tourist operators working with locals to plan your future travels in an ethical way? There is so much joy in planning a future trip and it’s so important that while you do it, you research the operators you want to use. Make sure they give back to the local community and that they protect wildlife and its habitat.

There are so many benefits of sustainable tourism and believe me, they tend to create the best travel stories to tell your friends and family after your travels!

Create your off the beaten path travel bucket list – responsibly

Now that we have a chance to start from zero with the way we travel, I think it is important to think about the huge problem of overtourism that has disappeared with the global lockdown.

If you can choose off the beaten path destinations instead of the previously overtouristed places, you can help to spread tourism once it picks up again.

The already popular places will see huge amounts of tourists anyway, while less-visited countries and destinations will only be happy to see a bit more visitors in the future. As long as they are all responsible travelers .

Reflections

Armchair travel is not so different from actual travel when it comes to doing it ethically. It all comes down to making sure your choices don’t have negative consequences.

There are so many great ways of supporting the locals as well as having an unforgettable experience. You can learn a lot about different cultures without leaving home. And maybe some of the above suggestions gives you an idea of a new place to travel.

I hope you enjoy armchair travel in an ethical way! If you have other suggestions to ethical armchair travel, drop them in the comments below. Stay safe!

Pin it for later!

Are you sure your armchair travel is ethical? Check out this guide to ethical armchair travel including do's and don'ts. With lots of fun ethical armchair travel tips. #responsibletourism #ethicaltravel #armchairtravel #travelfromhome #sustainability #brainybackpackers #armchairtraveltips

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2 thoughts on “ The explosion of armchair travel: How to do it ethically ”

Fantastic article Linn! What we’re doing now in lockdown is definitely going to influence what we do when it finishes… ‘start as you mean to go on’ and all that jazz! Really loved some of these suggestions, particularly Cooee which seems like a great platform and also a good way to meet people. Watching the right documentaries can also be rewarding and I think learning a language can be one of the single best things to travelling a country more responsibly. Brilliant read, thanks!

Thanks Josh! There are really lots of fun things to do responsibly from home and I just loved my guided video call through Cooee. I still keep in touch with the guide and can’t wait to actually go there so he can show me around in real person:)

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News and Insights

The rise of armchair tourism.

April 8, 2020

It was Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin who once said: “There are decades where nothing happens, and then there are weeks where decades happen.” And there can be little doubt that these past few weeks have felt like several decades for the travel and tourism industry as a landscape nobody could have imagined is now a reality.

Across the globe, destinations and countries are closed to overseas visitors; airlines have grounded either all or the vast majority of their aircraft, cruise lines have confined their fleets to port and hotels and resorts have placed their properties on pause.

Arguably, no market sector has been hit as hard by the Covid-19 pandemic as the tourism and hospitality industries. In the United States, 701,000 jobs were lost last week because of the virus and it is estimated that 50% of those jobs were from the tourism and hospitality sector. In the United Kingdom, the Foreign and Commonwealth office extended its advice against travelling overseas for an “indefinite period.”

The challenge for the sector is a horribly simple one. How do you keep the idea and desire to travel alive when travel is prohibited in such an unimaginable way?

If history has taught us one thing, it is that humans are incredibly innovative when times are at their toughest. And, with the Covid-19 crisis and all its challenges for the travel and hospitality sector, we are seeing travel professionals and travel brands showing incredible, innovative initiatives to keep the travel dream alive for many. It is known as armchair travel and it is surprisingly successful.

Many travel brands and destinations are working on the premise that if the travel consumer can’t come to us we will come to the travel consumer. This week Viking Cruises launched a digital platform in a bid to “bring the world to its guests” at home while the Coronavirus pandemic continues to grip the globe.

The cruise line said Viking.TV would “provide enriching cultural content and livestreaming video experiences from around the world”, with live content from “experts, cultural partners and notable individuals.” Elsewhere, Visit Scotland’s content team, working from their own homes, created a short film inviting previous visitors from near and far to share their favourite memories of Scotland. The heart-warming film asks people to dream about visiting now, but to travel later.

Switzerland’s tourist board decided to keep their destination front of mind by giving users on social media a slice of “Switzerland from afar,” stunning pictures and videos of the destination accompanied by hashtags like #neverstopdreaming and #staystrong to bolster morale.

The evidence now is that many tourist boards that have any experiences or attractions that can be viewed virtually, or if there is the ability to create content that could create this illusion, are using this approach to encourage future visits.

A great example of this is the Vienna Tourist Board who have a dedicated page on their website promoting virtual experiences in the city. The page states that: “You don’t have to leave home to experience the sparkling magnificence of Vienna’s museums and sights. Come with us on a virtual voyage of discovery through the collections and rooms of world-famous Viennese institutions like the Albertina, Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Schönbrunn Palace and many other extraordinary places”.

South African Tourism released a video showcasing the destination with the message, “Don’t travel now so you can travel later” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urnp9YJeDN4 which amplifies what they are saying on social media #MeetSouthAfricaLater in a bid to inspire visits at a later date.

Travel writers are playing their part too in this bid to keep the desire to travel alive in the hearts and minds of the travelling public currently in lockdown. Travel editor and commentator Simon Calder now does regular Twitter polls called “Travel Icons” asking people to vote on everything from best waterfall, to best rail journey, best island and best bridge.

Meanwhile, Conde Nast Traveller have launched Little Black Book which is an initiative to “shine a light on all the places we can’t get to right now, but which are truly special and globally gorgeous.” As part of the initiative, readers are invited to send in their best travel insights and most extraordinary experiences.

No one knows how long the Coronavirus pandemic will last or, indeed, what the post pandemic world will look like. But one thing is certain, destinations and travel brands can keep the magic and inspiration of travel alive for now – even if it is virtually, from the armchair.

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Virtual Travel

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Virtual Museum of Lost Art Asks Visitors to Help Track Down Missing Masterpieces

The Armchair Traveler's Guide to Digital Environmental Humanities

Finn Arne Jørgensen is associate professor of history of technology and environment in the Department of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies, Umeå University, Sweden. He is the author of Making a Green Machine: The Infrastructure of Beverage Container Recycling (Rutgers University Press, 2011) and co-editor (with Dolly Jørgensen and Sara B. Pritchard) of New Natures: Joining Environmental History with Science and Technology Studies (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011). Connect with him on Twitter: @finnarne. Email [email protected]

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Finn Arne Jørgensen; The Armchair Traveler's Guide to Digital Environmental Humanities. Environmental Humanities 1 May 2014; 4 (1): 95–112. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-3614944

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The technological mediation of near and distant landscapes have long fascinated scholars and the public alike, and it seems like this interest peaks around times of large-scale technological transition, when new modes of both transportation and mediation become available. Few scholars have analyzed this relationship between technology, media, and the perception of landscape as convincingly as Wolfgang Schivelbusch, who famously argued that the landscape perceived by travelers was filtered through the machine ensemble of the railroad system. This article brings Schivelbusch's thesis into the digital age as a way of examining the spatiality of digital media and the natural world. The article analyzes a series of technologically mediated digital representations of travel and movement through landscapes, in particular the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation's “slow travel” series of digitally enhanced TV programs. These highly popular mediations of railroad or boat travel challenge Schivelbusch's ideas of speed, distance, and experience of landscapes, but also direct our attention towards the role of digital media in making sense of a changing world.

The empirical reality that made the landscape seen from the train window appear to be “another world” was the railroad itself, with its excavations, tunnels, etc. Yet the railroad was merely an expression of the rail's technological requirements, and the rail itself was a constituent part of the machine ensemble that was the system. It was, in other words, that machine ensemble that interjected itself between the traveler and the landscape. The traveler perceived the landscape as it was filtered through the machine ensemble. –Wolfgang Schivelbusch 1

Introduction

The armchair traveler explores the world from the comforts of home. Through the printed word, still photographs, moving pictures, and sound, scenic locations and remote landscapes come alive, conveying some form of filtered and mediated experience of the world. You are armchair traveling when you read a Lonely Planet book about some place you may or may not be planning to actually visit; when you watch the Travel Channel on cable TV; when you watch penguins in Antarctica on Google Street View. Armchair travel is a way of seeing the world with age-old traditions. The genre has tight connections to nature writing, seeking to build understanding of, knowledge about, and attachment to natural and cultural places. At the same time, armchair travel is about estrangement, as Bernd Stiegler argues: to not just learn about new places, but also to see familiar places in a new light. 2 As such, armchair travel is a deeply humanistic practice, weaving a web of meaning, narratives, and connections across the world, but always centered in the physical location of the armchair traveler. The media of armchair traveling, however, is in constant change. In recent years, geolocative technologies and networked screens have seemingly extended the range and immersive depth of what we now think of as virtual travel experiences. Using examples from Norwegian travel mediations, this article asks what happens when new media forms and networked digital technologies become part of the armchair travel experience. What are the affordances of media technologies and the modes of storytelling and experience in digital representation of travel?

The technological mediations of near and distant cultures and environments have long fascinated scholars and the public alike, and it seems like this interest peaks around times of large-scale technological transition, when new modes of transportation and mediation become available. Few scholars have analyzed this relationship between technology, media, and the perception of landscape as convincingly as Wolfgang Schivelbusch, who famously argued that the landscape perceived by railway travelers was filtered through the machine ensemble of the railroad system, creating a new panoramic view of landscape that was not possible before the railroad. The Railway Journey —which was published in German in 1977 and translated into English two years later—has had a considerable influence on the way historians of technology understand the relationship between technology and the experience of travel and place.

For Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey is a story of new transportation technologies, of “annihilation of space and time” by speed. His big argument is that the railway destroyed the traditional relationship, the close contact, between travelers and their environment, and replaced it with a panoramic experience of time and space. For him, the railway was the first truly modern mode of transportation, where mobility replaced the physical act of movement, and his main goal with the book was to capture this subjective experience of railroad travel at the very moment it was new. 3 Schivelbusch's original argument can very well apply to each successive generation of transportation technologies, where faster modes of transportation—be it cars, boats, airplanes, or others—continue to shrink space by time.

A corresponding argument would be that reverting to older forms of transport technology slows down the passage of time and expands the sense of place. As travel slows down, a new consciousness emerges, more deliberate and more attuned to the landscape being traveled through. In the spirit of Schivelbusch, we should consider this slowness an often-romanticized narrative invoked in depictions of railroad travel. The actual travel time between two locations can in some circumstances be less by the slow and steady movement of a train than through the increasingly stressful and antagonistic experience of modern airplane travel. Slow travel is a carefully cultivated state of mind more than anything else, and one that needs to be historicized and contextualized in order to be fully understood.

Building on Schivelbusch's thesis, this article explores new media types of storytelling—in other words, armchair travel—that have emerged around this form for slow travel, arguing that new media technologies function as a medium that enables particular relationships between people and the world. With the coming of the railroad, the viewpoint for observing landscape was no longer a static one. The focal point changes—nearby is a blur, further away is clear—but slowly moving. Railway travel frames the experience, literally and metaphorically. The landscape of train travel is not experienced directly on the body, but through a window. In some ways, this particular framing of nature can be seen as a predecessor to screen-based media.

Following Schivelbusch's emphasis on the sensory and experiential quality of the human-landscape relation, I will focus on the roles media forms can play in shaping relationships between people and landscapes. In such a perspective, Schivelbusch's insights in The Railway Journey give us an opportunity to think about the relationship between the digital and the material, and the technological affordances of mediation, in ways that are critical for the environmental humanities. We seldom experience nature fully directly and unfiltered, but instead mediated through, even enabled by different technologies. 4 The rapid movement of bodies through landscapes in trains on railroad tracks is one example. Technology provides a connecting bridge between the different timescales of human and environmental change. However, technology is not a neutral mediator. The newness or oldness of a particular technology at any given point in time shapes our understanding of both the mediated phenomenon and ourselves. 5 For most technology, newer means faster, more powerful, and more sophisticated, simultaneously making older technologies seem less so, despite how advanced they had seemed when they were new (as most smartphone owners discover upon the release of a new and much more advanced model). When thinking about change over time, however, it is imperative that we recognize how old technologies were all once new, as Carolyn Marvin argues. 6 Technologies we today consider stable, unchanging, and devoid of transformative power when compared to the new, were once disruptive, changing social relationships and the built environment alike.

Slow Travel and Sustainable Tourism

The world is a much smaller place than it used to be. Commercial airlines fly to almost every corner of the planet, which means that there are very few places in the world that are actually hard to visit. Travelers complain about the indignities of security checkpoints and being crammed into ever-narrower plane seats, but the fact remains that we live in a time with unprecedented amounts of travel opportunities across larger distances and at much higher speed than before. We are bombarded with images and narratives of exotic and enticing travel locations across the world, in advertising, entertainment, and culture, and more and more people actually have the opportunity to seek out these places for themselves.

Vacation travel has become a marker of affluence and personal satisfaction, and is today a consumer and leisure experience on a large scale. 7 Particularly faraway and exotic travel destinations can function as a sort of conspicuous consumption as Thorstein Veblen defined it, but also the more everyday chartered flights to mass tourism sites like Gran Canaria matter. 8 As a result of this dramatically increased travel activity, many have questioned and criticized the sustainability of extensive travel and tourism. 9 Climate change discussions frequently reference the high and growing emissions from air travel, and in more local contexts noise pollution from transport infrastructure has also become a concern. Furthermore, the sheer numbers of tourists represent significant wear and tear on natural and cultural landscapes.

Slow travel is one of the responses to these environmental challenges in the emerging literature on sustainable tourism. 10 For instance, Dickinson et al. define slow travel as “an emerging conceptual framework which offers an alternative to air and car travel, where people travel to destinations more slowly overland, stay longer and travel less.” 11 Yet, there seems to be a lack of consensus over the appropriate modes of transportation. Instead, slow travel should be seen as a group of associated ideas, a mindset rather than a tangible product. 12 Other literature on slow travel explores the connection between speed and positive values in modernity, such as freedom and progress, whereas slowness and stillness are seen as undesired. Molz examines how pace becomes socially encoded in media, demonstrating that slow travel opens the door to a more nuanced story of modernity. 13 It is precisely this story this article investigates, with slow travel as a way of making sense of a changing world.

This emphasis on speed and slowness, paired with an underlying narrative of modernity and environmental degradation resonates with Schivelbusch's story of the railway ensemble. When travelers today place railroad travel in the slow travel category, we see clearly what a relative phenomenon speed is. The “slow” is attributed by us, accustomed to higher speeds. Contemporary sources to Schivelbusch, on the other hand, emphasized the speed of train travel, the feeling of almost flying when traveling on a train. 14 What was once new and modern seems to have become slow, deliberate, and authentic. What do these alternating senses of speed and modernity mean for the relationship between travel, experience, and landscape?

Landscapes of Textually Mediated Travel

Narratives of travel to distant locations have been a foundational element of literature. Romance, politics, war, and other interpersonal relationships are all distributed in time and space, which means that travel and mobility have been essential components of storytelling for as long as humans have shared tales around a fireplace. In written literature, Marco Polo is perhaps one of the most well-known travel narratives, having inspired armchair travelers for centuries, but the genre is much older. Pausanias' ten-volume Description of Greece dates to the second century, for instance, and the Odyssey is even older.

Travel literature as a genre became extremely widespread in the eighteenth century, particularly through British writers reporting on the far places in the British Empire and elsewhere. 15 These British travelers also visited Norway at the end of the eighteenth century, joining a small but prolific group of Norwegian explorers. 16 Scientists, folklorists, authors, journalists, painters, and more or less professional explorers can be found among the travelers. The books, articles, and artworks that these travelers published represent a simultaneous mapping of the countryside and of modernization, as modern transportation infrastructures followed in the footsteps of the pioneering travelers. Railroad travel came to feature frequently in contemporary travel reports. These narratives of railroad travel mainly took place in textual media in Norway; in travel books and in short articles in the popular volumes of the Norwegian Trekking Association, published annually since 1868.

Schivelbusch attempted to capture the experience of a large-scale technological transition, and contrasted railway travel with walking. Travel was slow before the railroad. We would think it was painfully slow, but as Schivelbusch writes about the nostalgia for pre-railroad traveling: it had more “soul.” There is an inherent assumption in his writing that travel by foot was contemplative, rich, and full of details. Furthermore, referring to Georg Simmel's writings on the urban perception and John Ruskin's writings on travel, Schivelbusch reflects on the quality of sensory input at different speeds. The less input, the more time we have to dwell on it. In this sense, change is bad. Ruskin writes “... to any person who has all his senses about him, a quiet walk along not more than ten or twelve miles of road a day, is the most amusing of all traveling; and all traveling becomes dull in exact proportion to its rapidity.” 17

We find similar sentiments in the writings of the early explorers of the Norwegian countryside. A posthumous tribute to three trekkers, Mayor P. Birch-Reichenwald, Professor Axel Gudbrand Blytt and Professor Dr. Marius Sophus Lie, portrayed them all as old-fashioned tourists, spending the summers on foot, getting to know Norwegian nature. They were all active and influential people in science and politics, but gained the energy for this work while trekking in the mountains. 18 The pioneering explorers were hardy men, reveling in the challenges of the road. The so-called “old tourists” however, were a breed of men that were fast disappearing at the turn of the nineteenth century. These old tourists claimed to enjoy (most) of the hardships of the road by foot, and shared their experiences in the form of travel reports, many published in the annual reports of the Norwegian Trekking Association since 1868. Written travel narratives of this kind can be found in abundance, and they start appearing from around the late 1700s. In the 1800s, it seems like the Scandinavian countryside in particular is full of rather well-to-do travelers who all end up writing about their experiences. 19 These travelers in practice map and catalogue Scandinavian landscapes, identifying scenic locations, explaining the best routes and modes of transportation to get there, and attempt to convince other urbanites that getting there is worth the trouble. 20 These narratives attached considerable romance to the old form of trekking, before modern transport infrastructure civilized the countryside, in ways that can be construed as anti-modern. Yet, we can also read these narratives as expressions of complex negotiations over the changing relationship between technology, nature, and national identity.

The narratives in these books change as the railroads between the major cities started opening up. Travelers such as the history and geography professor Yngvar Nielsen— the most prolific Norwegian travel writer of the period—described the new way of traveling in ways that are very much in line with Schivelbusch. 21 But to him, the railroad was just one of a whole flood of technologies that heralded the coming of modernity. In his memoirs, Nielsen describes personally being present at pretty much the first arrival of every single piece of new technology. Trains, electricity, telegraphs, telephones—he had seen it all. It is not a coincidence that the appreciation for nature experiences as a leisure activity increased so dramatically during this period of rapid technological change. 22 While clearly appreciative of these new technologies, Nielsen's writings were also tinged with nostalgia over a disappearing mode of experiencing Norwegian nature.

The railroad was not the only rapidly expanding transport infrastructure at the time, but it was one of the most immediately visible on the landscape. W. Matthieu Williams, a British scientist, wrote a book comparing the travel experience of 1853 and 1876, and pointed out how the new railroads that were built had taken over much of the tourist traffic in 1876. He wrote that the railway between Oslo and Trondheim was “emphatically a tourist's railway; the portion I have traversed presents the most splendid panorama of scenery I have ever seen from any railway.” Despite this strong promotion of the panoramic qualities of the railroad, he considered the railroad less authentic, less proper, than walking by foot. The railroad would “take all the luxurious and hurried traffic—americans and others who are ’doin’’ Europe, &c, and whill leave the old carriole roads to the full and healthful enjoyment of those who desire and are able to leisurely travel through Norway with a knapsack.” 23 As with Schivelbusch, there's an implied interpretation that older ways of traveling had been freer. The new went on a track, predetermined. The machine ensemble of the railroad thus annihilated more than just time and space, it also endangered the healthy relationship to nature that many sought.

Yet railroads and travel books went together in an almost symbiotic fashion. Together, they opened up a way of intimately knowing the landscapes of the young country, both in a material and a meaningful sense. Written travelogues became a widely read genre at the same time as travel became more broadly available for ever-larger groups of people. As such, they both reflected the growing interest in travel and served to reinforce this interest. The books were as much guides for directions as they were guides for emotion—what you were supposed to feel when traveling, the sense of discovery and the sublimity of nature combined with a certain appreciation of physical and cultural hardship. However, as both David E. Nye and David Blackbourn suggest in their explorations of technological and natural sublime in respectively the United States and Germany around the same period, nostalgia was not the only possible response to the technological face of modernity. 24

Travel in New Media

When travel narratives met moving images, time began to matter in a different way. A book lives outside of time, in many ways. While authors pace their narratives at different speeds and draw the attention of readers to particular elements of the story, people read at different speeds, and a book can be put down and taken up again at the reader's leisure. A film, on the other hand, has duration. The camera takes in a whole scene, demanding the viewer's attention at any given time. “The camera's fundamental relationship to the world around us and its recording of other cultures has always dogged documentary,” writes Andrew Utterson. 25 As travelogue first moved into film media and later into the digital age, the relationships between viewers, landscape imagery, and the increasingly networked world shifted.

In Erkki Huhtamo's recent history of moving panoramas, he demonstrates how the 360-degree moving panoramas were a media spectacle without equal at the time, and became a big fad in the decades preceding the railroad. This passed when the railroads opened, and the panoramas were completely swept away when movie theaters began opening across Europe and the United States. But for this brief window of time, panoramas offered viewers immersive landscape paintings of close and distant places. The panoramas could take their audience to exotic and scenic locations, often far away, without the inconvenience, hardship, and expense of traveling. 26

Trains arrived with the film medium, in a sense. The first film at the very first public showing of moving film, arranged by the Lumière brothers in Paris in 1895, was L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat. For viewers in the twenty-first century, the film is nothing spectacular, really. We have become so accustomed to moving pictures that we no longer see what the big deal is. A train arrives at a station, and the passengers get off. It's all over in 48 seconds. A frequently told story is that the first audience ran away in panic when the train came towards them, but this is likely only a myth. 27 But newspaper articles and commentaries from the time indicate that the audience found the milling about of the passengers on the platform as fascinating as the movement of the train through the landscape. 28 The movement of the train and its passengers became entangled in the newness of moving pictures as a medium.

Railroads have continued to capture the imagination of travelers and armchair travelers worldwide. In 2009, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation aired a seven-hour long program following Bergensbanen, the railroad between Bergen and Oslo in real-time, minute by minute. In this pre-recorded program, aired on the 100 th anniversary of the railroad's opening, the TV audience could see the view from a front-mounted camera, leaving the train itself invisible. The viewpoint is thus not that of the driver, but perhaps of the train itself. In front of the train, we see the track winding its way through the landscape, as illustrated in Figure 1 . More than a million Norwegians watched the show, “almost paralyzed” by the real-time and mostly unedited slow journey through the Norwegian countryside. 29

This Norwegian show was not the first of its kind. The Deutsche Bahn operated a TV channel called Bahn TV from 2001-2010. One of the programs, “Bahn TV in Fahrt,” showed the view from the cab of a moving train, following the regular train lines between cities in Germany, Austria, and France. Initially started as an internal staff television channel, it expanded into a niche channel that some cable subscribers could get from 2005-2006. After 2008, the channel shifted to a pure webcast. The NRK Bergensbanen program was similar in scope in that it did not significantly augment this plain video feed with digital content. An audio signal and superimposed text notified viewers of train station and tunnel names, but beyond that, the slowly changing landscape penetrated by the railroad tracks took center stage.

This was to change in a later iteration of the slow railroad travel TV idea, which thoroughly embedded born-digital perspectives on place and mobility in the show. The Nordlandsbanen—minutt for minutt program first aired in late December 2012, following the train from Trondheim to Bodø, over almost ten hours, through 729 kilometers, 42 stations, 156 tunnels and 361 bridges. The new element added here was that NRK recorded the journey four times, one for each season. The four video feeds were then synchronized using GPS data recorded during the journey. The website gave viewers the option to watch the seasons individually or all at once, as we see in Figure 2 . The NRK editors pointed out that this was an incredibly time-consuming and intricate process. Microphones mounted on the train recorded sound both inside and outside of the train, adding to the mediated experience of the journey. Viewers got a bit more feeling of speed as a result of the forward-facing camera, but the overall impression is still one of slowness, of painstakingly making your way through a landscape.

Watching and exploring this train ride becomes strangely hypnotic, with the clackety clack sound of the train on the tracks (I keep it on in my office when writing sometimes, as a kind of white noise). But the experience we get is not the compression of time and space that Schivelbusch describes. Instead, time is drawn out, stretched over distance, highlighting the slowness of train travel instead. The four seasons give the viewer a peculiar sense of time passing, but more important is the way new media and geospatial technologies are profoundly intertwined in the presentation of the railway journey from Trondheim to Bodø. The absolute location information enabled by the synchronized GPS data links the four different train rides to each other. When presented as four video feeds on one screen, the train becomes one machine moving through four seasons, four different versions of one place, at the same time.

The accompanying website allowed viewers to choose between the original broadcast, with music, interviews, and some video material from other cameras outside and on the side of the train; the four seasons as individual feeds; and the synchronized version with all four feeds at the same time. 30 A dynamically updated map displays the train's position and allows viewers to click to skip ahead to particular locations. In addition, the website had information about the history of Nordlandsbanen, the playlist for the 77 songs with local artists that played during the broadcast, and a interactive video mixer (in beta), where visitors can create their own video mix between two of the seasons. A link to a very technical write-up about the production documented the actual and time-consuming work that went into creating the show. 31

As Slow As It Gets? Hurtigruten.

As interesting and popular as the two railroad shows were, they cannot compare to what we can only describe as the high point of the NRK slow travel series, an 8048-minute (five and a half days) live broadcast of Hurtigruten, the Coastal Express, sailing from Bergen on the southwest coast of Norway to Kirkenes in the far north, a total distance of 2703 km or 1460 nautical miles. As you might expect, the show was very slow—viewers could see the view from the ship, mixed in with interviews and commentaries onboard the ship, all in real-time. NRK showed everything live and a website showed the video stream, paired with a map where you could see the ship move in real-time and other information. Furthermore, NRK made downloads of the stream available in full HD as BitTorrent downloads while the show was still on.

The show was a big hit in Norway when it ran in June 2011—when the show peaked, half of Norway's roughly five million people had watched it. Furthermore, the show was also transmitted live on the Internet, where 46% of the viewers came from outside of Norway. Even more interesting were all the people that showed up along the coast, waving from land, cruising around in boats, and also the huge crowds at all the stops. The small places were generally the ones with the most people. My hometown Sortland (with 10,000 inhabitants), for instance, had more people show up at 3:30 at night (although the sun was out since it's above the Arctic circle, as shown in Figure 3 ) than Trondheim (with 175,000 people) had in the middle of day. It seems like the experience of watching the show took people somewhat by surprise. The premise sounds quite ludicrous, like watching paint dry on live TV, but people initially looked out of pure curiosity and then found it hard to stop. Twitter was full of people who seemed unable to turn off the TV and go to bed at night as Hurtigruten sailed through Vesterålen in the midnight sun. The #Hurtigruten hashtag trended in Norway during the entire week of the show, and many place names would also appear on the top list of Twitter topics as Hurtigruten sailed into those places. In other words, this was a mediated representation of the coast of an entire nation that really interfaced with people's daily lives. During both the train shows and the Hurtigruten one, the Twitter discussion backchannel was critical to the popularity of the show. This was not a form of armchair travel undertaken alone and in isolation, but rather a deeply social event, extended and augmented by digital media.

The popularity took NRK completely by surprise, even knowing how well the Bergensbanen show had gone. The producers spent a fair amount of time before the show launched justifying the expenditure of taxpayer money, arguing that “it is probably considerably cheaper than many large sports events, and it may perhaps also connect with people in a deeper way. After all, we are the license-funded Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. We need to do things like this, because if we don't, no one else will.” 32 I think there are many reasons why the Hurtigruten show struck a chord in Norway. One of them has to do with history and nature. The infrastructural role of Hurtigruten as a critical means of transportation is long past. Once upon a time it was essential for transporting people, mail, and goods in a reliable way along the coast. It still brings cargo and people, of course, but today there are many other options available. Like many old technologies, Hurtigruten has found new life in new roles.

More than anything else, Hurtigruten is a tourist ship now. But the show also demonstrates how Hurtigruten has become a part of the cultural landscape of coastal Norway and a way of experiencing and taking part in nature. The old infrastructures of travel live on as narratives of bodies in motion through landscapes, but not just any landscape. In the same way that the early trekkers and the Norwegian Trekking Association explored the Norwegian countryside as a way of constructing a new national identity in the 1800s, the tourist experience of sailing along the coast in Hurtigruten is one of experiencing an iconic national landscape. We find similar sentiments expressed in the Norwegian tourist railroads; traveling with these particular transportation infrastructures becomes a way of seeing the best that Norway has to offer as a tourist destination. Both written and digital armchair travel media build upon such interpretations of national landscapes.

The website that NRK made for the show represents a great model for visualizing travel in digital media. As we see in Figure 4 , the site has three main elements: 1) a zoomable map with a red line marking the progress of Hurtigruten and markers for all the stops along the way; 33 2) a video window showing a live or archived video stream in which clicking anywhere along the red line on the map will show you the video for that spot; 3) an information window that shows you the Hurtigruten, radar data, links to torrent downloads of raw video data in full HD (CC-licensed), and a link to a 3D view in Google Earth. Some of this content clearly targets what we can only describe as enthusiast viewers rather than the mainstream viewer, who would probably be unlikely to download and explore the radar data file.

The Hurtigruten show is not just a successful example of new media armchair travel, but also how rich this media can be. It was a slow, but deeply mediated experience. When planning the show, NRK tested various ways of integrating place data in augmented reality-like approaches such as floating text bubbles that would move with the camera onscreen. They asked people for input on the NRK website—what would they like to see? Suggestions included water temperature, air temperature, humidity, air pressure, accelerometer, compass data, radar and sonar live feed, underwater cameras, engine room sound, GPS coordinates, raw video files with time stamps, and so on. The combination of suggestions hinted at a desire to use various types of sensors and recorders to blend the technology of the ship with the outside landscapes that Hurtigruten sailed through, all presented to the viewer through a digital interface. After the show was over, NRK did not end up releasing all the data they recorded, but made the GPS data available in JSON format, as well as around 600 GB of high-quality video files for free download under a Creative Commons license.

NRK announced a competition for the best remixes and mash-ups created with the Creative Commons-licensed material. The perhaps most obvious entries fast-forwarded the video, compressing the 134 hour long journey all the way down to a five-minute speed run of the Norwegian coast. 34 Other entries took screen captures at regular intervals and organized them into gorgeous, high-resolution posters that look like they are sorted by color, but that actually visualized the slowly changing light of the Norwegian summer. 35 Going to the other extreme, one viewer extracted the 9,486,520 frames where Hurtigruten was moving and used these to generate one composite image of the “average” view—a blurred gray and flat sea separated from a slightly lighter gray sky by a dark gray horizon—with the white bow of the ship sharply in focus. 36 The winner was probably the most time-consuming and meticulous of all the entries—a massive timetable index of the entire journey, listing events and points of interest, time, location, and a direct link to the location in the archived stream on the NRK website. This indexing job took a total of eight months to complete. While the winner did not use the Creative Commons-licensed video at all, the NRK jury thought that his entry added so much value to the project that they found him a clear winner of the competition. 37 The grand prize was (obviously) a free trip with Hurtigruten.

In the full Hurtigruten show, viewers are presented with what we can describe as an annotated landscape, including both recorded geospatial information and highly manual annotations such as those of the remix competition winner. If we think about how we often navigate landscapes now, accessing these invisible digital layers of information about the landscape as we move through it, using a handheld GPS-enabled device (finding out our direction, speed, altitude, routes, weather forecasts, notable attractions and their history, the location of the nearest Starbucks, etc.), we are simultaneously moving in two types of landscapes at once, both the immediate and physical on the one hand, and the digital and distributed on the other. Experiencing and navigating the world around us requires us to circulate between these two categories of knowing.

The Hurtigruten show was an experiment in geospatial visualization that successfully managed to blend these two views of the world in an appealing and popular manner. It is a fantastic experience, culturally immersive and able to bring the entire country together in a way that few other TV programs have. But it is important to note that it is without the instant gratification of so much contemporary entertainment. In a way, it can be compared to the slow food movement. It is slow entertainment, meant to be stretched out and savored.

Armchair travel directs our attention to the mediated character of location and of nature itself. Schivelbusch has been criticized, and in some ways rightly so, for focusing almost exclusively on the phenomenology of train travel, being more concerned with “the making and remaking of world views rather than the contested qualities of world views as modes of reception and representation, with implications for politics and sectional interests,” as George Revill writes. 38 The ways in which we experience, navigate, and ultimately know natural environments and landscapes today have become suffused with digital information structures, making armchair travel as dependent on technology as physical travel is. Our mode of transportation as we travel—in body or in armchair—influences the way we view the landscapes we travel through. This insight is one of the broader contributions of Schivelbusch's work beyond transport history.

The slow digital travel programs developed by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation point to a convergence of mediating strategies: texts, images, maps, GPS data, video, sound, even integrating social media in the experience. The result is simultaneously an extension and an update of traditional travel narratives. Highlighting the processes of mediation that take place in the relationship between the experience of being aboard Hurtigruten or a train, experiencing nature first-hand, and watching it on TV is very much in line with Schivelbusch's goal to understand the subjective experience of new technologies. In this sense, mediation is about more than simple representation. As in Schivelbusch's machine ensemble, we have seen how digital media forms a layer between (virtual) traveler and landscape. On the one hand, these mediated relationships create a response from the viewer, evoking and shaping a new experience; on the other, they deepen our understanding of the act of moving through the landscapes they open up for us.

Environmental historians and nature writers alike have to a large degree been concerned with close readings of the relationships between particular groups of people and particular places. The nature we meet in these narratives is very often a nature that is experienced through the body, a very physical relationship. Yet our idea of what nature is has expanded quite dramatically as a result of both new scientific instruments and new nature management regimes. The natural world becomes both bigger and smaller at the same time, extending out in space and down into our own bodies. We know from science studies that we generally can't know this “nature” directly. 39 This idea of nature is becoming very hard to separate from the digital tools and media we use to observe, interpret, and manage it. Our ideas, our standards, for what is natural are distributed and maintained in digital tools and media like databases, computer models, geographical information systems, and so on. Paul Edwards' massive and prize-winning book on computer modeling and climate change, A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming, is one recent example of studies highlighting this perspective. 40 Such a perspective on nature pulls us in a few different directions. Up, towards abstraction and global management systems, like Edwards and his vast machines. But also down, out into the field, to the bodily experience of nature. We can call these distant and close natures, directly borrowing from Franco Moretti's ways of reading literature on different scales. 41 Distant natures, those that are not experienced through the body but distributed through data and media, need different modes of analysis and storytelling. Human interpretation and experience is still relevant, but we need to understand how it is mediated through machines and technologies, models and database structures.

If we think of technology as a set of relations—social, economic, even epistemological—the digital turn certainly embodies the same kind of relations. Animal-based travel carries a set of relations between bodies: of struggling, tired horses and humans jostled about in carriages or on horseback. The locomotive took away the animal, converting coal and water into steam, smoke, power, and motion. What happens with these relations in the digital? Things never remain the same as we move between media; something is lost and something is gained. Still, if we think of the mediation process as primarily one of representation, then something is definitely lost in translation. Instead, we should think of mediation as the making of connections. Travel narratives demonstrate this clearly—as John Urry argues, “multiple forms of actual and imagined presence that carry connections across and into various kinds of social space.” 42 If we focus on the experiential aspect that Schivelbusch was out to capture in his book, we can see how something new is created in this process. New media technologies enable particular relationships between people and the world, and this act of mediation is by no means neutral, in the same way that Schivelbusch's machine ensemble is not neutral. In that sense, mediation is an important way we are in the world. Mediation is how we interface with the world, with all that it implies, including the fact that we have always been mediated. 43 And if we have always been mediated, we can't assume that the shape and content of this mediation has remained constant over time. But this fact also means that forms of media, old and new alike, are fundamentally entangled with both historical and present human experiences of the world. The forms of digital armchair travel discussed in this article are both mediated and augmented, a communal experience that adds to the physical experience. There is something profound and tremendously powerful at work in the slow travel programs: the articulation of authenticity and meaning.

The railroad that Schivelbusch describes as “the annihilator of time and space” is no longer as fast as it once seemed. Now that the railroad is increasingly framed and portrayed as a technology for slow, contemplative travel—for observing landscapes slowly change as we travel through them—we must ask what is the difference between our experience of the journey and the subjective experience that Schivelbusch was out to capture. While armchair travel as a genre has become updated and brought into new digital media, the search for meaning in a changing world continues to be a key theme in this genre. This is a place where history of technology, the environmental humanities, and the digital humanities can and should work with each other. Rich and deep digital media can enable new forms of storytelling and presentation that we can't afford to ignore.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank the anonymous reviewers (one of whom produced the most awesomely thoughtful, constructive, and helpful review I have ever received), the participants providing feedback at the various events in Europe and the US where I have presented parts of the material in this article, and most of all Dolly Jørgensen for valuable comments. I'm also indebted to Wilko Graf von Hardenberg and Kimberly Coulter for making this publication happen in the first place, and Thom van Dooren for his help in the process.

Bibliography

Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19 th Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986)

Bernd Stiegler, Traveling in Place: A History of Armchair Travel (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), Kindle ebook file, loc. 6.

Schivelbusch, Railway Journey.

In a strict interpretation, you would have to walk barefoot and naked through uncharted land at a time before the Anthropocene, with no goal of returning to civilization, in order to experience nature unfiltered by technology.

Michael North, Novelty: A History of the New (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013).

Carolyn Marvin, When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking About Electric Communication in the Late Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).

Frédéric Dimanche and Diane Samdahl, “Leisure as Symbolic Consumption: A Conceptualization and Prospectus for Future Research,” Leisure Sciences 16, no. 2 (1994): 119-129.

Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (New York: Penguin Books, 1994 [1899]).

Tommy Gärling, Dick Ettema, and Margareta Friman, eds., Handbook of Sustainable Travel (Berlin: Springer, 2014).

Janet E. Dickinson, Les M. Lumsdon, and Derek Robbins, “Slow Travel: Issues for Tourism and Climate Change,” Journal of Sustainable Tourism 19, no 3, (2011): 281-300; Janet Dickinson and Les Lumsdom, Slow Travel and Tourism (London: Earthscan, 2010).

Janet E. Dickinson, D. Robbins, and Les Lumsdon, “Holiday Travel Discourses and Climate Change,” Journal of Transport Geography 18, (2010): 482-489.

Les M. Lumsdon and Peter McGrath, “Developing a Conceptual Framework for Slow Travel: A Grounded Theory Approach,” Journal of Sustainable Tourism 19, no 3 (2011): 265-279.

Jennie Germann Molz, “Representing Pace in Tourism Mobilities: Staycations, Slow Travel and The Amazing Race, ” Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change 7, no. 4, (2009): 270-286.

Michael Freeman, Railways and the Victorian Imagination (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999).

Brian Dolan, Exploring European Frontiers: British Travellers in the Age of the Enlightenment (London: MacMillan, 2000).

Jørgen Alnæs, I eventyret. Norske reiseskildringer fra Astrup til Aasheim (Oslo: Cappelen Damm, 2008).

Schivelbusch, Railway Journey, 58.

Den norske turistforenings aarbog for 1899 (Kristiania: Grøndahl & Sønn bogtrykkeri, 1899), 1.

Peter Fjågesund and Ruth A. Symes, The Northern Utopia: British Perceptions in Norway in the Nineteenth Century (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2003).

See for instance Den norske turistforenings aarbog for 1897 (Kristiania: Grøndahl & Sønn bogtrykkeri, 1897), 5.

Yngvar Nielsen, Reisehaandbog over Norge (Kristiania, 1879). This travel guide was published in a total of 12 editions until 1915.

Yngvar Nielsen, Erindringer fra et halvt aarhundredes vandreliv (Kristiania, 1909).

W. Mattieu Williams, Through Norway With a Knapsack (London: Edward Stanford, 1876), 41.

David E. Nye, American Technological Sublime (Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press, 1996); David Blackbourn, The Conquest of Nature: Water, Landscape, and the Making of Modern Germany (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007).

Andrew Utterson, “Destination Digital: Documentary Representation and the Virtual Travelogue,” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 20, no. 3 (2003): 193–202.

Erkki Huhtamo, Illusions in Motion: Media Archaeology of the Moving Panorama and Related Spectacles (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2013).

Martin Loiperdinger, “Lumière's Arrival of the Train: Cinema's Founding Myth,” The Moving Image 4, no. 1 (2004): 89-118.

Hellmuth Karasek, “Lokomotive der Gefühle,” Spiegel 52, (1994): 154.

News in English.no, “Marathon documentary marks Bergen-Oslo line's 100th year,” accessed 22 January 2014, http://www.newsinenglish.no/2009/11/30/marathon-documentary-marks-bergen-oslo-lines-100th-year/ .

Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, “Nordlandsbanen: Minutt for minutt,” accessed 22 January 2014, http://www.nrk.no/nordlandsbanen/ .

Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, “Årstider i sync: produksjonen av Nordlandsbanen minutt for minutt,” accessed 22 January 2014, http://nrkbeta.no/2012/12/29/arstider-i-sync-produksjonen-av-nordlandsbanen-minutt-for-minutt/ .

Anders Hofseth, “Hurtigruten: FAQ – Ofte stilte spørsmål,” accessed 22 January 2014, http://nrkbeta.no/2011/06/22/hurtigruten-faq/ .

The map recently broke, most likely as a result of a Google Maps API update. NRK notified me that they are trying to fix the problem, but this illustrates well the challenges of sustaining digital projects over time.

Andreas Doppelmayr, “Hurtigruten In 5 Minutes,” accessed 7 May 2014, https://vimeo.com/26214090

Jon Olav Eikenes, “Hurtigruten minutt for minutt” Flickr set, accessed 7 May 2014 https://www.flickr.com/photos/jonolave/sets/72157626928644711/with/5873571817/

Geir Bjerke, “‘Hurtigruten: Minutt for minutt’ in one frame,” accessed 7 May 2014, https://www.flickr.com/photos/neonstz/5899253694/in/set-72157627109390926/

Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, “Hurtigrute-vinneren,” accessed 7 May 2014, http://nrkbeta.no/2013/07/05/hurtigrute-vinneren/ .

George Revill, “Perception, Reception and Representation: Wolfgang Schivelbusch and the Cultural History of Travel and Transport,” in Peter Norton, Gijs Mom, Liz Millward, Mathieu Flonneau eds., Mobility in History. Reviews and Reflections (Neuchâtel: Éditions Alphil-Presses universitaires suisses, 2012), 43.

For example, Sara B. Pritchard, “Joining Environmental History with Science and Technology Studies: Promises, Challenges, and Contributions,” in New Natures: Joining Environmental History with Science and Technology Studies, ed. Dolly Jørgensen, Finn Arne Jørgensen, and Sara B. Pritchard (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013), 1-18.

Paul N. Edwards, A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2010).

Franco Moretti, Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for Literary History (London: Verso, 2007).

John Urry, “Social Networks, Travel and Talk,” The British Journal of Sociology 54, no. 2 (2003): 156.

Sarah Kember and Joanna Zylinska, Life after New Media: Mediation as a Vital Process (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2012).

Data & Figures

Figure 1. The Bergensbanen railroad penetrating a snowy landscape at Finse. Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, Bergensbanen: Minutt for minutt, 2009. Creative Commons License, CC BY-SA 3.0.

The Bergensbanen railroad penetrating a snowy landscape at Finse. Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, Bergensbanen: Minutt for minutt, 2009. Creative Commons License, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Four seasons in sync. Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, Nordlandsbanen: Minutt for minutt, 2012. Creative Commons License, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Figure 3. Hurtigruten sailing into Sortland in the midnight sun. Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, Hurtigruten: Minutt for minutt, 2011. Creative Commons License, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Hurtigruten sailing into Sortland in the midnight sun. Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, Hurtigruten: Minutt for minutt, 2011. Creative Commons License, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Figure 4. The Hurtigruten: Minutt for minutt interactive website. Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, Hurtigruten: Minutt for minutt, 2011. Creative Commons License, CC BY-SA 3.0.

The Hurtigruten: Minutt for minutt interactive website. Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, Hurtigruten: Minutt for minutt, 2011. Creative Commons License, CC BY-SA 3.0.

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How to see the best of northern europe on a scandinavian cruise.

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Cruise ship passengers enjoy the view of Sweden’s Stockholm archipelago from the Royal Caribbean ... [+] ship ‘Serenade of the Seas.’

If you’ve ever wanted to dive into the culture of the Vikings or explore what makes people in the Nordic region the so-called happiest on earth, you could do a lot worse than book a Scandinavian cruise.

Scandinavia—and Norway in particular—is an expensive place to travel around, so a cruise can make financial sense for those seeking an introduction to the region. For one price, you get your travel, accommodation, meals, and entertainment covered.

Such a trip offers the opportunity to sample various Scandinavian travel highlights , whether you prefer the Scandinavian capitals, the stunning Norwegian fjords, or soaking up the atmosphere of beautiful islands and historic ports in the Baltic Sea.

Popular Scandinavian Cruise Itineraries

Many different types of itinerary can be advertised as Scandinavian cruises. Typically, they focus on the Nordic capital cities. Some may also include the highlights of the Baltic Sea region, including the Baltic countries and ports in the north of Germany and Poland.

With popular Norwegian fjords cruises together with midnight sun and northern lights tours to the north of Norway also available, there is a lot of diversity in Scandinavian cruises.

Scandinavian Capitals : Cruise itineraries starting in the U.K. or Germany and calling in at two or even all three of Oslo, Stockholm, and Copenhagen have long been popular.

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The Nyhavn district of Copenhagen, Denmark, is a popular destination for cruise ship passengers ... [+] visiting Scandinavia.

Helsinki is often included on such itineraries. If you want to explore modern Scandinavia while gaining access to some of the region’s best museums, such an itinerary is a perfect choice.

Such itineraries tend to be shorter, and are a great introduction to both cruising and Scandinavia, with limited sea days and plenty to see and do while in port.

Baltic Sea : Longer Scandinavian itineraries often include stops at Baltic Sea islands and ports. The beautiful Estonian capital city, Tallinn, or the Latvian capital, Riga, are particular highlights, as are ports on the northern coastline of Germany and Poland.

For those interested in Viking history, look out for smaller ship itineraries featuring Visby on the wonderful island of Gotland .

One such trip is this 12-night itinerary from Celebrity Cruises, which includes a visit to both Visby and Tallinn. Other highlights include a visit to Stockholm and Copenhagen, including an overnight stop in the latter.

The old city walls of Visby on Gotland island, a popular cruise port.

Norwegian Fjords : By far the most variety can be found in the Norwegian fjords region , with almost all major cruise lines operating at least some itineraries here. Although port calls in Flåm and Geiranger will soon be severely limited, many alternative ports will still be able to welcome some of the world’s largest cruise ships.

Whether you prefer the action-packed ships of Royal Caribbean or MSC, or the smaller ships that can sail along narrower fjords, there will be a Norwegian fjords itinerary for you.

Following the recent rise in popularity of the region as a cruising destination, the fjords season has extended, with trips available as early as April and as late as September.

British line P&O Cruises operates its relatively new megaship Iona in the fjords region for much of that period, with regular departures from Southampton on a popular 7-day itinerary.

Midnight Sun : Although all summer cruises in the region will experience long summer days, specific midnight sun itineraries set sail for the far north of Norway to let guests experience the thrill of being outside with the sun in the sky at midnight. Many of these trips visit Honningsvåg, which allows guests to travel by bus to the North Cape.

Northern Lights : In recent years, Scandinavia—or more specifically Norway—has become a year-round cruising destination thanks to the growth in popularity of northern lights cruises .

Aurora borealis in the sky seen from a cruise ship in Arctic Norway.

These itineraries can be found heading north of the Arctic Circle between October and early April.

Planning Tips For Scandinavian Cruises

Cruising in Northern Europe offers a fantastic variety of excursions and experiences, from historical city tours to adrenaline-filled outdoor adventures.

The region’s love of the outdoors lifestyle means active experiences are easy to find, both through cruise line excursions and independent operators.

The high levels of English comprehension across the region means booking your own activities and exploring ports independently is much easier than in many other parts of the world. Even so, look for independent tours that take place earlier in the day to reduce any time-related risk.

No matter when you visit Scandinavia, pack for all weathers. The height of summer can be marred by heavy rainfall, while it’s possible to get sunburnt in the snow-covered conditions of February and March.

Pack a versatile wardrobe. Layered clothing accommodates the region's variable weather, while specialized gear might be necessary for specific excursions.

Cruising And Sustainability

Prospective travelers should be aware of environmental concerns associated with cruising in this pristine region. The industry is moving towards sustainability, with initiatives to introduce zero-emission vessels in sensitive areas, particularly the UNESCO-listed Norwegian fjords .

Some local initiatives protesting against cruise travel have also gathered momentum, so cruisers should be aware of these issues before setting foot ashore.

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How to Fly Your Kid Solo, Free of Stress

An illustration of children flying solo on the airplane.

By Alexander Nazaryan

For many parents and guardians, putting a child on a flight alone may seem terrifying. Belligerent passengers, delays, turbulence: All loom large in a caregiver’s imagination.

Life sometimes leaves no other option. Hudson Crites , 17, of Marshall, Va., was 10 when he started flying unaccompanied to visit his father in Kansas and later Georgia, said his mother, Chelsea Tippett. But the extra attention from airline staff made Hudson “feel special,” Ms. Tippett recalls. Other than a single tarmac delay, he has had no problems.

On rare occasions, children have had troubling experiences. In December, Spirit Airlines accidentally flew a 6-year-old to Orlando, Fla., instead of the intended destination of Fort Myers. Spirit apologized, fired the gate agent responsible and offered reimbursement to the boy’s grandmother for her travel to Orlando. But while the boy was unharmed, his grandmother expressed worry that he had been kidnapped .

If you decide to fly your child unaccompanied, you’ll discover that each airline has its own procedures, fees and routes open to children. While some may find the process complicated, flying alone may be exciting for your child, instilling some independence. Here’s what you need to know.

Before you book, know the process

Regardless of the airline or route, flying an unaccompanied minor differs from an adult or a family catching a flight. Airlines require a trusted pre-authorized adult to be at the departure and arrival gates, and will ask you at booking to provide contact information for those adults. They will also need to present identification at the terminals.

The journey begins at the originating airport’s airline ticket counter. There, airline staff will check your identification and check in the child, perhaps handing them a lanyard or wristband to wear. The agents will provide you with a pass to get through security with your child. You will accompany them to the gate, where you will hand them off to a gate agent. You must stay at the gate until the plane takes off.

In the air, the flight crew will keep watch — but will not babysit, or sit with, your child. If the flight has a connection, a crew member will walk your child off the plane and a gate agent will take him or her to the next gate.

At the arrival airport, the child will be handed off by staff to the authorized guardian or parent who should have already checked in at the ticket counter with proper identification, gone through security with their gate pass and be waiting at the gate.

To learn more about this process, read the Department of Transportation’s online guide, “When Kids Fly Alone,” followed by the website of your selected carrier.

Choosing an airline and paying an extra fee

Before purchasing a ticket, experts advise you to consider an airline’s on-time performance. “Solid on-time performance is hard-earned, and signals a carrier that has tight control of its operation,” said the Ask the Pilot author, Patrick Smith. The Bureau of Transportation Statistics has those numbers.

Booking procedures vary. Delta Air Lines and American Airlines require you to call. United Airlines allows bookings online. JetBlue Airways does online bookings, too, but asks for three printed copies of its forms upon arrival at the airport.

International flights may call for a notarized consent letter describing where the child is traveling, with whom they’ll stay and how long they’ll be there.

On top of the ticket fare, flying an unaccompanied minor can be pricey.

Southwest Airlines charges $100 one way for each child, regardless of distance. Alaska Airlines charges $50 per child if the flight is nonstop; a connection adds $25. On Delta, one $150 fee will cover up to four children, and American’s $150 covers all siblings, with no cap on number. United charges $150 for one child, or two children flying together.

Restrictions: There are plenty

U.S. carriers allow children to fly as unaccompanied minors once they turn 5 and before they turn 18. But regardless of your child’s age, make sure he or she is ready by discussing the trip details and your expectations of their behavior. No policy can replace your judgment.

The low-cost carriers Frontier Airlines and Allegiant Air don’t allow unaccompanied minors, Other airlines have restrictions that, in the broadest terms, differentiate between young children and teenagers. American and Delta restrict children under 8 from routes requiring connections. Both airlines allow children between 8 and 14 to take some connecting flights.

On American, no unaccompanied minor is allowed to take an overnight flight requiring a connection, or a flight that includes a connection on its final leg that also happens to be the last such flight that day (“unless it’s the only flight,” the company adds). Minors are not allowed on code-share flights.

United and Delta have similar rules. Southwest, JetBlue and Spirit don’t allow unaccompanied minors on connecting flights.

JetBlue prohibits minors from flying to Europe, and limits the number of unaccompanied minors in one party to three. Spirit does not allow children on flights to Central or South America. Southwest doesn’t allow children on any international flights. American, United and Delta let minors fly abroad, but restrictions on connections, code-shares and overnights limit options.

American and Delta allow children to opt out of flying as unaccompanied minors once they turn 15 — that is, the child can fly without the assistance of airline personnel. JetBlue ends unaccompanied minor service at 14, while Alaska has an opt-out option at 13. Southwest boasts the lowest opt-out age: 12.

However, you should be able to accompany your child to the gate even if they’re not flying unaccompanied. American requires that you do so for teens between the ages of 15 and 17, even if they’ve opted out.

What to pack

Have a plan to head off your child’s hunger, boredom and thirst. If they are older, make sure they have emergency money and a charged phone.

When her two daughters, then 9 and 11, flew to Denver, Joey Conover of Charlottesville, Va., had a long list for their carry-ons.

“Pack a backpack with iPad, headphones, lightweight book to read, a pad of paper and colored pencils (markers might smear), a small travel game, water bottle (bring empty and fill in airport), snacks, some kind of surprise fidget or animals to play with, hoodie, and a lovey,” she wrote in an email.

“Write your name and phone number on the inside of their arm in Sharpie and put a parent’s business card in a luggage tag on both suitcase and backpack,” Ms. Conover said. (A sheet of paper with all their identification, and their guardian’s contact information, also works. Simply stick in an easy-to-access pocket.)

Open Up Your World

Considering a trip, or just some armchair traveling here are some ideas..

52 Places: Why do we travel? For food, culture, adventure, natural beauty? Our 2024 list has all those elements, and more .

Mumbai: Spend 36 hours in this fast-changing Indian city by exploring ancient caves, catching a concert in a former textile mill and feasting on mangoes.

Kyoto: The Japanese city’s dry gardens offer spots for quiet contemplation in an increasingly overtouristed destination.

Iceland: The country markets itself as a destination to see the northern lights. But they can be elusive, as one writer recently found .

Texas: Canoeing the Rio Grande near Big Bend National Park can be magical. But as the river dries, it’s getting harder to find where a boat will actually float .

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'Conan O'Brien Must Go' is side-splitting evidence of life beyond late night TV

Eric Deggans

Conan O'Brien dresses as a Viking in Norway. Conaco/Max hide caption

Conan O'Brien dresses as a Viking in Norway.

To be honest, when I first heard Conan O'Brien was ending his TV talk show in 2021, I assumed news that he might turn to variety shows and online programs to continue his career was some combination of face-saving and wishful thinking.

But after watching the four episodes of his new Max series Conan O'Brien Must Go , it's now obvious — even to a thickheaded critic like me — that leaving late night TV really was liberating for O'Brien. He's leveraged his unique sensibility into several different podcasts, a deal with Sirius XM , specials featuring other stand-up comics and now this travel series for Max — which resembles jokey specials he did for cable channel TBS back in the day.

And as the late night TV genre crumbles under sagging viewership and the decline of traditional media, O'Brien's renaissance also provides an example for the future — where fertile comedy minds and talented performers can spread their work over a much larger canvas.

Pop Culture Happy Hour

Is conan o'brien the best 'hot ones' guest ever discuss., learning a lesson from 'hot ones'.

O'Brien already made a splash recently with his brilliantly maniacal appearance on the interview-while-eating-hot-wings show Hot Ones , slobbering over hot sauces while claiming, as he was checked over by a fake doctor, that "I'm fine! I'm perfectly f*****g fine!"

This is the place where O'Brien shines — he's called it "this strange phantom intersection between smart and stupid" — and it's on full, freakish, super silly display in every episode of Conan O'Brien Must Go .

The conceit of the show is pretty simple. O'Brien heads overseas to visit average folks in Norway, Argentina, Thailand and Ireland who had once Zoomed in to speak with him on the podcast Conan O'Brien Needs a Fan . Sometimes the visits seem like a surprise — he catches one aspiring Norwegian rapper in shorts and Crocs after popping up on his doorstep — and others seem a bit more planned, including his visit to a radio show with about four listeners in Buenos Aires.

Each episode begins with a solemn monologue which sounds like it is delivered by the film world's most eccentric voice, German filmmaker and actor Werner Herzog (he's not credited in the show and when asked, a publicist at Max shared a quote from O'Brien: "I can neither confirm nor deny the voice in question.")

The torturous accent by "Herzog" makes every line sound absurdly hilarious, describing O'Brien as "the defiler ... with dull, tiny eyes ... the eyes of a crudely painted doll ... he scavenges in distant lands, uninvited, fueled by a bottomless hunger for recognition and the occasional selfie."

Now that's smart. And oh so stupid.

A funhouse mirror version of a travel show

O'Brien performs onstage with a fan in Norway Conaco/Max hide caption

O'Brien performs onstage with a fan in Norway

Fans of O'Brien's Conan Without Borders specials on TBS already know what his style is when he tackles a travel show — throwing himself into outrageous reactions and situations while working his quirky brand of improvised conversations with hapless bystanders.

In the Max series Conan O'Brien Must Go , that includes O'Brien offering screechy vocals onstage during a performance of a Norwegian emo/rap band. Or asking provocative questions of a couple therapist/sex expert. Or getting beat up in a "fight" with a 10-year-old boy in a bar.

It's all an excuse for O'Brien to unleash his energetic wit, taste for silly absurdity and skill at drawing laughs from sympathetic — if often befuddled — strangers. Whether you enjoy this special will depend on how you feel about O'Brien's style, which can feel a bit like the world's best class clown doing everything possible to make you crack a smile.

(Rent a family in Norway so they can say goodbye when he gets on a SeaCraft? Check. Get local artists to paint a mural of O'Brien, a soccer star and The Pope on the side of a building in Argentina? Double check.)

'Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend' Is A Joke Name For A Podcast — Sort Of

But what amazes in a larger sense is how O'Brien has turned his sensibility into a comedy brand to fuel work on many different platforms. And, at age 60, with more than 30 years as a comedy star, he's been released from the shackles of any genre to shine wherever he chooses — whether it's an episode of Hot Ones or a streaming service which sometimes looks like a collision between True Detective and 90 Day Fiancé .

Leaving late night TV as late night left him

I'm old enough that I started covering TV not long after O'Brien made his first move from the shadows of life as a comedy writer – he worked on Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons — to succeed David Letterman in 1993 as host of NBC's show Late Night (now hosted by Seth Meyers). Back then, NBC gave O'Brien years to figure out the show, honing his smartly serious comedy in a way that would inspire then-teenage fans like Seth Rogen and Bill Hader .

O'Brien left NBC after a disastrous deal where the network tried to make him host of its venerated late night program The Tonight Show and also keep its former host Jay Leno at the network. He moved to a late night show on TBS in 2010, but even then, there was a sense that his creativity was a bit hemmed in by the format.

After 28 Quirky Years, Conan O'Brien Is Leaving Late Night

By the time he left his TBS show Conan for good, it seemed O'Brien was already caught in a trend which would hobble other late night shows — as young viewers consumed his content online and ratings on cable dropped.

Now, with a podcast and digital media company worth many millions and growing status as a TV comedy legend still willing to do almost anything for a laugh, O'Brien is proving there is a successful life beyond late night.

Particularly, if you have the talent to play the fool while leaving little doubt you're also the smartest person in the room.

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The Armchair Travel Guide
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Search Strategies in Accessible, Barrier-Free, Disabled and Easy Access Tourism Literature
Building Your Own Home, The Savings Potential
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Armchair Travel: 16 Ways To Travel The World From Home
Armchair travel is kind of like a staycation, but instead of exploring the local attractions, you don't even have to leave the house. It's discovering new places from the comfort of your chair, hence the term armchair travel. ... Into The Wild is a textbook example of a travel movie, and probably the best-known film in the genre. But a ...
43 Best Armchair Travel Websites: Virtual Tours & Wildlife Streams
Armchair travel opens up a whole new world of behind the scenes wanderlust experiences from the comfort of your home. From virtual museum tours to live stream wildlife encounters and so much more. ... The National Palace of Queluz is located between Lisbon and Sintra and is one of the best examples of rococo and neoclassical architectural ...
75+ Armchair Travel Experiences: Virtual Tours & More!
UK & Ireland. Explore London every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with a 20-minute virtual tour with LookUpLondon live on Instagram. Take a peek inside the Queen's house with this virtual tour of Buckingham Palace. Wander where giants once roamed on this virtual tour of the Giants Causeway in Ireland.
Mastering Armchair Travel: 10 Ways to Enjoy Travel from Home
Here's the recipe. 8. Enjoy a country-inspired night in. Combining points 6 and 7, for extra dorkiness points, consider hosting a country themed night-in. Simply pick a special film that's focused on a destination and cook a meal (or order one in if you feel like it) related to that destination.
Armchair travel: see the world from home (2024 guide)
The term 'armchair travel' has been around for a while, but its focus used to be on sensory travel experiences for elderly and physically incapacitated people. But in the post-pandemic world, the term has gained a far broader meaning. With people travelling less for a variety of reasons - restrictions, climate change and financial ...
Armchair Travel: How To Virtually Explore The World
Armchair travel is also a great way to learn about different cultures and destinations. You can watch documentaries, read books, or even talk to family and friends who have traveled. And, of course, armchair travel is the perfect way scratch that travel itch and to explore the world if you're unable to travel due to health reasons, financial ...
Armchair Travel Is Springing Back to Life
"Armchair travel gives us an opportunity to research and be selective, which is a good thing. For example, after reading Eric Newby's The Big Red Train Ride, ...
Armchair Travel: 45 Fun Ideas to "Travel" Without Leaving Home
From joining online travel communities to taking virtual tours of UNESCO sites, here are my armchair travel recommendations to help you "travel" without leaving your home. Table of Contents. How to Travel Without Leaving Home. Explore Museums Virtually on Your Laptop. Take a Digital Hike around America's National Parks.
Travel Advice: Ultimate Guide to Armchair Travel : As the Bird flies
The Best Destination-Specific Armchair Travel Guides. ... But after a while I slowly realised there is so much you can do with kids to get them interested and excited about travel. One of the best examples of immersing yourselves in a destination and doing a variety of activities related to that place.
Explore the Globe from Your Couch: An Intro to Armchair Travel
Whether it's due to budget constraints, time limitations, or the current global situation, not everyone can travel whenever they want. But w
Armchair Travel: The Escapism of Planning a Vacation You Can't Take
Armchair Travel Boosts Your Happiness. Sunset on Easter Island. Although this is one of the most serious episodes in our shared history, planning a vacation you can't take now is surprisingly good advice—and it's not new. A 2010 study 1 published in the journal Applied Research in Quality of Life found that the simple act of planning a ...
Armchair tourism: Exploring individuals' innovative travel experience
The content analysis for the qualitative data collected using an open-ended question shows that the armchair travelers gain vicarious travel experiences and resolve mental stress through armchair travelling. Based on the results, this study provides meaningful theoretical and practical implications to the armchair tourism literature and industry.
ArmchairTourist
ArmchairTourist.com delivers fascinating experiential travel video from around the world. These 'Window on the World' shots of beaches, markets, cafés, sky-lines, etc. allow viewers to travel ...
12 Creative Ways to Armchair Travel from Home
Scene from Before Sunrise. 2. Get lost in a travel book, movie or podcast. Perhaps the most classic way to travel from home is to get lost in an epic travel book, movie or podcast. This list of the 87 best travel books of all time is a good place to get started. I personally love The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver for a deep dive into the Mexico ...
Armchair Travel to Enrich Your Life
Benefits of armchair travel. 1. Shear enjoyment. Armchair travel is worth the time for the sheer joy of exploring a place, a culture, or a period of history. It's a hobby. And like any hobby, it doesn't have to have a practical purpose or product to justify the time spent. An hour getting lost in a faraway place is pure delight.
The explosion of armchair travel: How to do it ethically
Armchair travel meaning. Finding a satisfying definition of armchair travel was not easy. In 2018, the Collins dictionary rejected a new suggestion to defining armchair traveler: "someone who finds out what a place or location is like by watching travel programs on television, looking at internet websites about travel or reading books about travel."
The Rise of Armchair Tourism
The Rise of Armchair Tourism. ... A great example of this is the Vienna Tourist Board who have a dedicated page on their website promoting virtual experiences in the city. The page states that: "You don't have to leave home to experience the sparkling magnificence of Vienna's museums and sights. Come with us on a virtual voyage of ...
A new tourism paradigm in the marketplace: Armchair travel and
The armchair tourism destination brand experience is comprised of the sensory, behavioral, intellectual, and affective subfactors as the higher-order factors. In addition, the study proposed the eight hypotheses that are listed above, which are included in the theoretical framework.
Armchair tourism: Exploring individuals' innovative travel experience
Armchair tourism: Exploring individuals' innovative travel experience in the with-corona era. Author links open overlay panel Hyoungeun Moon a, Yu Jongsik b, ... Then, an example of armchair travelling was presented for the participants' understanding about armchair travelling and online interactions with others, as such: "As one of the ...
Virtual Travel: Explore the World Online
Virtual Travel. To support those searching for armchair travel inspiration, ... TRAVEL. Sample the World's Cuisines With This Cookbook From a Popular New York Market.
(PDF) Emerging armchair travel: Investigation of authentic armchair
Armchair travel is a kind of tourism that gives a vicarious travel experience. This study aimed to examine the influence of authentic travel experiences on travel stickiness using the framework of ...
The Armchair Traveler's Guide to Digital Environmental Humanities
The Hurtigruten show is not just a successful example of new media armchair travel, but also how rich this media can be. It was a slow, but deeply mediated experience. When planning the show, NRK tested various ways of integrating place data in augmented reality-like approaches such as floating text bubbles that would move with the camera onscreen.
ArmchairTourist Video
ArmchairTourist travel videos let you vicariously enjoy the sights and sounds of well known and obscure travel locations from every continent. Enjoy our beach scenes, Asian markets, European cafes, fountains, skylines and train stations - from around the planet. On AppleTV, Roku, FireTV and Shaw Cable and Satellite TV in Canada.
Sober Travelers Find Something to Savor in Wine Country
By Christine Chitnis. April 17, 2024. Amy Snook knows more about wine than your average traveler. Originally from California, she now lives in the Douro Valley of Portugal, her partner works in ...
7 Ways To Travel More Sustainably
For example, to offset air travel, a roundtrip, 6-hour flight would add about 1.89 tons of CO2 per passenger, and $31.17 of carbon offsets would help mitigate that.
A Japanese Village Wants Tourists to Come for Heat, Soot and Steel
Monitoring the airflow, the color of the fire and the height of the charcoal with paternal concern, Mr. Yasuda scowled and watched, sometimes retreating to sit in his dark alcove, his arms crossed ...
Pet Policies for Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, American Airlines
Dogs or cats are allowed to travel below a seat in an approved carrier — up to 18.5 inches long by 8.5 inches high and 13.5 inches wide — according to the airline.
How To See The Best Of Northern Europe On A Scandinavian Cruise
One such trip is this 12-night itinerary from Celebrity Cruises, which includes a visit to both Visby and Tallinn. Other highlights include a visit to Stockholm and Copenhagen, including an ...
Tips for Parents on Kids Flying Solo and Free of ...
Southwest Airlines charges $100 one way for each child, regardless of distance. Alaska Airlines charges $50 per child if the flight is nonstop; a connection adds $25. On Delta, one $150 fee will ...
'Conan O'Brien Must Go' review: The Max travel show proves life after
After 28 Quirky Years, Conan O'Brien Is Leaving Late Night. By the time he left his TBS show Conan for good, it seemed O'Brien was already caught in a trend which would hobble other late night ...

Armchair Travel: 16 Ways To Travel The World From Home

What Is Armchair Travel?

16 Ways To Travel The World From Home

Read Travel Blogs

Virtually Explore US National Parks

Read A Travel-Related Book

Listen To Travel Podcast

Watch Travel Vlogs On Youtube

Enroll in A Travel-Related Course

Cook Your Favorite Dishes From Around The World

Watch TV Shows Related To Travel

Watch Travel Movies

Go On A Virtual Tour of World’s Famous Museums

Learn A New Language

Plan Your Next Trip

Reminisce About Your Past Trips

Create A Travel Scrapbook

Play A Travel-Themed (Board) Game

Socialize With Fellow Travel Enthusiasts on Social Media

About the Author Anna Timbrook

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Mastering Armchair Travel: 10 Ways to Enjoy Travel from Home

Save this guide to armchair travel for later!

1. Binge travel blogs & videos

2. Snoop around on virtual museums and apps

3. Find the hidden gems of the world with Secret Door

4. Explore a random place on Earth with MapCrunch

5. Spy on worldwide webcams

6. Stream some wanderlusty movies or TV shows

7. Cook up global inspired dishes

8. Enjoy a country-inspired night in

9. Cozy up with a good travel book

10. Try actual virtual reality

Any more ideas for armchair travel?

My Go-To Travel Favourites:

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Travel career break resources

What is armchair travel?

Armchair travel: discover the world through popular culture

Get lost in a travel book

In Patagonia

Notes from a Small Island

Find travel inspiration on the screen

Listen to travel podcasts

World Nomads Travel Podcast

World Wanderers

Travel Like A Boss

Build your own travel soundtrack

Build your skills for travelling tomorrow

Learn scuba theory

Learn to blog

Learn a language

Ways to see the world from home

Virtual tours

Patagonia, Argentina and Chile

Machu Picchu, Peru

Angel Falls, Venezuela

Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro

Virtual museums and art galleries

MASP, São Paulo

Maritime Museum, Sydney

Doge’s Palace, Venice

Take a random journey on Google Earth

Channel your creative spirit

Travel-inspired home decor

Try photography at home

Take photos of the stars

Write world-inspired poetry

Do a worldly jigsaw puzzle

Create a travel mood board

Dream and plan a future trip

Bring the world into your kitchen

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Armchair Travel: How To Virtually Explore The World

What is an armchair traveler?

How to armchair travel

Travel Blogs

Social Media

Virtual Tours