Even when airports shut, borders close and cruise ships dock at sea, the imagination of the traveller is free to fly anywhere it damn well wants.
My fellow Escapers, now is not the time to panic. Now is the time to plan. So here’s a list of armchair adventures that will keep your wanderlust fed and your travel dreams alive.
1. LEARN THE LINGO
If your next stop is a far-off land with a foreign language, tongue training starts now. Matthew Youlden of Babbel magazine speaks nine languages. His big tips: “Know your motivation – why you’re learning, how you’ll use it – and commit. Find a partner to practise with and push each other. Talk to yourself – It’s weird but a great way to build confidence.”
2. BOLSTER YOUR BUCKET LIST
We know what it is, we kind of know what’s on it … but have we written it down? Now is the time. Get out the atlas, spin the globe and make that bucket list of everywhere you want to go. Kids love this exercise. It encourages big thinking, a bit of research and starts a shared plan. Who’s on the same path? Who’s on their own trip? Where can you combine and conquer. Mood board, anyone?
3. CULTURE CLUB FROM THE COUCH
Museums and galleries around the world offer virtual tours. Sashay around New York’s Museum of Modern Art or Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, tour the Guggenheim, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, or head to Paris’s Musée d’Orsay en route to the Louvre in Paris, France.
Fancy a show? Settle in with some popcorn and hand sanitiser for a night at the opera. The New York Met, although closed to the public, is offering free performances streamed nightly at 7.30 EST until March 31. Or dance like no one’s watching, literally, while listening to #TogetherAtHome gigs from Chris Martin and John Legend.
4. EAT YOUR ITINERARY
To keep wanderlust sated at our place we’re cooking Bucket-list Bites each night. On Meat Free Monday we travelled to Kerala, southern India, for prawns as big as boomerangs. Next was Tues Your Own Adventure when Noah plated up pizzas and we added our own ingredients. On Wednesday Lila had us in Milan for primavera pasta. On Thursday Nana and Pop took us to Morocco via a chicken roasted with a lemon and couscous stuffing. On Fast Food Friday I went full Brazilian (easy folks, on the BBQ!) with churrasco beef skewers. If you’re self -isolating, why not host a virtual dinner party with friends. Choose a cuisine and go to town on the theme before chowing down on Google Hangouts. Need inspiration? Tune into Massimo Bottura’s Kitchen Quarantine, live streamed on Instagram.
5. READ BEFORE YOU ROAM
Every traveller follows in the footfalls of pioneers, adventurers and early explorers. In a world before Instagram these intrepid souls recorded their journeys in “journals” later published as books and maps. The internet has its merits but there’s nothing like a primary source to awaken the spirit of discovery and get the mind primed for being there. Start broad (The Tao of Travel by Paul Theroux, The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton) before deep-diving into old and new books where your dream destination sets the scene.
6. GET TRAVEL FIT
There’s a fair bit of footslogging when it comes to globetrotting so forget the germ – sorry, gym – and get ready for your great escape with time in the great outdoors. Do some bushwalking to ready your calves for off-terrain treks or hike into the mountains so your lungs adjust to different altitudes. Stretch into an online yoga retreat with the soothing Texas twang of Adriene Mishler or chill with the ABC meditation-classical music mash Classic Flow. Need destination inspiration? Hike 4800km and soak up 2000 years of history as you enjoy a sweat-free virtual tour of the Great Wall of China on The China Guide website.
7. TUNE IN & TRIP OUT TO PODCASTS
Take a stroll in the wild with nature writer Jon Mooallem via Walking, his new podcast of entirely ambient noise (birdsong, leaf rustles, footsteps, cicada farts) from trips around Seattle’s Bainbridge Island. Wild Ideas Worth Living is about having a hairbrained travel idea and acting on it. If your boots are made for walking on a shoestring, check out Extra Pack of Peanuts, a podcast of budget travel tips from wanderers and bloggers.
8. TOUR (CYBER) SPACE
According to Elon Musk (and Ikea), the next frontier of travel is into outer space. You can take the giant leap to Mars without taking one small step out the door now that NASA has partnered with Google to offer tours of a 3D replica of the Martian surface as recorded by the Curiosity Rover.
9. SAFARI FROM YOUR SOFA
If David Attenborough gets quarantined you can bet he’ll be on explore.org where San Diego Zoo, Georgia Aquarium and Monterey Bay Aquarium are offering live webcam viewings of their panda, penguin and beluga whales. You can also watch real-time feeds of puffins in Maine, or bears in Alaska, or Australian eagles in flight on the Feathered Friends website.
10. #QUARANTINEANDCHILL WITH TRAVEL SHOWS
Switch off and take flight with Netflix’s Street Food, which gets you behind banging pans in Osaka, Delhi, Seoul, Ho Chi Minh and Singapore street stalls; while Dark Tourist finds journalist David Farrier going to a radioactive town in Japan, forbidden cities in Cyprus and a voodoo festival in Benin. On SBS there is the brilliantly bonkers Richard Ayoade, aka Travel Man, who takes comedians and celebrities on 48-hour blitzkriegs through foreign city hot spots. If all else fails, look up Five Star Insider, an ahead-of-its-time travel show where your correspondent pillages five-star travel experiences and loses them a star.
11. TUNE UP A TRAVEL PLAYLIST
Acclimatise your ears to your target country by compiling a playlist of its best songs and artists. You’ll tune in to the frequency of the locals and pick up a few phrases that might come in handy at the local disco (or disinfecting station). Throw in a few tracks from The Coronavirus Hand Washing Playlist, which includes Britney Spears’ Toxic, The Police’s Don’t Stand So Close To Me, REM’s It’s the End of the World As We Know It, and Mudhoney’s Touch Me I’m Sick – all songs with choruses lasting 20 seconds, the time needed to meet COVID-19 handwashing standards.
12. LOSE THE BAGGAGE, REPACK THE BAG
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My suitcase for New York sat in the hall like a pudgy Labrador waiting for her walk. So I got all Marie Kondo and emptied, then repacked it with bare essentials, folding my clothes using the KonMari method. Now it’s carry-on size and COVID-19 proof, with plenty of space to store the toilet paper I’ll steal from hotels and sell on the newly created “brown market” at 500 times the price.
-Text and Images provided by Escape.com.au