Love to travel but can’t right now? Try 5 Fun and Engaging Activities

The world feels like a scary place. We are practicing social distancing from co-workers, family, and friends. What was normal in our day-to-day lives has been uprooted, as we fear to leave our homes, even for essential items. Schools are closing, businesses are closing, lots of unemployment is all around, and there seems to be no end in sight for the moment.

Instead of allowing this fear to paralyze us, now is the time to be creative. If you love to travel and get out of the house, you may not be able to go physically, but the spirit of travel, our curiosity, and sense of adventure doesn’t have to be confined. Some of these activities referenced come from the New York Times column called 36 Hours by Tracy Rychter. Here’s how to unleash your travel spirit:

1. Travel the World Through Cooking

Where do you like to or desire to travel? Being quarantined is a great time to search the Internet for the cuisine of Italy, Morocco, Ireland, or any place you wish. Cook something you’ve never made before. Then share your experience and dinner methods with family and friends via Zoom or other conference call apps. Try some of the recipes located here: https://bit.ly/3ebHm3v.

2. Explore with Gratitude

Are you waiting to travel again? Why not open up to the world in your backyard. Before your morning coffee (or immediately afterward), why not take a walk early in the morning. This walk can help you get a fresh view of your day and create an optimistic feeling.

3. Local Wilds

Perhaps while you are out during your early morning walks, you may become an eco-traveler in your back yard. Before the pandemic, we were too busy to notice what exists around us. We might have thought about nature as being “somewhere else.”

Now there is more time to explore locally. We have time to learn about the birds on the poles or in the bushes and trees? Want to know more? Consider downloading the Audubon Identification App and explore these beautiful creatures. Since Spring is here, you can also use it to identify butterflies and native bees too!

4. Dinner and a Show

We are watching more TV these days. But we desire to find something new and different that helps us forget about the need for social distancing. Consider the movie “Before Sunrise” by Richard Linklater. It’s a movie about travel and the excitement of connecting with someone during this adventure, and the deep conversations you can have with a stranger. After finding this on our Fire Stick, we came across a lot of other movies about travel that should keep us entertained for a very long time.

5. Virtual Happy Hour

We have scheduled virtual happy hours with entertainers like Bobby McKey’s, a dueling piano establishment located in National Harbor, Maryland. Some of the entertainers from this establishment have pianos set up in their homes and took song requests on Facebook. Our local Countywide Chamber has been hosting a Quarantine Connections event via Zoom. During the event, business owners introduce themselves. We also played a game using myquiz.org to select winners! In fact, As You Wish Luxury Travel was the first business to host this first virtual business event and have sponsored the Zoom account for the year.

AJ! and I used Zoom to share cocktails and snacks to chat with our close friends from afar because we miss each other’s company. We ended the night playing a Cards Against Humanity type online game called Remote Insensitivity using playingcards.io. The entire night was about 3 hours, and we all had a great time seeing each other and talking. It seems it’s the one time when we get dressed and put on makeup (not AJ!) for the week, so we look halfway decent.

We look forward to these events each week!

While this is not the right time to travel, let alone leave your home too much without the proper precautions, this is the time to dream. But your dreams don’t have to be contained. Find creative methods to make your travel dreams come alive through food, drinks, local walks, nature, and virtual conferencing with friends and even celebrities. Hopefully, these activities will keep your dream alive until you can confidently plan your next vacation.

Please share some of your creative activities or events you are using to keep you in good spirits. Feel free to reach out to us about anything in this blog as we’d love to be of assistance to you!