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The entire globe can open up right from the comfort of your favorite armchair or kitchen table. By diving into global flavors, rich stories, virtual journeys, and a healthy dose of curiosity, learning how to explore the world from home becomes an incredibly fulfilling way to discover new cultures on your own terms and budget
Travel is wonderful, but it isn’t always possible. Sometimes the budget says no. Sometimes there isn’t enough time. Sometimes work, caregiving, weather, physical limitations or plain old life make packing a suitcase unrealistic. That does not mean curiosity has to wait.
You can spend an evening wandering through Italy, look down from the Swiss Alps, learn why some beaches are pink, hear another language spoken, taste something connected to a place halfway around the world – and still go to sleep in your own bed.
How to explore the world without leaving home? Here are 7 ways. No passport required.
1
Explore Your Destination On Your Favorite Screen
Instead of scrolling through whatever happens to appear next, choose somewhere.
Italy. Iceland. Japan. The Swiss Alps. A small village in France. A national park you may never physically visit.
Search for a walking tour, train ride, travel documentary, aerial video, museum tour or live webcam and actually spend a little time there. Maybe you want to watch people cross a piazza. Ride along a mountain railway. Walk through a market. or Look around a museum you have heard about for years.
The point isn’t to convince yourself that watching Tuscany on television is the same as standing there. It isn’t.
The point is that there’s still something to see as you discover how to explore the world from home.
2
Look Around in Virtual Reality
Virtual reality gives armchair travel a completely different meaning.
Inside or outside in the fresh air, a VR headset can let you turn your head and actually look around a destination rather than simply watch it pass across a screen. What can you do virtually?
– You can explore a museum
– Stand beneath a huge mountain
– Look around an unfamiliar city
– Visit a landmark you have always wondered about
The possibilities are endless.
Will you feel the wind, smell the food or hear someone arguing with a taxi driver in Italian? Probably not. But being able to look left, right, above and behind you can make a place feel surprisingly immediate.
To experience a place you may never physically reach in person is pretty remarkable.
3
Let a Book Take You Somewhere First
Libraries may be one of the least expensive travel agencies in existence.
Walk into yours and pick a place. Look for travel books filled with photographs, local history, memoirs, maps, architecture, food or stories about the people who actually live there.
Flip through the pictures. Read one chapter. Find one thing you didn’t know.
Maybe you’ ‘ll discover how Venice was built. Why Santorini is white and blue. How people live in the highest altitudes or live life on the water. Why a particular island has pink sand. Where do you want to go?
Next, you follow whatever catches your attention. Following like that is wandering too. The best part just might be the cost – which is exactly whatever it took you to get to the library.
4
Taste the Place
Pick somewhere you would like to visit and let dinner – or just a snack – go there first. Put it on a special plate. Stock up on specialty tea and condiments. Indulge a bit! After all, visiting your favorite foreign lands is about embracing the dream by experiencing the local culture.
* Exploring Italy? Put bread, cheese, olives, tomatoes and a little salami on a board.
* Curious about Greece? Try pita, feta, hummus, olives, and something sweet.
* France? Bread, cheese, fruit and chocolate sounds like a perfectly respectable research project to me.
You don’t need an authentic seven-course culinary recreation or to understand an entire culture because you bought olives. It’s the simplicity paired with some trial and some learning. It’s your curiosity peaking across the fence into that cool place for quick visit.
What do people eat there? What’s common? Try something unfamiliar. Read about where it came from. If you’re game, maybe try making a dish yourself. Or not. You’re wandering.
5
Learn a Few Local Language Phrases
No – you don’t have to become fluent in Italian but maybe give yourself a week.
Learn hello. Goodbye. Please. Thank you. Coffee. Delicious. Where is the bathroom?
And perhaps, depending on your priorities, “another coffee, please!”
Use a book from the library you visited on that chilly Saturday. Or use a language app, an online course, library audio lessons or a program such as Rosetta Stone.
Say the words out loud. Of course they may sound terrible! Practice – and say them anyway. Try.
There’s no pop quiz.
Language gives you another little doorway into a place because suddenly street signs, menus, songs and conversations contain words you recognize. Three phrases can make a country you have never visited feel a little less distant.
6
Let One Little Question Take You Somewhere
This may be my favorite way to wander. Here’s how:
Start with one question: Why are there pink beaches?
Then another question appears. “Where are they?” And then another. “Is the sand safe to walk on?”
The wandering begins. “Are there shells?” “How do I get there?”
Where is it? What makes the sand that color? Can people swim there? What lives nearby? How did the island form? Who lives there?
And suddenly you’ve spent forty minutes learning about a place you didn’t even know existed yesterday.
Here are some ideas to try:
– Why are houses in parts of Greece painted white and blue?
– What exactly is a fjord?
– Why are some lakes unbelievably turquoise?
– How do people live in villages high up in the Alps?
– Why does Venice have canals instead of streets?
Curiosity rarely travels in a straight line. Let yours wander.
7
Put Somewhere New on Next Week’s Calendar
One of the best parts of travel is anticipation, right?
You can have some of that without booking anything! Choose somewhere to go next week. Let’s choose Italy.
Here’s how your visit plays out from home.
– You watch a walking tour.
– Borrow a book.
– Make a simple Italian snack.
– Learn five words. (and use them!)
– Find one thing you had never heard before.
Then choose somewhere completely different for the following week. Maybe… Patagonia. Norway to see the Northern Lights. Morocco. Tour of all the Great Lakes. A tiny special town three states away. Or someplace only twenty miles from your house that eventually makes you decide to go see it in person
Exploring from home does not have to replace travel. Sometimes it leads to it.
Sometimes too though, the experience itself is enough.
Wandering Expands Your View From The Porch
Will you literally stand on every soil or beach you want to visit? Maybe. And don’t feel bad if you can’t – there are other ways to enjoy the experience and expand your horizons.
Discovery doesn’t begin at an airport. It begins with curiosity.
A documentary can lead to a book. A book can lead to a recipe. A recipe can lead to a conversation. A strange-looking beach can send you down a rabbit hole about an island you had never heard of yesterday.
And suddenly your ordinary week got a little bigger. A little more exciting. More complete.
You can wander pretty far from a rocker on the porch. We can’t wait to hear your stories!
🌿 More soon from the porch.
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