Before having my baby, I had grand fantasies about taking trips to Paris with her, or even to some beach destination in South Carolina, flying free under the age of two. Maybe even Japan! But in the real world of parenthood, it turns out I just don’t want to. Maybe it’s the nesting instinct with my little chick, but for the first time in my life, I find myself with the opposite of wanderlust. Homelust?
Travel is an experience that many people are drawn to, offering great benefits to our personal development. But what if those benefits can be gained tangentially? Can we travel without traveling? This may be the only option for many people, due to reasons of money, mobility, health, or responsibilities such as work or children. I’ve been experimenting and have found a few techniques to scratch that travel itch.
Online Travel Publications: I have the cheapest membership plan with the New York Times, and through it, I signed up for their Travel Dispatch weekly email. It’s a roundup of their travel articles from the week, and I usually find time to skim through one. The plus side of someone else traveling is you can leave it up to them to find the coolest places and guide you through an experience, rather than risking a strikeout when you take chances on your own. Although, there’s usually a dash of travel disasters too, which are scintillating and justify staying at home.
Live Vicariously Through Your Friends: Since having my child, my friends have traveled to Venice, Japan, Iceland, California, Disneyworld, and beyond. Before they go, I’ve asked them to personally send me pictures every day and describe what they are doing. When my friends Jim and Mary returned from Venice, I went over to their house and was treated to my very own slide-show, where they took me through their pictures in order and described what they did each day. It made me understand why people back in the day used to drag out the projector—traveling was rarer, and this was a way their friends and family could reap the benefits.
Virtual Reality: My mother-in-law got a Meta Quest 3 for Christmas. At first, I scoffed, thinking this was just Zuckerberg’s vanity project that wouldn’t actually have any future. Then I donned the mask and climbed Mount Everest. Now, I have no designs to climb Mount Everest in real life because I don’t want to DIE. But I’ve always been intrigued by mountain climbers, the lengths they go to push themselves physically and mentally. Their reward is that they see a view the rest of us don’t have access to—but now we do, in three dimensions. I was standing on top of a mountain and could turn around for a 360-degree view—something you can’t get from pictures and video alone.
If, for whatever reason, you cannot or do not want to travel, there are still ways to find the mind and soul expansion that the experience of travel gives. With the many detriments of modern technology we face every day, let us celebrate one of the benefits.