Travel vicariously during quarantine

A guide to traveling from your own home throughout the rest of the pandemic.

Here’s a word no one has heard without shuddering in a long time: travel. Everyone has felt the repercussions of the pandemic, one of the most obvious ones being travel. For some, traveling includes flying to countries on the other side of the world. For others, it could be just a road trip to Leavenworth. 

While places like Leavenworth can be reached with some extra precautions, other places around the globe are not currently an option to physically go to. However, there are some ways to “travel” to different destinations while maintaining a safe distance. 

Travel doesn’t have to be physically going to a place. Let’s face it, packing up your life for a number of days, trying to remember all your important documents and getting to where you need to be on time can be extremely stress inducing. Fear not, for there are other options, such as traveling through our favorite foods. 

Food is probably one of the most popular factors when it comes to travel. You go somewhere for the food or you hear “the food there is amazing” when thinking about traveling. One way to keep that up is to try foods from different areas that you may not be used to ordering. Systems like Uber Eats and Doordash have access to foods from all over like Mexican, Chinese and more. 

While this is the most traditional and popular option, there is another phenomenal way to try foods from everywhere. Subscription boxes. For example, Universal Yums is a subscription box that gives you snacks from around the world to try monthly. These snacks come from less popular countries like Austria, Germany or The Netherlands. There are multiple subscription boxes to choose from that vary in sizes, options and, like Universal Yums, come with information that tells you about whatever country that month is focused on. 

Another way to vicariously travel is via YouTube. So many creators have made videos of their travels and documented their experiences. National Geographic has informational videos if you are interested in learning about the history of different countries. If you want to see different corners of the world and see the fun things you can do there, there is a channel for that too! 

The Bucketlist Family is a channel where two parents and their kids sold everything they owned to travel around the world. They go on all kinds of adventures around the world from places like Bermuda to Singapore and many islands off of Australia and the Bahamas. 

It’s no doubt that many of us have the travel bug right now and likely will for a little while longer. We can still travel in various different ways like these and get back to the world once it is safe. For now, we have to continue to keep each other safe. Don’t worry, the world isn’t going anywhere.