10 Tips on How to Entertain Your Travel Bug at Home

We all have that list of destinations we want to visit before we leave this world.

There's no better way to get excited about your next trip than by putting it down on paper. Perhaps start small with where your next new weekend getaway will be: Mudgee, Maleny, Morning Peninsula?

Then, choose your first overseas country once borders open: Canada, Singapore, the UK, Japan or the USA? Now with that international country on your bucket list, get specific as to where you want to explore and what you want to see: skiing in Hokkaido, wander through Yellowstone National Park as the autumn leaves fall or Singapore Slings at sunset from Marina Bay Sands?

Now comes the good stuff! Write down where you always dreamt of going to and why. The "why" is important, because the emotion behind why we travel is all part of the journey. For instance, seeing polar bears in the wild on an Antarctic cruise because they are by far my favourite animal and we need to protect this beautiful creature, be reunited with my Italian family whilst eating pizza in Naples (the birthplace of pizza as we know it) and sharing stories about the time we haven't been together, or hiking the Inca Trail in Peru and learning about this ancient but not forgotten culture.

Now it's your turn! Our international borders may be closed, but that doesn't mean our travel dreams have to stop.

Music is an incredibly powerful medium to induce nostalgia of past travel experiences and take you back to a familiar state of mind.

Put on that song that takes you back to your road trip down Route 66, or of that summer drinking sangrias on the Costa del Sol. Create a Spotify playlist with songs that remind you of times past, find a quiet private place, listen to the music and let it transport you back to your fond travel memories. For inspo, check out Travel Music 2021 by Wired AU or Music Travel Love - Acoustic Covers on Spotify.

Novelty is a huge part of travel. When we travel, we feel as though we find ourselves, but what we are truly doing is distancing ourselves from our everyday distractions, to give ourselves the time to assess what is important.

Maybe instead of finding the next adventure, we just need to do things a little bit differently, to gain that newness, to learn new things and to discover a bit more about ourselves. After all, they say change is as good as a holiday!

Try a new fitness regime, meditate, practice yoga, paint, try cooking something new, practice mindfulness, challenge yourself. Great things can come from micro-steps of self-discovery, and you don’t need a one-way ticket or lots of money to do it.

An important part of ecotourism and mindful travel is understanding the history and culture of your destination. To understand the significance of where you are standing is a tribute of the ancestors who came before you. Watching documentaries of your next travel destination can give you great insights into what life used to be like, as well as the existing customs, traditions, and ways of living. It can also give you some awesome ideas of key experiences in the area.

Just because you can’t travel right now doesn’t mean you can’t feed the travel bug by preparing yourself for your next journey. The more you know about a place, the deeper your respect and the more you will get out of the trip.

Here are some suggestions to get you started:

'Mountain' is a 2017 Australian documentary film that explores high peaks around the world while uncovering the relationship between humans and mountains across time.

'The Salt of the Earth' is a 2014 biographical documentary film exploring natural environments and the humans who inhabit them. The film follows 40 years of Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado's work from South America, to Africa, Europe, the Arctic, and back home to Brazil focusing on international conflicts, starvation and exodus, and natural landscapes in decline.

'Life in a Day' (2020) is a story about a single on earth. On the 25th July 2020, people all over the world filmed their lives and shared their stories to be part of a documentary film. When all the submissions were tallied, the filmmakers had received over 300,000 videos from 192 countries.

Who doesn’t love to try traditional meals when travelling? Food brings us closer together and it lets us experience different cultures. So, look up recipes of your favourite cuisine and add the ingredients to your shopping list. If you feel inspired, you can even try something you haven’t had before! Start small with homemade guacamole, fresh pizza dough or pad thai, and work your way up to sushi, paella, moussaka, laksa, tagine, crêpes suzette or tikka masala!

I'm sure you have hundreds of pictures from past travels that are just waiting to be organised. It's a waste having these photos hidden away in rolls of films or in digital folders on your laptop or iPhone, so why not use this time to sort them out.

Try making a physical scrapbook or album of your printed photos. You can even design your own book and have it printed with a company like Snapfish, to produce the perfect coffee table read to put your past adventures on display. Or blow up some of your favourites and have them printed and framed to showcase in your home.

Old printed photos will fade and discolour over time, so invest in a photo scanner or try apps like Photoscan to save your photos in a digital form. These tools will even allow you remove or correct colour, delete crease lines and red-eye! It all depends on your creativity and inclination. Reliving those beautiful memories is sure to lift your mood.

If you’ve always wanted to learn a new language but haven’t had the time, lockdown is the perfect time to start! While learning a language requires time and effort, learning the basics is a big step.

There are plenty of online courses available through universities or language schools, or take live virtual one-on-one classes with platforms like Preply. Supplement your learning with free apps like Duolingo or Babbel. Now is the tough decision of which language to learn... Italian, Japanese, Swahili, the choice is yours!

Look at the positive side of the situation because there’s always one. By staying at home, you’re able to save money on eating out, going to the movies, and shopping, because you can only spend on essential items.

If you’re a coffee or tea lover who buys one every day, think about putting that money towards your future adventures and you’ll soon see how much you can save in a few weeks. Look at how much you spend on buying clothes online and ordering takeaways and try and cut down that spending by 30-40%, and you'll see your travel funds quickly accumulate.

There are loads of online tools to help you set, manage and track your travel budget goals, such as Pocketbook or Frollo, but don't dismiss the old school excel spreadsheet! Or if you like to see your savings IRL, don't dismiss the ol' piggybank to lock away your hard earned cash.

Check out the incredible travel blogs, travel vlogs, Youtube channels and Pinterest boards to get inspired and informed about the amazing locations around the world. This is the best way to get a first-hand experience about a destination with all the do’s and don’ts. You may get some ideas to update your bucketlist.

If you want to have a break from the screen, opt to read some real books. Nothing can beat the charm and escapism of immersing yourself in an amazing book. It will be a refreshing change to discover spectacular locations through written words and not images.

Escape to far away lands, or even other parts of Australia, with the following books:

There is no time like the present to get into the nitty gritty of planning your next holiday. Research your favourite airlines, how you will get from A to B (train, car, hitchhiking (we don't recommend this last one), and what you will do when you get there. Not to mention, where will you stay, caravan park, homestay, 5-star hotel or treehouse? Getting all this detail down on paper allows you to be mentally transported to the destination as well as making sure you don't miss out on anything once you are there!

So what are you waiting for, start planning your travel dreams today!