Fun and Interesting Things to Do When You Cant Travel

Updated at : 01 Jun, 2023

Wondering what to do when you can’t travel? Try these fun and interesting ways to explore when you can’t go on vacation.

The past few years of travel restrictions were tough on travelers. Being unable to hit the road, or grab a flight is one of the increasingly frustrating things that can happen to a travel lover. Pandemic aside, there are plenty of reasons why you may not be worldly-wise to just get a visa to Colombia or to somewhere else, find the cheapest flights, segregate the weightier travel backpack (or pack your carry on), and hit the road.

Maybe you’re saving money to travel, or you have a passport that makes travel difficult. Maybe you have family or caregiving commitments that make it nonflexible to explore the world. Maybe you’re in the middle of a university degree, and don’t want to take time off. Maybe your financial situation ways that it’s not as easy as finding a job that lets you travel virtually the world.

During the last few years, we found ourselves stuck at home as the world shut down. Flights were canceled, travel restrictions tightened, and some countries plane sealed their confines completely to visitors.

Things to do when you can’t go on vacation

Of course, things are largest now that we can travel scrutinizingly anywhere, but those days of travel lockdowns and restrictions left their mark.

We tried to make the weightier of the situation, as so many others did, by finding other interests and activities to take the place of stuff on the road.

Lockdown was a time of self reflection, when we thought a lot well-nigh why we traveled, and what we wanted out of travel.

From there, we worked nonflexible at finding activities to scratch our travel itch. Some of our ideas were adventurous, some were quieter and self reflective, and some were just… a bit out there.

So what can travel lovers do when we can’t travel?

Figure out what you love well-nigh travel

For us, the first step in how to deal with travel withdrawal was figuring out what we loved most well-nigh travel. From there, we brainstormed what activities would scratch that specific travel itch.

Do you love meeting new people? Learning a new language? Trying new foods? Exploring municipality streets? Or is getting out in nature increasingly your thing?

Once you icon out the things that you love most well-nigh travel, you can try to recreate what you love well-nigh it in flipside way.

For us, figuring out what we loved well-nigh travel was the first step in finding venture at home. Here are some of our weightier ideas for what to do when you can’t travel the world.

Explore your local area

If you’re lucky, there may be a lot to see and wits tropical to home. In a city, there’s likely to be plenty of culture, food, and plane history to explore. In increasingly rural areas, nature is likely right at your doorstep.

Local parks are a wonderful place to start.

If you’re fortunate unbearable to have a when yard, try lying on the grass and watching the bees whoosh about, or try your hand at gardening.

Take a day trip

If you’re worldly-wise to get some time away, a day trip can help scratch that travel itch.

We’ve taken a day trip as little as half an hour lanugo the road, where we packed our suitcases, hung out at the hotel pool, and went for walks withal the water. It wasn’t far, at least in terms of distance, but just stuff yonder from home was a nice taste of adventure.

Take up camping

For those fortunate unbearable to be tropical to nature, camping is a unconfined way to bring some venture into your life. Camping doesn’t need to be expensive if you zany on public land and you once have camping gear (or know someone you can infringe gear from).

Cook a new dish from your travels

Some of our weightier travel memories are tied to local foods, so one of the ways we tried to recreate the joy of travel was to make dishes from the places we had visited.

Looking for specialty ingredients? Scrutinizingly any municipality has specialty grocery stores. In our small municipality of virtually 100,000 people, we have Mexican, Italian, Mediterranean, Arabic, Asian and German markets. You may plane get lucky and find specialty ingredients on Amazon.

Off the top of my head, there are plenty of spanking-new online cooking classes to get you started on your culinary adventures. YouTube has a a multitude of videos from variegated local cuisines. Plus, there are spanking-new foodie blogs and recipe sites.

I’m a big fan of Skillshare’s cooking classes, with classes in everything from Italian cooking to brewing the weightier cup of coffee, plus plenty more.

Learn a musical instrument

Not much of a chef? You can moreover learn a new instrument and immerse yourself in the music of a specific country.

There are dozens of apps and websites, plus YouTube has a unconfined selection as well. We picked up a digital piano right surpassing lockdowns in 2020 started (lucky timing) and our kids learned to play by watching online courses.

Learn to dance

Love music but don’t have a musical note in your body? How well-nigh learning to dance? You’ll be a hit with everything from the salsa to the jig depending on where your future travels will take you and get a unconfined workout at home while you’re at it.

Learn a new language online

Food and music may be the window to the soul of a country, however nothing beats stuff worldly-wise to talk to people in their native tongue.

Using an app like Duolingo or Rosetta Stone can teach you a few nuts in a few hours, and unshortened sentences without a few weeks of 20 minutes a day. See our Rosetta Stone for kids review.

You might not be worldly-wise to explain your life story once you get there, but plane just learning some language nuts can turn a forgettable moment into a memorable one. Not to mention that whenever we can yack in a local language we often get largest deals and are invited to increasingly events.

Try learning with a real, human teacher, too, with a visitor like Lingoda. See our Lingoda review here.

Watch travel movies or YouTube channels

Watching movies well-nigh travel or YouTube videos well-nigh travel can be a wonderful way to finger the enjoyment of exploring new places.

A word of circumspection here. For me, watching travel movies, TV shows, and reading travel books is sometimes tough when I can’t travel. For a few months in 2020, I couldn’t read or watch anything travel related without feeling overwhelmingly discouraged, sad, or frustrated (and sometimes all three at once).

However, as the world re-opens, watching them has re-awakened our desire to get when out there and explore then and they’ve given us some inspiration well-nigh new places we still want to see in the future.

Watch some unconfined travel movies

There are so many wonderful travel shows that it’s really nonflexible to pick the weightier travel movies (but we did try).

Two of my favorite travel movies are Hector and the Search for Happiness, and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

Travel TV shows are a unconfined nomination too. I’m still a big fan of the Destinations TV show, now long canceled. Absolutely anything with Anthony Bourdain is a win in my typesetting as well.

Watch travel blogs on YouTube

Travel vloggers are a unconfined way to get an often unfiltered squint at travel. Well, at least increasingly unfiltered than a heavily produced TV show.

Here are our favorites for the best travel Vloggers on YouTube.

Read travel venture books

Movies and TV shows not your thing? Pick up a good travel venture book. While real life travel books are great, plane reading fictional books focusing on venture and travel can help cure your travel blues.

Listen to some pure music

Books vacated not quite doing it for you? How well-nigh throwing a local music playlist up centered virtually the zone you’re dreaming or reading about? Nothing gets you into the spirit of a country like local music. Whether it’s traditional or the local top 40, guaranteed you would be hearing music as you walk through the local shops or while sitting in a restaurant or plane walking through a hotel lobby.

A unconfined musical score is the windrow to any unconfined movie, so why should you not have one as you delve into your next adventure.

Take a virtual tour

If you’d like to be a bit increasingly immersed in travel, a virtual tour may be for you.

Many tourism boards and destinations offer virtual walking tours. Some are self-ruling while others can tuition a small fee. There’s plane VR tours you can take that really get you right there if you have a VR headset.

While it’s not free, you can take a virtual walking tour of Stanley Park in Vancouver with Talaysay tours. I took the in person version of this tour a few years ago, and highly recommend it. Check out increasingly details on our Things to do in Vancouver with kids article.

Make plans for when you can travel again

Dreaming of travel can be half the fun, right? We know people who we’re sure get increasingly enjoyment from the planning, research and logistic side of travel than they do unquestionably stuff there.

We love to plan out trips, from walk-up to flights to meals and activities however we don’t put any money lanugo until we’re 100% sure of our plans. Plane then, we squint for receipt policies that let us cancel in whop with little or no penalty, just in case.

So, plane if you can’t travel or vacation now, it’s never too early to start planning your next trip for the future. Plane if it’s as simple as creating an idea workbench with a few bookmarked links to helpful sites and information, it can go a long way to making your next trip a reality and get you one step closer to getting out your front door.