Fun and Interesting Things to Do When You Can’t Travel

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 more frustrating things that can happen to a travel lover.

Pandemic aside, there are plenty of reasons why you may not be able to just get a visa to Colombia or to somewhere else, find the cheapest flights, choose the best 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 hard 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 means that it’s not as easy as finding a job that lets you travel around 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 even closed their borders completely to visitors.

Things to do when you can’t go on vacation

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

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

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

From there, we worked hard 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 about travel

For us, the first step in how to deal with travel withdrawal was figuring out what we loved most about 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 city streets? Or is getting out in nature more your thing?

Once you figure out the things that you love most about travel, you can try to recreate what you love about it in another way.

For us, figuring out what we loved about travel was the first step in finding adventure at…