No matter what your interests are, travel can expand your horizons, help experience new cultures, and build confidence. While there are so many places to see, there’s not always enough time or money to do just that. What if your travel budget doesn’t allow you to see all of the places in person that you might like to visit? What if you could indulge your curiosity and explore the world without actually leaving your home and traveling out of your city?

Luckily, social media and tens of thousands of websites make it more possible than ever before for people to read about, see, and learn more about gorgeous destinations across the globe and foreign cultures. There are ways to travel virtually using your laptop or smartphone. They put you in an immersive online environment where you can experience landmarks, sounds, history, and culture of other places all over the world indirectly.

Would you like to make better use of your digital devices and feed your inner wanderlust? From reading books and watching movies to taking virtual tours of UNESCO sites, here are some tips and tricks to help you travel without actually leaving your home, packing your bags, buying tickets, and rushing to the airport.

How to Travel Without Leaving Your Home

1. Read Travel Books

The best travel books are often the ones that have the power to transport you to incredible places the imagination could never think of. Pretty often they also transform you as much as a journey does. I have always been obsessed with reading, especially reading books where main characters and adventurers embark on remarkable journeys.

Reading Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast when struggling in Paris made the trip all the more special. And reading Green Hills of Africa before my trip to Kenya definitely piqued my interest in the Black Continent.

If you have a long list of books you’ve been wanting to read but never had the time for, this is the best time to hit that list. There are many travel books about distant places. So, just to name a few:

• The Unlikeliest Backpacker, by Kathryn Barnes
• Vagabonding, by Rolf Potts
• Microadventures, by Alastair Humphreys
• Elsewhere, by Rosita Boland
• Atlas of Vanishing Places, by Travis Elborough
• Sovietistan, by Erika Fatland
• The Two Week Traveller, by Matthew Lightfoot

2. Explore Museums Virtually

Museum virtual tours are an invaluable resource for arts and culture enthusiasts. These tours take you on a journey through time and culture allowing to explore the history of the places you live in and tourist attractions around the world. It’s hard to overestimate the value of virtual tours, especially when you can’t travel.

Technology today lets you see the artworks in high resolution from all angles and all you need is a tablet or a laptop.

Thanks to the extensive Google Arts & Culture project and some other online exhibitions, I have found myself wandering through art museums that I’ve been wanting to visit for years.

While true culture buffs might be skeptical about the whole idea of online museum exhibits, virtual museums are providing a bit different way to explore art. Of course, seeing museums online is no substitute for real-life experience, but would you decline the opportunity to see the lavish Louvre in Paris or the majestic Metropolitan Museum of Art without leaving your home?

Here is a breakdown of some museums worth checking out virtually:

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

View a truly huge selection of artwork from the revered art museum in high-definition. The museum’s most famous art pieces include masterpieces by Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Johannes Vermeer.

The Louvre, Paris

The Louvre in Paris offers virtual tours on its website. The virtual exhibition consists of a small selection of artifacts, including Egyptian antiquities and decorative arts. I wasn’t lucky enough to find the Louvre on Google Arts & Culture. I sincerely hope the museum will join the project and there will be much more to see without actually traveling to it.

Another option is to use YouVisit. This is a cool way to learn more about the Louvre as you move through ten areas of the museum. Each section offers images, video clips, and additional information about the exhibits. The guided tours are available through the web or directly within their free VR app.

Guggenheim Museum, New York

This modern and contemporary art museum has over 200 works viewable through Google Arts & Culture.

The MET (Metropolitan Museum of Art), New York

One of America’s best museums has a lovely 360° virtual tour and over 200,000 works of art featured on Google Arts & Culture, their website, and on YouTube.

Musée d’Orsay, Paris

This is one of my favorite museums in Paris and arguably the second-best after the Louvre. The museum used to be an old train station – Gare d’Orsay. Therefore, there is an online exhibit that tells the story of the station and how it was eventually converted into a museum.

Check out the virtual exhibitions and 278 pieces of art from 1848 to 1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography by famous painters such as Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Gauguin, and Van Gogh.

3. Take UNESCO World Heritage Site Virtual Tour

Not into museums? Now you don’t have to leave your home to enjoy UNESCO World Heritage Sites. You can take a virtual tour of Machu Picchu, Peru on any day of the year. You can continue your tour by visiting the moai on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), the ancient city of Chan Chan in Peru, and the coastal city of Kilwa Kisiwani in Tanzania.

If you’re planning to visit France, check out Mont St. Michel. Last time I visited this enormous medieval Abbey, the narrow streets were so crowded I could hardly appreciate the beauty of the things around me. I think I enjoyed virtually traveling more. Oh boy!

If Seven Wonders of the World are on your bucket list, take a closer look at Google Earth that has recently rolled out Heritage on the Edge. You can hike the Great Wall of China from Jinshanling to Simatai, see the 3D model of the tomb of Meresankh III in Egypt, the tomb of Menna, the Ben Ezra Synagogue, the Red Monastery, and the Mosque-Madrassa of Sultan Barquq.

As virtual tours are becoming more sophisticated, you’ll definitely find them a useful tool for experiencing the world from the comfort of your home.

4. Virtual Hike America’s National Parks

The national park system represents the USA at its best and is one of America’s greatest assets, definitely worth traveling the country to explore. Thanks to Google Earth, it’s possible to appreciate the natural beauty and experience a bit of armchair travel without leaving your own home.

Whatever your reasons for staying at home, some digital perks let you explore trails using Street View, while others transfer virtual travelers using 360-degree panoramas captured from the park’s highlights. As map and satellite imagery specialists did a tremendous job, there are 31 guided virtual tours of national parks available at the moment.

These tours provide an amazing glimpse of the trails and vistas you can take advantage of if you can’t visit them in person. Of course, it may not be the same as putting on your backpack and breathing the crisp clean air of the wilderness, but they’re pretty impressive nonetheless.

Here are some of the national parks offering virtual tours:

• Acadia National Park
• Arches National Park
• Yosemite NP
• Yellowstone NP
• Kenai Fjords NP
• Hawai’i Volcanoes NP
• Carlsbad Caverns NP
• Bryce Canyon NP
• Dry Tortugas NP
• Everglades NP
• Glacier NP

5. Watch Travel Movies

From British comedies to Middle Eastern romances, travel movies have a strong influence on watchers. They have the ability to give you an irresistible urge to pack up and set off to faraway places. Some of the most remarkable movies can transport viewers to a square in Rome where you can almost taste the fresh pizza. Or a jungle in Indonesia with its low hum and thick heat. Or even South America’s rugged landscape with towering mountains of Ecuador, and the glaciers of Patagonia.

Watching movies is a great way to explore cultures, countries, and cities. Unlike other ways to comprehend the world, watching travel movies gives you a clear understanding of how communities work together. You understand and learn things better when you have something to see. It is better to see something once than to hear about it a thousand times.

Today, streaming services like Netflix and YouTube TV offer a wide variety of award-winning TV shows and documentaries. In addition, we have the internet and so many possibilities to watch iconic travel classics. Are you looking for some good travel movies to explore the world without traveling?

Below is my personal selection of some of the best travel movies to watch without leaving your home:

Seven Years in Tibet

I have recently rewatched Seven Years In Tibet and it was as inspiring to me as it was some 15 years ago when I watched it for the first time. The film is based on a true-life story about Austrian explorer that got trapped in Asia during the Second World War. He escaped from an Indian prisoner-of-war camp and fled to Tibet.

Lost In Translation

Lost in Translation by Sofia Coppola is about two American travelers, Bob (Bill Murray) and Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) who are visiting Tokyo at the same time. A beautiful film that shows the fun and unexpected cultural barrier that travelers feel with the city.

This lovely film captures what it’s like to experience the madness of the Shibuya crossing and genuine fun of Japanese Karaoke. These little random travel experiences will stay with you long after you return back home. The sights and the energy of Tokyo will make you want to ride a bullet train and plan a trip to Japan.

Into The Wild

Into the Wild is a 2007 American biographical drama that takes you on an epic journey across the United States. Based on Jon Krakauer’s book, this movie follows Christopher McCandless as he tries to escape the prison of materialism and get in touch with real-life and nature. After graduating from college, Christopher sets out on a cross-country hitchhiking trip before ending up in the Alaskan wilderness.

Along the way, before Alaska, he encounters a number of people that shape his life. This entertaining movie reminds us that human beings can live as minimalists while having the best of life full of experiences. If you watch just one movie from this list, make it this one.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

This is a 2008 romantic comedy-drama by Woody Allen is about two American women who go on vacation to Barcelona. There, Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) meet an artist, Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) who asks them to spend the weekend with him.

The artist is attracted to both women while still enamored of his tempestuous ex-wife María Elena (Penélope Cruz). This compelling romantic drama not only tells an intriguing love-triangle story about unconventional romantic entanglements but shows off the beauty, charm, and magic of Barcelona.

The Way Back

This 2010 American film takes place in 1940 where a Polish prisoner of war along with a few other inmates escape a Siberian labor camp in dead winter and walk 4000 miles to reach India. Along the way, a teenage girl joins them in their ultimate fight for survival. Together they cross Mongolia, leave behind the Lake Baikal, experience endless freezing nights, and face the moral questions of whether or not to leave someone behind.

All the characters in this movie are easy to connect to. You feel their emotions, empathize with them as they laugh and cry.

Eat Pray Love

A beautiful movie that left watchers yearning to quit their jobs and embrace a life of uncertainty and wonder. Eat Pray Love is a 2010 romantic comedy-drama film about a woman who quits her life and travels, rediscovering herself and wandering around the world. Julia Roberts’ character realizes how unhappy her marriage is, and how desperately she needs to change her life.

After a painful divorce, she leaves it all behind and takes off on a round-the-world trip. In her travels, she discovers the true delights of savoring Italian cuisine, the power of spiritual disciplines in India, and, finally, the inner peace of true love in Indonesia.

Out Of Africa

Set against the stunning natural beauty of the 1900s Kenya, this great African safari movie has inspired more than its fair share of African adventures. The film follows the life of Danish author Karen Blixen, who establishes a coffee plantation in Africa. She goes ahead to engage in different activities like dairy farming while having a passionate love affair with a free-spirited big-game hunter.

Karen’s life is complicated by a husband of convenience (Bror von Blixen-Finecke), true love (Denys Finch Hatton), economic problems, schooling of the natives, encroaching First World War, and catching STD from her husband.

6. Visit Ethnic Neighborhoods in Your City

This is one of my favorite ways to scratch the travel itch without traveling. If you live in a big city, chances are there is an ethnic neighborhood where you can learn about the multiple cultures that have taken root there.

I could visit Chinatown and Little Odessa in New York, the Turkish community of Kreuzberg in Berlin, and Southall – London’s Little India to name a few. These are great places to hit local museums, tantalize your taste buds, visit fairs and festivals, stores and much more to give you a flavor of those countries. If you live further away, you can take a day or weekend trip to your nearest city. See if there is a patchwork of immigrant populations or just some minority communities.

7. Indulge Your Inner Foodie

Look at the restaurants within your own neighborhood or within a manageable distance. I find I often get in a rut when eating out and visit the same places over and over again. Pick up your Yellow Pages to highlight the many unexplored fine dining opportunities within a ten-mile radius of your home. If eating out isn’t an option, challenge yourself to do something different and look up easy recipes to follow online. Create your own culinary round-the-world experience without leaving the comfort of your home.

8. Scroll Through Instagram Photos

If you’re an Instagram user, you can use it as a source of inspiration.

These days folks from around the world invite the traveler’s world on a hike in the Dolomites, walk the Great Wall of China or explore the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Even if you can’t travel at the moment, there is plenty of travel bloggers out there who show off the wonderful sights you’ve never seen from all around the world.

Consider following me on Instagram, where you can see some memories from my last trips.

9. Listen to Travel Podcasts

Podcasting has become more and more trendy these days. With so many different talks shows to listen to, this is a great way to discover new places without leaving your own home. Choose the one you like from interviews, packing tips, “how to’s”, to travel stories. In addition, listening to travel podcast exercises your brain more than just watching movies or documentary about travel. You get to use the power of visualization or imagination to picture what the destination is like.

10. Start With Small Things

Whether you’re on lockdown or simply bored at home it can seem to feel like your life is stuck on repeat and you’re living your own version of Bill Murray’s ordeal. However, it doesn’t have to be this way.

Start looking at the areas near you, whether it be the whole state or region, in a new way. Look at it as if it was a whole brand new area. Adopt open-mindedness and soon you will start seeing things in a whole new light.

What are some tips you have for exploring the world without traveling?

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