I’m sure most of us travel addicts know the problem: There’s nothing like exploring a new destination, going on adventures and learning about foreign cultures. However, coming home and returning to the daily routine always seems like a bit of a let-down.
Unless you’re one of the lucky few who are able to travel full-time, this leaves you with two options: Giving in to post-vacation blues and desperately waiting for the next holiday or bringing the experience of traveling back home with you.
My solution was having a good look at what I love most about exploring across the globe, so I could emulate that same feeling back home. Take a peek at my list below to get some inspiration for hobbies that you could take up to recreate the feeling of travel after returning home.
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10 Amazing Hobbies for Travel Lovers to Enjoy Back Home
Take up Geocaching
Geocaching is hands down one of my favourite hobbies, and while I occasionally do it on a trip, I find myself turning to it more often when I’m back home.
It’s a treasure-hunting game, and searching for the hidden boxes is certainly part of the fun, but to me the main appeal is the chance to learn something new about my everyday surroundings.
I’ve been a geocacher for over fifteen years now, and I still discover new places and learn some interesting historical facts about the city I live in every time I do it. To me, this is the perfect way to emulate the feeling of traveling.
Learn a New Language
In my experience, speaking the local language can really enhance the travel experience. It allows me to quickly connect with the locals and to get a better understanding of the culture.
Plus, learning a new language is always a great preparation for my next trip, as I’m getting a first cultural taste of the country or region that I’m planning to visit.
One option would be to enrol into a language-learning course, but there are also many great language learning apps, like Duolingo (which I’m currently using to brush up on my Arabic). In any case, you certainly won’t regret knowing a bit of the local language once you’re able to travel again.
Do Some Virtual Travel
Nowadays, you don’t even have to leave your home to be able to explore sights in faraway places.
Many museums around the world have created online exhibits that allow you to remotely explore their collections. As an example, the Louvre Museum in Paris offers virtual tours of its galleries and exhibits, including the Mona Lisa painting.
If museums aren’t your thing, there are also virtual tours of the Inca Ruins at Machu Picchu and even the Grand Canyon available. Granted, it might not be the same as actually standing there, but for me it still kind of scratches the travel itch.
Master Photography
Photography is a great way to keep some memories from your travels, but it’s also something that you can do while you’re at home. You can hone your skills by capturing your local surroundings, and, for example, try to finally master that golden ratio.
You can also experiment a bit with different techniques, like long exposure, black and white or macrophotography to prepare yourself for your next trip.
To me, an added benefit is that I tend to start to better appreciate my familiar surroundings when I’m noticing details and potential photo subjects that I might have missed before.
Learn to Cook International Dishes
For me, one of the best ways to experience a new culture is through its food. I find that learning how to cook a country’s traditional dishes can transport me to that destination without even leaving my kitchen.
There are lots of cookbooks and websites around that focus on a country’s or region’s specialities. That way, Stefanie and I either recreate our favourite dishes from past trips or get to know the typical meals of our next destination.
Read Some Travel Books
If you can’t travel right now, reading about someone else’s adventures is a great way to transport yourself to that curious mindset of being on the road. Marco Polo, Mark Twain, Dervla Murphy, Paul Theroux: there are tons of people who have written fantastic and entertaining travel accounts.
If you’re more of a fiction aficionado, there are plenty of options to dive into a foreign culture through novels and short stories that are set abroad. Ernest Hemingway, E.M. Forster, Graham Greene, Jean Rhys… the list of awesome travel-related books is basically endless.
If you need somewhere to start, some of my absolute favourites among the latter are George Orwell’s great anti-colonial novel ‘Burmese Days’, Thomas Pynchon’s globe-spanning epic mystery-comedy ‘V.’ and the elegiac novels of Egyptian Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz.
Explore your Hometown and its Surroundings
No matter how well I think I know my hometown, there’s always something new to discover. There’s always a museum I never made it to, or a new café to try out. Apart from that, I find that going on day trips (or weekend getaways) to places close to my hometown can also be a lot of fun.
At the height of COVID, when international (and even domestic) travel was restricted, Stefanie and I decided to explore the villages and small towns surrounding our city. We shouldn’t have been surprised, but all of them had some cool sights that we knew next to nothing about before.
To us, it just drove home the point that we don’t always have to travel across half the globe to find a place that is truly special.
Plan Some Future Trips
I know some people hate it, but I consider it a big part of the fun: Planning my next trip can help tide me over until it actually happens. I pick out some possible destinations, sights and accommodation, make a travel bucket list, or read up on local culture and traditions.
While it’s certainly not the real thing, I find that planning my travels gets me into a similar frame of mind and makes me all the more excited about future trips.
Get All Active in the Great Outdoors
Being physically active is something a lot of people enjoy about travel (while others go on holiday to avoid just that;-). If you fall into the former camp, there are plenty of opportunities for outdoor adventures back home.
Hiking is one of my favourite ways to explore the outdoors and stay active while I’m on the road and something that I can easily do back home, but there are many other options: cycling, kayaking or rock climbing can be just as exciting back home as abroad.
Start a Travel Blog
Still not satisfied with the suggestions? How about starting your own travel blog? I decided to start Perchance to Roam after a trip to combat the post-travel blues, and I never would have expected how much fun I would have doing it. I can promise you: this is the best way to recap your trips.
You get to relive your memories, and you have an excuse to look through all those photos again that have accumulated over time. As an added benefit, you can actually help other people plan their own trips by sharing your personal experiences. It’s a win-win situation for sure.
See Also
Starting a Travel Blog – 5 Persistent Blogging Myths Debunked