Armchair travel is exactly what it sounds like – experiencing and traveling the world from the comfort of your favorite chair (or sofa or bed). Through today’s online world, it is really quite easy, free, and instantaneous to travel somewhere we’ve never been before and virtually experience new cultures and food.
Whether it be books, television programs, YouTube clips, online travel blogs, or even Google Earth, the world is literally at our fingertips resting on our armchair.
Not sure where to get started? Have we got ideas for you!
The Unique and The Classic
Through apps and websites, the armchair traveler can virtually fly around famous landmarks or “walk” through a popular destination.
AirPano
It’s like being able to fly with this website that provides 360-degree panoramic aerial views of some of the most famous and beautiful places on Earth. Imagine soaring over the Pyramids of Giza or Mount Everest, and even the largest and coldest desert on the planet – Antarctica.
Google Earth Voyager
Google Earth really is everywhere and can take armchair travelers on exciting tours around famous cities, landmarks, and natural wonders all around the world.
Rick Steves’ Audio Europe
Rick Steves has been producing European tours on television for decades. Through his audio Europe app, one can sit back and listen to free guided tours to Paris, Florence, Vienna, and more.
The Original Armchair Activity
A good book and a comfy chair with a great floor lamp. Who could ask for more? These book titles will get your book traveling adventure on its way.
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
This bestselling book inspired people around the world to go on journeys to create their own best versions of themselves. And there are countless books that have been written journaling just that since then. This books tells the story of the author who leaves all the modern-day trappings of so-called success behind to discover her own true self as she travels and eats and prays and loves her way through Italy, India, and the island of Bali in Indonesia.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Along those same lines of self-discovery, this is a story about Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy, who travels from his home in Spain across the Egyptian desert in search of worldly treasure where he eventually has a fateful meeting with the alchemist who takes him on a philosophical journey.
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
This book was an American national bestseller and is based on the true story of Christopher Johnson McCandless, a young man from a wealthy family who hitchhiked his way through North America and how he came to die in rugged Alaska. He departs in April of 1992, and his decomposed body is found 4 months later by a moose hunter. Riveting and memorable reading.
Let’s Go to the Movies
Before you sit down, grab that popcorn and your blankie and settle in for move night as you go globetrotting ala armchair.
I Dreamed of Africa
Despite the classic Out of Africa movie starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep, our Africa flick pick has to be I Dreamed of Africa, starring Kim Basinger. In this film, a divorced socialite, shaken from a recent car crash, leaves Italy with a man she just met and heads to Kenya with her young son in tow. This touching true story is based on Kuki Gallmann’s memoirs.
Lost in Translation
This 2003 movie is about another human in personal crisis, this time a middle-aged American movie star, Bob, who travels to Tokyo for a $2 million ad endorsement. Along his journey he meets 20-something Charlotte who is left to make her way through Tokyo without her husband who gets sent outside the city for a photo assignment. With Tokyo as the backdrop, this film follows the new friends through the bright neon lights and vibrant culture of the city.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Yet again, this movie encourages the dreamer to start actually living, as we follow Walter Mitty around the globe in search of a missing photo negative for Life magazine where he works as a manager of negative assets. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? But we digress. So he deduces that the photographer who did not send the negative he needs is in Greenland, and he sets out on a journey that takes him from Iceland to the Himalayas and beyond.
The Way to a Traveler’s Heart is Through Their Stomach
These people have the good fortune of eating their way around the globe. From street food to mountain ranches to spam musubi at a Hawaii luau, traipse your way along these interesting foodie journeys.
Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown
Famous chef turned host, the late Anthony Bourdain, took viewers to, as his last show states, parts unknown. According to a quote from him, “eat and drink with people without fear and prejudice … they open up to you in ways that somebody visiting who is driven by a story may not get.” He takes viewers on gastronomic journeys from Morocco to Peru to Columbia to the Congo, Libya, Myanmar, and more. Anthony’s final show took him on a poignant trip to his Lower East Side home turf, showing him enjoying a simple meal as he describes his trail through life before he died from suicide in June 2018.
Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern
It is the goal of host Andrew Zimmern to find, as the title of his show says, bizarre foods, as he travels near and far in search of the unusual. We would be remiss if we did not mention that he once included spam musubi at a luau on the island of Oahu in this series, where despite eating far more exotic foods prior with gastronomic delight, such as cockroaches, fat wormy grubs, cow heel soup, fresh cow blood, and horse rib and rectum sausage, just to name a few, he cannot wrap his tastebuds around the idea of a slice of spam on a rectangle of rice, wrapped in seaweed.
Street Food on Netflix
Through three seasons of Street Food – Asia, Latin America, and the USA – armchair viewers get to drool over street food and take in the scenes as this series explores the fun concept of watching food being prepared on the street (like free entertainment) and then enjoying it as you walk along around your destination, taking in the sights, smells, and sounds of the city. In Ho Chi Minh City, for example, watch as snails and broken rice are prepared by food vendors creating this Vietnam food staple.
We’ll Take You There, Virtually
Here, we’ll leave you with a list to get you started on places you can go to virtually, no admission fee, all from the comfort of your first-class favorite living room chair.
Great Wall of China (Virtual Tour)
Imagine walking along the iconic winding Great Wall of China without getting tired or having to soak your feet after your day’s journey. This Beijing wonder is made up of 13,171 miles of ancient stonework and many, many steps that offers amazing views to those who brave (or in our case, rather comfortably brave) it’s meandering mysterious charm.
The Louvre, Paris (Virtual Tour)
From the Mona Lisa to the Venus de Milo and beyond, the world-renowned Louvre Museum is a literal treasure trove of art and artifacts just waiting to be explored. No waiting in line to enter and make your way through the four floors of this magnificent cultural Paris destination.
National Parks Virtual Tours (USA)
National Parks across America offer exciting virtual tours of famous historical and cultural places, such as the Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore, Yosemite, and Yellowstone (and, no, you won’t see Yogi Bear here, because he lives in “Jellystone”). Between the National Parks website, YouTube, and various and sundry video domains, virtual tours of national parks are in abundance, making it easy for the armchair enthusiast to visit destinations from Alaska to Arizona, and yes, even American Samoa and the Virgin Islands.
That’s a Wrap, as in Blankie
Whether you are watching a YouTube video about the traditional Japanese tea ceremony or listening to music from around the world on Spotify, or perhaps even doing some armchair dancing as you learn the latest dance moves in “Bollywood” on Instagram, armchair travel is something everyone can do at any time from the comfort of home and for free. Not such a bad bargain for the armchair warrior, is it?
