If you think of armchair travel not as an end in itself but as a prelude to creating the optimum travel experience while becoming a better educated world citizen, you’ll be alert to picking up that extra tidbit of information that could make-or-break your carefully planned future adventure. Granted, armchair travel is always virtual ~ you’ll never be able to breathe the air or feel the cultural electricity without being there in person ~ but it does help you focus on what intrigues you most so you can best use your actual travel time when it arrives.
Would you rather wander the halls of the Uffizi – this can now be done online – or bicycle through the Tuscan countryside?
Armchair excursions takes various forms: television shows, guidebooks, maps, histories, nautical charts, travelogues. You can also add dimension and color to the places your friends talk or write about (and in the process find out if they’re sites you’d like to see) through a little online investigation and by asking questions.
Q: What did you think of the Marquesas Islands?
A: They were starkly beautiful, primordial, but the travel brochures didn’t give us a clue about the persistent no-nos.
This way you’ll quickly discover if they (the places, not the fierce, nearly invisible biting insects) qualify for inclusion on your Wish-List of Travel Venues.
One of my favorite kinds of armchair travel is viewing nature photographs from wall calendars, like those published for Lonely Planet, the Wilderness Society, or the Sierra Club. I often pause to study the featured location, if it’s one that captivates my attention.
December’s photograph of Capitol Reef and the Henry Mountains from Utah’s Panorama Point in National Audubon Society’s 2009 Hiking America calendar did exactly this for me. Consequently, I started my research using Google Images, which brought up diverse shots of the region taken at different seasons and times of day. Come to find out from my son that he’d backpacked through this territory during Spring break some years ago. In fact, the images that accompany this post are his (much appreciated, Lorenzo!).
Thanks to this pleasant interlude of armchair voyaging, it’s now certain that Panorama Point qualifies for inclusion on my Wish-List of Travel Venues.
And you, my readers? Which places qualify for yours?
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Google Earth is another great tool – especially for finding spots a little off the beaten path.