5 Ways to Travel

5 Ways to Travel When you Can’t Travel

November 12, 2020

Here’s 5 Ways to Travel during the Coronavirus Pandemic

5 Minute Read

We’re grounded again – another national lockdown in the UK. Shrinking travel corridors, enhanced travel restrictions, no respite on the horizon. It’s all looking a bit doom and gloom isn’t it? So I thought, why not come up with ideas for 5 ways to travel during a pandemic.

I’ve put a lot of thought into how I can stay motivated and focus on my future travel dreams in a time with so much uncertainty. The whole travel industry, along with many other sectors, is being ravaged by the pandemic and it might seem like there’s no hope.

But this time will pass, and it’s about keeping up your love for travel until that time comes. Just because travel is limited, doesn’t mean you have to stop completely.

So to stay optimistic, here’s 5 ways to travel when you can’t travel:

  1. Explore Local
  2. Take a Staycation
  3. Read Travel Books
  4. Watch Travel Movies
  5. Plan for Future Trips
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1. Explore Local

This is one of the biggest things that got my through the last 7 months. Finding out exactly what’s on my doorstep and exploring some of the places nearby that I’ve previously overlooked.

As Walk Wild is all about outdoor adventure travel, I tried to find all the best walks, hikes, and nature spots within my vicinity. I started doing this during the first lockdown because it fell inside the rules of going outside to exercise whilst also satisfying my urge for adventure.

I ended up discovering some great walks and found places that were much more enjoyable than I thought they’d be. In a word, serendipity!

I walked along The Saturn Trail in Surrey and discovered the Top 4 Best Surrey Hills Walks. I walked along the River Wey and am now spending the second lockdown exploring the South Downs National Park and the walking routes around my old home of Winchester.

The Saturn Trail
Best Surrey Hills Walks
5 Ways to Travel
5 Ways to Travel
Best Winchester Walks
Best Winchester Walks

I can’t be the only person who’s having this idea as the articles I wrote are being viewed regularly by people searching for the same thing! Clearly people want to get out of the house during lockdown and are looking for ideas of where to go. For that reason, this had to be the first of my 5 ways to travel during a pandemic.

2. Take a Staycation

During the time after lockdown when the country was still in and out of travel restrictions I decided to do away with far-flung travel and explore my own country instead.

I’d always known the UK was an amazing place but following a series of staycations I fell even more in love with it. I made it my mission to walk some of the long distance National Trails and to visit some of the National Parks I’d not been to before.

I walked the 84-Mile Hadrian’s Wall Path and learnt about the amazing Romano-British culture in this region nearly 2,000 years ago.

5 Ways to Travel
5 Ways to Travel

I climbed the height of Mount Everest in Wales by hiking the 186-mile Pembrokeshire Coast Path. This involved pushing myself to the mental and physical limit, where I learnt my levels of resilience to the outdoors after wild camping along the way.

Pembrokeshire Coast Path
Pembrokeshire Coast Path

I went on numerous trips to the Peak District, falling in love with the sweeping valleys of Mam Tor and Kinder Scout, and scrambling about the sinewy ridge of The Roaches and Lud’s Church. Lastly, I revisited some of my favourite hikes in south Wales by creating a travel guide for the top 3 Brecon Beacons walks.

5 Ways to Travel
The Roaches and Lud's Church

All this exploring I might never have done had it not been for the travel bans and restrictions. For that reason, this may be the most valuable advice on this list of 5 ways to travel during a pandemic. I implore you to do the same. Take a staycation. You’ll be surprised what you find.

3. Read Travel Books

I’ve always been a big reader. In fact I made it my pledge to read a book a week in 2020. I spent the first few months of the year mainly reading classics and old books from my long reading list but decided to switch my focus to travel books as the pandemic bore on.

5 Ways to Travel
A selection of travel books I recommend for you to read.

I’ve always associated travel with reading and often spend hours each day reading when I’m away. More and more I felt the desire to read some of the great travel books even when back at home. Because of this, I have learnt to love this genre even more during lockdown.

Some of my favourite travel books include:

Some other books that deserve a special mention:

If you want to know what else I’ve been reading, check out my 6 month book review.

4. Watch Travel Movies

If there’s one thing I maybe love just as much adventure travel and reading, it’s movies. I watch a copious amount of movies and over the years seem to have seen so many that I get more and more obscure in my viewings.

This means that I’ve seen so many great films about travel that inspire and entertain me. They aren’t always directly about travelling, they may just be made in another country or take place in that culture. Generally, I’ll make a list of all the best movies about a country that I’m travelling to and try to watch them all before I visit.

Platforms like Netflix and Amazon have a variety of travel films and documentaries that are worth watching.

This of course means that there are literally hundreds of films I could put on this list from all over world cinema. Instead I will list some of my favourites, which you won’t be surprised to find are mostly to do with an adventure of some sort.

Here are some of my favourite travel/adventure movies and documentaries:

As I said, it’s an eclectic mix and I’m sure there are many great films I’ve forgotten! But watching movies and documentaries has to be one of the best 5 ways to travel when you can’t travel.

5. Plan for Future Trips

I find the biggest hinderance to travelling is money. I’m sure for many others it’s the same. How much money you save up is directly correlated with how long you’re able to go away for and what you’re able to do.

Hopefully you’re able to minimise your expenses during this crazy time as you aren’t going out for dinner/drinks as often, you might be saving on commuting, and you may not be going on holiday as much either.

You should funnel all these savings into a piggy bank for future trips. As you have to be at home now and might find yourself with more time on your hands, there’s no excuse for not being able to spend time planning the most incredible trip possible.

5 Ways to Travel
Planning some more trips in the South Downs National Park.

I’m playing around with the idea of travelling along the Silk Road or driving from Alaska to Argentina with the goal of writing a book on either of those trips.

This will of course take an enormous amount of planning but I find this stage of travelling really rather therapeutic. I enjoy putting in the time to research and find out as much as I can about the places I want to go to. In fact this is one of my Top 10 Tips for Adventure Travellers.

Don’t think that travel will never happen again. It will, and wouldn’t it be better to be prepared for when it does? Start the dreaming now and enjoy a bit of the escapism that goes with organising a future trip.

Before You Go

Thanks for reading my guide on 5 ways to travel when you can’t travel. If travel guides like this interest you, head over to my blog page to find out more!

If you’re new to Walk Wild, check out the About Me page to learn who I am and what made me want to be a travel writer.

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