It’s time to put away those cute kitten videos on YouTube and stop bingeing on box sets because there has never been a better time to take a virtual vacation and explore the world but time may be running out…
Before lockdown, I’d never even heard of a virtual vacation much less considered taking one but if Covid-19 has done anything positive it’s reawakened my interest in the world and opened up a whole lot of opportunities that wouldn’t have been possible for me just a short while ago.
In the past few months, I’ve had so many fun experiences. I’ve seen Minghellas’ Madama Butterfly at the Met Opera, crept inside the Great Pyramid at Giza, accidentally set myself alight cooking teriyaki beef whilst watching the freaky robot restaurant show in Tokyo, seen The Marriage of Figaro played by marionettes with a mouth full of Austrian Sachertorte in Salzburg, seen leopards up close on safari in Africa, walked a section of the Great Wall of China, watched the sun set over Uluru and learned how to make, decorate and play my own didgeridoo in Australia. I’ve visited a fire temple and eaten Plov in Azerbaijan, experienced the dizzying view from Chicago’s tallest skyscraper, explored the Aztec ruins of Teotihuacan in Mexico and even led an expedition to Antarctica …and that’s just the tip of the iceberg!!
Okay, so it’s never going to be as good as the real thing but it makes sense to take advantage of the opportunities while they’re still available, which might only be for a limited time as the world starts getting back to normal. So, if you’re keen to have a go but aren’t sure where to start, here are a few top tips to create your perfect Virtual Vacation anywhere in the world.
Word of caution: Virtual vaycays require serious amounts of creativity, humour and imagination, so if you’re not up for the challenge, stop reading now. If, on the other hand, you’re willing to try something new and suspend your disbelief at least for the length of this article, then read on…
1. Think about what you want
People go on holiday for all sorts of reasons but whether it’s to relax, try new things, learn about other cultures, see the sights, view the world from a different angle or simply to get out of a rut, it helps to know your main motivations when planning your virtual vacation.
If you’re idea of a perfect holiday is simply sun, sea and sand, then get yourself a deckchair and a sand pit, pour yourself a cocktail, and go and sit outside in the garden (or sit inside with the heating turned up if it’s not sunny out!) Put up pictures of your favourite beach scenes and listen to relaxing music or ocean sounds (see ambience section). You can even make your own palm trees (see setting the scene).
If, however, you’re looking for more of an adventure, you can really go to town and have fun. Think about what interests you most and then get even more curious about it. Check the blog articles on this site for ideas about what it’s possible to do and explore in the virtual world.
2. Create an ambience
How do you go about creating the feel of a place? You’ll need to employ all of your senses for this one – touch, taste, smell, sight and sound. One of the best ways I’ve found to create an ambience is with music. Think about the sort of ambience you want to create. For your relaxing beach holiday, you could try LoungeV Films. They have a whole range of relaxation music videos with and without nature sounds and footage from some of the most beautiful places around the world. You can listen to calming ocean sounds with music, while watching waves gently lap the golden sand or fall asleep to a glorious sunset. If you want to create a feel for the country you’re in, look for typical or traditional music. Search on YouTube or try World Music Network for ideas.
Think of other mood-setters too. Are there any smells associated with the place like fresh tulips for Amsterdam or fancy perfume for Paris? When I recreated the Shaolin Temple in the lounge, I used incense sticks to evoke a sense of the Orient. What’s the climate like? For my expedition to Antarctica I used 5 cooling fans and made drinks from crushed ice. We even wore hats and scarves, while sitting by our stove at Union Glacier camp and toasting marshmallows! Think about lighting. For example, a candle-lit dinner was very evocative of Paris for me, which brings me to one of my favourites – food.
I have to warn you that one of the downsides of virtual holidaying is weight gain! On a real holiday I would be burning the calories walking lots and stressing about meeting travel connections but at home there’s much less to worry about and all the sights are a non-strenuous click of a button away. Do not be deterred though. There are all sorts of culinary delights you can whip up to bring your destination of choice that little bit closer. Learn a new cooking technique, experience new taste sensations and fill your home with delicious aromas.
3. Set the Scene
Imagine you’ve been tasked with setting the stage for a show. What will transform your space into somewhere resembling your destination?
For your beach holiday, a deckchair and some sand and a few seashells, a paddling pool or a bowl of warm water for your feet, together with a few pictures of beach scenes from google images or Pinterest will probably suffice but if you really want to go to town there’s a lot more you can do. Look out for my article on Hawaii and you’ll see what I mean. I mentioned making your own palm trees, for example. There’s no end to how creative you can be and setting the scene is a big part of the fun. I tend to use what I can find around the house, so some trellis panels have had various incarnations as Greek columns, Chicago skyscrapers lit with fairy lights, the Great pyramid at Giza, a shinto temple in Japan and Casa Azul in Mexico. Scarves, sheets and blankets are great for disguising things too. Just use some pegs to hold them in place.
See if you can source some authentic items online from the country of your choice or make your own. It needn’t be expensive. For India, I was lucky enough to have an authentic Punjabi suit but for Japan, I made a kimono out of an old duvet cover and a scarf and decorated it with pictures of lotus leaves then put up my hair with some fancy knitting needles! The same duvet cover was used to create my pyramid as well as my skyscrapers, so it was really quite versatile. For Egypt, I made a camel whip from a kitchen foil tube, which made a later appearance as the barrel of my tommy gun in Chicago!
4. Learn the lingo
If you were there in the real world, you would probably pick up a phrase or two of the local lingo so why not have a go in the virtual world too. There are plenty of tutors available online or you can try out a free app like Duolingo. In Austria, I took a virtual lesson on the differences between the German I learned at school and the Austrian variety, which turned out to be quite different. You can even join an online Language and Culture group for the country you’re visiting. I’ve just joined one for Italian in preparation for my Sicily trip.
5. Use a map
There are plenty of maps you can refer to. I like to use whatever I can get my hands on from tourist information maps to interactive maps online. It helps to orient you and my knowledge of geography has vastly improved in the last few months by using them. Depending on what I want, I can switch between Google Earth and Google Maps. Google Streetview doesn’t cover everywhere but you might be surprised at just how many places are available for you to explore. Just drag and drop the little yellow man wherever you want to go.
Of course, one of the perks of exploring in the virtual world is that you aren’t limited geographically, so you can go all over but I’ve found that focussing on a particular area at a time really helps to get a feel for the place and stop everything blending into one big melting pot in my brain.
6. Embrace the technology
Until recently, I probably would have described myself as a bit of a technophobe but the more tools you have in your virtual traveller’s kitbag, the more interesting your holiday will be, so now seems like a good place to introduce the concept of technological virtual experiences. Never before has the world opened up so many places for us to discover virtually. From virtual reality 360 degree videos of white water rafting to live online safaris, from interactive virtual tours of the Egg in Beijing to 3D models of the research stations in Antarctica. You can be wandering around Yanar Dag in Azerbaijan one minute and exploring the inside of an Egyptian tomb the next, standing on the stage of London’s Globe Theatre or hurtling along a zipwire in Costa Rica and the options are growing. There has been a lot of scepticism about these ‘experiences’ especially from the tourism industry and die-hard travellers (See Kayak’s virtual vacation here) and no one is seriously suggesting that virtual travel should be a replacement for the real thing (although the planet would probably be a lot better for it) but for those of us whose capacity to travel has been limited due to health reasons, limited funds or family/work commitments it’s a great way to get a taste of what would otherwise be completely closed off to us. Strangely, as lockdowns across the world start to ease, I think these sorts of virtual tours will actually become a popular way to boost the tourism industry, as since I started doing this, there hasn’t been a single place that by the end of it I didn’t get really excited about visiting in the real world.
7. Do your research
One of the things that has really made a difference is spending time on doing the research beforehand. To do this properly, it helps to be organised. Otherwise, you might find that hours have disappeared with nothing to show for it. Be clear about what you want to find out or know about before you start and limit yourself to make it achievable. I have a tendency to get carried away with all the many possibilities and it’s easy to get swept down the rabbit hole, so I tend to make a mind map of ideas and then pick my top 10 to focus on. It’s sometimes easier to flesh out the experience later than to get rid of things once you’ve invested time in researching them. If you’re not sure where to start, try googling the city, region or country you’re interested in and just see what comes up. Make a note of anything that particularly strikes you, so that you can research it in more detail later. Trip Advisor and Culture Trip are also good places to start for making a list of your top 10 things to do and places to see. Alternatively, save yourself the research and let me do the legwork. Use the articles as the basis of your virtual holiday or contact me to get a bespoke package.
8. Variety is the spice of life
For a real holiday experience, try to mix things up a bit with a variety of different activities. For example, virtual tours are all very well but they can get a bit boring after a while if that’s all you do. Try to find an activity that fits the theme of the country you’re in. Try your hand at a traditional craft or art form like origami, build your own volcano and create a controlled eruption, make your own sugar skull masks for Mexico’s Day of the Dead or whack a pinata to get the sweets out, play an unusual instrument or learn a traditional dance, perform a ritual or ceremony like the tea ceremony in China or have a go at a new cooking technique.
Go off the beaten track to explore some of the more unusual tourist attractions, too. Try Atlas Obscura for the lowdown on some of the world’s weirdest and most wonderful places. I loved it so much I bought the book – Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders.
Just seeing a place from different angles can help give you a more rounded sense of it. So, for example, I sometimes like to start with an aerial view to get a really good sense of what’s what in a place. Airpano is great for this as a lot of the landmarks are labelled or there are literally hundreds if not thousands of videos of aerial views to choose from. Look for good quality 4k drone footage for the best experience. I then look for different ways to see the sights which could include virtual walking tours, tram rides, bus city sightseeing tours, streetview, boat tours, helicopter tours and so on. For instance, in Chicago we used Streetview to get a feel for things on the ground, airpano to see the whole city from above and took a guided architecture tour along the Chicago river whilst in Lisbon we hopped on a tram.
9. Make an itinerary (or not!)
Do what works for you. Personally, I’ve found that both approaches work. Overall, though, having a set time to do it and knowing beforehand what I want to do helps me get prepared and means things run more smoothly. It really depends how much time you have but the more you plan ahead and set things up the less time you waste just searching for things instead of sitting back and enjoying it on the day. I’ve tried various ways of setting up and following the itinerary including paper and clipboard like an old traditional tour guide, mindmapping, Powerpoint slides, story-style on Word, having a whole folder of stuff to prompt me, saving a series of links in order, picking places at random and working through suggestions on a webpage. If you’re memory is as bad as mine, at the very least you’ll want some sort of list or mind map to make sure you don’t miss anything.
10. Bring it all to life
Travel is about so much more than just seeing the sights. Think about ways to bring the experience to life like listening to a local radio station or watching a TV series or a film set in the country or in the language. If you don’t have access to Netflix, Walter Presents offers a good range of TV series, for example. Read a novel set in the place you’re ‘visiting’ or by a local author. Read travel guides or non-fiction from the country. Is there anyone you know who has been there or even better lived there? Have a chat with them and ask about their experiences. Try to find activities taking place in real time and interact with the people running them. Some of my favourites have been with zoos and wildlife parks, as trying to get the animals to ‘perform’ for the cameras has often had amusing results especially when the animals don’t want to play ball. A kommodo dragon in a wildlife park in Australia, for instance, had very different ideas from the keeper about how to entertain the masses for which she greatly rose in my estimation!
Bonus tip – Have fun with it!
And finally, use your imagination, get creative, be playful, have a laugh. It doesn’t all have to be high culture. In Chicago, we dressed as gangsters and had a shoot ’em up with nerf guns and little paper cut-out gangsters before settling down to watch Chicago the musical with cookie dough pie and prohibition whisky! Enjoy the upsides like no queues, no expensive hotel bills or entrance fees, no being kicked in the back of your chair on a flight. Enjoy and bon voyage!
