You may be thinking cars, trains, planes, coaches, etc., but in this article I want to talk about inspirational or inspired ways of travel. How do you travel, if you do not have an opportunity to leave your home, town or country? TV programs? Youtube? Social media? Blogs? All of that is great, but one of my favourite ways of travelling is Postcrossing. Yep, by receiving postcards from strangers from all over the world. If you have never heard about Postcrossing, it is a postcard exchange project that allows everyone and anyone to send and receive postcards from random places in the world. Rules are very simple: 1. Create an account on their website; 2. Request an address and a postcard ID; 3. Mail a postcard to that address; 4. Receive a postcard from another postcrosser; 5. Register the postcard ID you have received; 6. Repeat steps 2-5. You can let other postcrossers know what kind of postcards you prefer or collect and members of this beautiful community will do their best to fulfil your wish. As I mentioned above, postcards is my way of travelling, so I always request tourist postcards. My all time favourite one is with suspension railway in Wuppertal in Germany, and it's always a nice surprise to receive postcards from my homeland too. If you never heard of or never tried doing postcrossing, you should definitely try it.
HERE ARE JUST SOME OF MY FAVOURITE POSTCARDS:
My other way of travelling is by watching history documentaries. It's like travelling in time. I love watching videos of New York, taken in the beginning of the 20th century. You can see how much the city have changed, even if you have never been to New York. Another reason why I like watching these videos is because you can see what architecture was like back then and what breathtaking buildings were sadly demolished and replaced by skyscrapers, all looking the same, just like the ones next to it. Today I watched slightly different documentary. It was about funiculars in Kaunas, Lithuania. They were built in the early 1930's and they are still going! It was so interesting to see the footage from a hundred years ago. It is not just the buildings, means of transport, it is also the people, the fashion and much more that fascinated me. I have been to Kaunas many times, but I have never used funicular. So next time I am visiting my family in Lithuania, I am definitely trying it out.
When thinking about travelling, we always think about countries and places thousands of miles away. But why not become a tourist in your own country or even town or city? Visit your local tourist information centre if you are not sure what's on in your area, ask about museums, events, new attractions, etc. in remote villages or areas, jump on public transport and go on a little adventure. Life in my home town is quite passive, there is not much going on even in summer, so last time I was visiting my family, I found on social media a cheese company with shop and little restaurant only 20 minutes away from my town. I jumped on a bus and had the best day out: I enjoyed beautiful cheese salad, bought lots of cheeses for myself and friends, and since the cheese company was situated in a beautiful and cosy village, I had a lovely walk around, and spent half an hour sitting on a bench in the shade reading a book.
How do you kill your travel bug when you are stuck at home?