Somewhere, very near to you, is a state park (if you live in the U.S, or some local equivalent if you don't) that you've never been to. Go check it out. Fake your enthusiasm, and go all in on researching it and finding out what plants, birds, etc. are found there, and look for them. Hiking or birdwatching or etc. may not be your normal thing, but fake it for a while and you may find it does actually become somewhat interesting, even if you will go back to long-distance travel as soon as you have the chance.
Walking videos on Youtube! The good ones are high quality, stabilized, and don't have any commentary. Very relaxing to watch and you get a nice closeup view of another city. Here's one of my favorite channels: https://www.youtube.com/user/Rambalac
I like watching them while exercising, and they also serve well as ambient background noise while you work. I'm partial to Japan but there are similar channels and videos for just about every major city. Here are a couple others I found just now:
The keywords to look for are "video walk", "virtual tour", etc. If you do prefer to have commentary like a tour guide, I'm sure there are videos with that too.
I don’t have this problem as I don’t travel much anyway but something I thought was really cool is in Melbourne when people were restricted to 5km of their home there was “burbing” which means to cycle down every street within 5km of your house.
There is also someone who cycled every street in central London and built up a visualisation.
I think something like this would replace the challenge and seeing new things side of things.
If you live in or near a city there is probably plenty of culture and neighbourhoods where everyone is openly speaking a foreign language.
What if you tried learning that language and speak to them? This might get you ready for some fun visiting countries speaking that language after covid. Any you might make some friends and get travel tips.
Visiting random places on Google maps is fun. I saw a really cool rock climber once in the middle of Russia somewhere on a high up perfectly formed boulder.
Also most places have something interesting to explore locally. Have a look on Google maps. Today I found a beach I’ve never been to just 30 min away.
I miss travelling too! I live near English countryside, so long walks either in the woods or the riverside makes it less terrible. Ofcourse, travelling has a different kind of excitement, which is hard to replace, sadly.
Where do you live and what do you have nearby? I'm in central England and can walk to the river and a nature reserve in 2 minutes. I can take out one of my kayaks on the river. I can ride my bike from home on the nearby trails and roads. This has been possible in our harshest lockdowns here. When things opened up I could travel around the UK in booked accommodation. UK is a really varied country and compact so that allows for quite a bit of variety. It's made me less inclined to travel and more keen to appreciate what I have.
It's just a shame the UK is so densely populated / overpopulated.
When the rules were relaxed in the summer, it seemed like every outdoor place I normally go to was overrun with people. Makes you realise how many people we export to other places in a normal summer.
Kind of. South East is overpopulated (although even there, there are plenty of quiet places if you can access footpaths or rivers). Outside of that there are particular "cool" places to go on holiday such as Snowdonia (but people congregate around Snowdon and many other hills are empty), the Lake District (same deal) and parts of Devon or Cornwall. My nearest National Park is the Peak District and if you get up early there is no one there, if you stay into the evening there is over there. There are numerous places within walking distance of my house (outskirts of Nottingham) where I could walk/cycle/kayak/open boat and even bivi out overnight undisturbed. I'm pretty sure most places are the same, even when I was living in central london I'd get into the countryside at least once a month.
One issue is lots of people that wouldn't normally go out, were looking for places to go and because they had no experience of the outdoors they went to the honeypot locations, which were then busier than ever.
That's cheating :) , I'm living in small crowded Netherlands and would love to have areas like Sotland, Snowdonia, Lake District, Peak District and the coast of Southern Wales available a short ride away.
Within a days drive you have the French Alps, Jura, Pyrennes, Austria, Switzerland, Northern Italy, Slovenia, Scandinavia, etc etc. I guess for lockdown you need to get creative. My holiday plan for this year was to get the ferry over to Holland with my bike and tour around randomly for a few days, but unfortunately I missed out.
Why limit your travel to space when you can travel in time too? Check out old travelogues written before you were born. Not only are the stories and places interesting, the stories also tell a meta-story of a different era in travel.
Many of them are in the public domain and downloadable as PDFs, some are available from your local library in digital form. Find one you like, and spider your way to others using the author or the author’s text as a guide to other books.
Sorry for the plug but it fits just so well to this discussion. I have created a Chrome extension to discover new places on every browser tab. Every place connects to Google Earth and Google street view for virtual tours. It gives at least bit of a travelling feel while staying home.
Maybe try reading some travel/adventure related fiction. I am currently reading "The Lord of the Rings", and while it doesn't satisfy the wanderlust 100%, it definitely helps.
I also tried researching some more books that are travel related that I am planning to read next:
* Rita Golden Gelman - Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World
“My idea of travel is a downward travel really. Getting to know where you are, better, and exploring feelings that you know more deeply. I always think that thing ‘knowing something by heart’ gives you a depth of possibility which is more potential than seeing new sights, however marvelous and exciting they are.”
I live in Netherlands and go biking often. There is a lot of nature outside the cities and many bike lanes. Plus during pandemic, not a lot of people which makes it even nicer.
a couple of months ago I would have said to check out national Parks. now it might not be the right weather for a lot of them. I hit glacier and Yellowstone in the same 9 day trip. there was plenty of space to social distance, Park rangers took the problem seriously, beautiful sights
today, I would probably suggest books. fantasy or history from the cultural locations you want to visit
I was using CityStrides but now I'm using StreetFerret. I like the map a bit more and it shows more stats which is nice. Both have some room for improvement.