As a college student who spent 7 months of his junior year studying abroad in Spain, staying home quarantined was never part of my planned “study abroad experience.” I went from weekends backpacking across Europe and northern Africa to remaining indoors for the past three and a half months now. My soul is consumed by fleeting wanderlust, aiming to escape and vicariously experience the world via the internet.

As we finish up National Poetry Month, you have to know of W.S. Merwin and the Merwin Conservancy which is an extraordinary place—a lush and rare, 19-acre palm forest that two-time Pulitzer prize winning poet W.S. Merwin create from land wasteland. It conserves the sense of wonder that brought forth both Merwin’s poetry and his garden. There are now nearly 3,000 individual trees of more than 400 different species, and you can visit today!

We love podcasts on travel! And we’ve curated the best of the best here. They are equal parts entertaining, inspiring, and informative. Discussing travel through a primarily auditory medium is actually (and ironically) visually stimulating because travel topics evoke exotic places in our mind’s eye. Furthermore, travel podcasts are so treasured now because they are form of escape during a time when travel is still constrained.

According to the United Nations, there are 195 sovereign states in our world today. That’s a whole bunch of different countries with different cultural practices — and that number doesn’t even account for unrecognized cultural groups (like indigenous tribes)!

Our Sicilian guide this week, Alice Bifarelli (archaeologist) of Context Travel, wrapped up her tour of Sicily with an image of a bowl of Pasta alla Norma.

She said that this was a symbol of Sicily - an island whose various conquerors and there were many!

I'm just heartbroken. Sharon Kay Penman died last week. I can’t even begin to express how intoxicating her novels are. Her writing and her characters are a part of me. A formative part. And she inspired at least two of my European trips. If you have not encountered her yet, you’re in for a real treat.

So, this is the week of Christmas. And well, it’s 2020, so I bet your holidays look a little different than they normally do. I moved last week, so my holidays are completely reinvented this year. One way to evoke times of Christmas past is to play the soundtracks of your Christmas past. Music evokes memories. So here I offer 4 soundtracks for you, as a gift!

Staying inside is what’s safe, what’s encouraged, and what’s best to reduce the spread of this persistent virus. Those of us who love to travel and would be abroad right now if the pandemic had not turned the world upside down, it’s easy to feel trapped. We all long for the days when we could escape to new places and explore new cultures and experiences.

If you are experiencing withdrawals from the lack of drama in your life, there are ways to bring the theater to your home. The art of podcasting has been steadily rising in popularity, and an increasingly popular category is theater podcasts. Plunge yourself into their dramatic worlds today! If you are a fan of storytelling, I recommend listening to…

Acknowledge your wanderlust, satiate your thirst for cultural knowledge, and vicariously travel online. Travel is the ultimate form of education, and these resources invite people "off the tourist track" and into the whole life of a location's people, history, and culture… even during this time of a global pandemic.

As the pandemic continues to inform our lives and how we interact with one another, some of you may understandably become increasingly bored at home and feel the urge to explore the outside world again. To satiate your wanderlust, I offer you a virtual form of escapism: international TV thrillers.

As a former expatriate in a similar touristy city (the Spanish capital of Madrid), you would be surprised by how many things you can do outside of the obligatory cathedral visit. That is why I have compiled this list of “unusual”―or less mainstream but equally fun―things to do in Barcelona!