WHY ARMCHAIR TRAVEL JUST WON’T CUT IT FOR ME ANYMORE

New Year’s Eve, 2018. My husband and I are sitting in a pub in Dublin, Ireland. Tucked in a cozy corner booth, I pretzel my legs underneath me and warm my fingers around a mug of hot cocoa. My back rests against the frosted window which overlooks a street in the Temple Bar district. Dark woods frame the room bathed in low, amber light.

The creaking of the old floors is soon drowned out by the lovely fiddling and boisterous singing. In Ireland, the more poorly you sing, the louder you are expected to sing.

A ginny gentleman joins us at our booth along with a few others. His breath engulfs the air around my head creating an unpoppable bubble of stench. At the small table, our knees knock with those of our new friends while we sway and stomp with the beat.

While this snapshot paints a cherished memory for me, the worst (or perhaps the best) part about it is that, try as I might, I can never recreate it.

I can find some Irish folk music to play on Pandora, warm up some cocoa on my stove, and sing and jig around my coffee table any day of the week, but these efforts will never fully transport me to that moment again. That moment was more than sensory. The sights, the tastes, and, yes, even the smells (I’m talking to you, Stinky Breath) anchored me there, yes, but it was the energy, the atmosphere, the vibe that transformed a minute into a memory.

Throughout this past pandemic year, I have been so grateful that many travel companies, bloggers, and guides have provided virtual tours and classes that have kept serious travelers like me from bleeding out while movement has been nearly impossible. By way of technology, I was able to explore Roman catacombs, hike to Machu Picchu, and learn to make macarons during a French cooking class. These adventures kept me learning and dreaming.

And yet…as much as I enjoyed the books, videos, and photos of the past year, they can never measure up to the true thrill of in-person travel. I miss the liftoff of the airplane and the punching aroma of local spices. I need to mash myself into a crowd of sweaty subway passengers and wear out my feet walking on cobblestones.

I just want it all: the elegant, the ugly, the exhilaration, the exhaustion. And I want the REAL thing. Life has felt just a little flat, and I’m craving some effervescence. I’m done imagining and am ready to roam once again. As J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, “The world is not in your books and maps. It’s out there.”            

With the European Union announcing yesterday that it will welcome vaccinated travelers beginning this summer, I feel nothing but hopeful that many other areas of the world will follow suit and that we wanderers will be wayfaring once again very soon.