Feed your inner wanderlust: can you explore the world without travelling?

Travel is on our mind 24/7, you too right? We are consumed by your amazing travel photos, stories and chatting to you in person. We love our community of Workawayers, and are blown away by how you are all helping each other. But one problem we come across regularly is the desire to travel over the reality of travelling. For some, it really just isn’t possible – whether that be because of money, time or commitments… But you know we are not the sort of people to back down easy, so we’ve come up with these 5 ways to experience the world and to feed your inner wanderlust, without actually having to travel:

1. Volunteer with Workaway

Oh, would you look at that, we may have solved the issue straight away. Volunteering through Workaway doesn’t have to be done in another country you know, it can be done right on your doorstep. Better still you can become a host and welcome travellers from all around the world. If you can’t get out and see the world, bring the world to yourself. Find out how to become a Workaway host here.

2. Couchsurf

Similar to becoming a Workaway host, you can offer your sofa or spare room to travellers that are currently in your home town. This is a great way to make new friends and exchange stories on travel and life. You can act as a tour guide around your local town, and take the opportunity to explore the parts that you haven’t yet been to (come on, if you are anything like us, your hometown is your least explored town). Hosting other travellers lets you into a whole new world, and you may even get a souvenir from their country to fuel your wanderlust – but if anything, you’ll have a new friend with a sofa waiting for you in another part of the world!

3. Meetup.com events

If you are not familiar with meetup.com it is a website that hosts events all around the world. This can be anything from coffee mornings, to rock climbing days, book club to trying out scuba diving. The best thing about it is you can see who is attending before you go and contact them if you have any questions. You can filter the results into events happening nearest to you and meet people from all over the world. You can even create your own events. How about “I want to travel the world, but I can’t afford it right now, who wants to come and drown their sorrows over cocktails ;-)”?? We’d join!

4. Get wonderfully lost at home

Dig that bike out of the shed, get in the car without a map, go somewhere you’ve never been before. Who said travel had to be getting on a plane and ending up miles away? Travel can be exploring outside your own front door. Imagine yourself as a tourist in a new country. What would you do? Probably google ‘things to do’ first. So do that in your hometown and we bet you there are places you haven’t even discovered yet. Grab your friends, and get lost.

5. Travel Blogs

What did we do without travel blogs? Through travel blogs, we get a first hand – accurate – view on the world. Mainstream media just doesn’t cut it when we are looking to be swept away, digitally, to another country. Through travel blogs we can really feel like we are living the journey with the blogger, and get honest advice and recommendations for when we are able to travel again. Some of our favourite bloggers include Sarah from Coffee With A Slice Of Life, Jake from Eyes Fully Open, Mariah from The Barefoot Beat, and Katie from Feathery Travels Who’s yours?
Then of course there is Instagram/ Pinterest. Seeing images of the world helps us remember what a beautiful place it is and encourages us to make plans to see it. Create a Pinterest board with all the places you’d love to visit and share it with your friends. Save articles on travelling, how to save for travelling, and the best places to visit and keep your inspiration alive! Our Instagram feed is full of travel inspiration at the moment, and daily we discover new places for our bucket list!

We get it, staying at home probably doesn’t sound as exciting as travelling the world, but sometimes it just needs to be done with a little bit more imagination. In a way, not getting what you want straight away will make you work even harder to get it. So don’t get jealous of everyone that is currently travelling, take inspiration and motivation from them instead, try these 5 techniques and start appreciating how to see the world without actually travelling!


About Alicia

Alicia helps run Workaway mission control in Hong Kong, she's also our marketing whiz and helps with design. She has backpacked, travelled and volunteered extensively in many different parts of the w... show more...

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