no vacation time? try imagination travel

my mom recently got to spend most of february in antarctica. i didn't. but that doesn't mean i can't go with her. sort of. as i have learned that having a full-time job means having some more money but a lot less time to use it, i have had to get creative given my claustrophobic tendencies. here are some of the images my mom shared with me that are fueling my dreams of escape from life in a chair in front of a desk as of late.

yes, my mom went here. crazy. but i am trying to utilize all my absurd skills of imagination and denial to feel the same sense of  distance from regular life. here's what i 've come up with.

i think travel is all about primal senses and so i try to engage those when i need a little break from my regular life.

1.really, it's all about food. i have places that make me feel like i am on vacation in another country:

chaddo's tea room. i love it. my friend jan and i try to go once a week and have high tea. i mean, who wouldn't feel like they had escaped to brown's hotel in london when faced with this spread?

delicious. find high tea where you life. i know you can. i found it on a back road in tennessee, so no excuses if you aren't in a big city.

2. disorientingly culturally different neighborhoods or shops.

this is a good one. in my former life that was job-free and relationship-full, as opposed to the current and opposite situation, we used to take trips to little tokyo. i still call it japan town as san francisco is still my primary geographical language. but still. anywhere you feel culturally out of place is good for this exercise. i love little tokyo because it has a great japanese bookstore with about 75% books that i couldn't read without ten years of calligraphy lessons. they have amazing sewing books that i keep buying even though i don't understand them because the pictures are amazing! and occasionally there is a pattern diagram with some numbers so i think i can try to figure it out we'll see.

you can also get fantastic stationary with weird slogans on it and great pens and notebooks. i think being able to come back with souvenirs is a crucial element of this faux travel thing and what better to have than a green notebook which proclaims it has the "power to make all girl happy" to use for notes at work? i can't think of much that is better than that.

3.if you have no wide and wonderful little tokyo neighborhood or mission district in your area, you must at least have an asian grocer. this is another fantastic delight which combines both 1 and 2 on the list. and if you can get cookies called "krunky" or cans of yummy coconut water, what is the point of ever going to a regular grocery store again, i ask you?

4. reading. ok. i couldn't leave it out, since i am a big nerd and books are more important to me than food or air. but reading really is an escape and a portal into travel. and you can take it and pull it out on your lunch break. so keep it in mind.  and i'm not just talking about novels and essays on travel, although those are always good. photo books can be an amazing little trip even just browsed through in a store. i love the combination of both types. that is why i have so goddamn many in my house and no food in the fridge, only cat meat and film.

5.when all else fails, resort to delusion. act like you are on vacation and you are a tourist in your own area. this is not as dumb or lame as it sounds. when i lived in new york ten years ago, my aunt, who also lives there, and i confessed we were sad that no one wanted to do all the dumb tourist stuff everyone does when visiting new york, but everyone who lives there is above. so that summer we tried the staten island ferry, went up the empire state building and rode the roosevelt island cable car on a few too many cocktails and were treated to a fireworks display partway across.  it was all fantastic. and i guarantee wherever you live there is some silly tourist thing you've never done because you live there. i was a die hard san franciscan for five years (and still am in many ways) and i have never been to alcatraz. my entire family has, since they went without me on a college visiting trip before i moved there.

i'd still like to go. anyone interested? but before that, i will have to try out the universal studios tour, give disneyland another winter run with my brother before it gets mobbed in the summer, and possibly, if i get really desperate for that vacation feeling, ride one of those tours of the stars buses. could be pretty great.

so, claustrophobic and underpaid travel dreamers, don't let your salary and vacation allowance get you down. venture forth and experience!

Comments

[John Trosko]

This is great idea! It's a modern version of Total Recall, without the hilucinational side effects!

- John

[caroline]

thank you so much! i love your site and your services as you have described them- i am so honored that you have been reading and felt moved to leave a comment.

best wishes,
caroline