Traveling Vicariously

During these days when we are sheltering at home, we’ve still been able to travel — through the eyes of others, such as Rick Steves. We’ve enjoyed several of his travel films about European cities, many that we have visited on our own travels. These ‘tour’ films have brought back many memories for us during a time when we cannot travel and have had to cancel our travel plans. Rick Steves “brings the world into people’s living room who couldn’t otherwise travel.”

Today, we traveled back to one of my favorite trips – Salzburg, Austria. My daughter, Karen, put together a grand Sound of Music vacation to help celebrate my 60th birthday, which started with a themed tea party stateside and ended visiting several of the actual movie sites in Austria. We also traveled to Hallstatt, Austria. A place we looked into purchasing and running a B&B at one time. A wrong turn took us through a quaint Bavarian town, where a shop keeper kept her store open for us as we shopped for just the right Christmas ornament to bring home. Mmm! The beer, the pretzels, the brats, the oompah music of the Hofbraushaus. We saw famous castles such as Neuschwanstein, which was beautiful, if a bit of a walk on a rainy day. We’ve visited churches with beautiful fresco paintings, gorgeous stained glass windows, huge organs with multiple pipes, and lots of golden gilt decorating. We cruised the Wachau Valley on a longboat, glimpsed art galleries and always heard a bit of history as we traveled with Rick.

Below are a few pictures that Karen has taken on our wonderful vacations abroad. It’s amazing the sites we’ve visited! Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would see so much of the world outside my window…20 steps at a time.

Rick Steves is a great tour guide. He writes tour travel books that contain suggestions, a bit of educational history and humorous content. He knows the side streets and little known areas to visit that you might otherwise miss on an “organized” tour. His books are available to purchase and also to borrow from your library. If it’s your first time traveling across the pond, I recommend seeing his travel films and reading his books – ricksteves.com. You’ll be happy that you did!

Another trip down memory lane found us looking through our Shutterfly books, which were put together after many momentous trips such as,

In the Wake of Vikings – a transatlantic cruise
Iconic Western Mediterranean – Rome, Barcelona and more
Danube Waltz – for the Christmas markets
Empires of the Mediterranean – Venice, Athens and more
Christmas in New York City
Oceania Pacific Coast Christmas
Lighthouses of the East Coast
Las Vegas’ Neon Boneyard
and more

So, even though we are exercising restraint in all things during this pandemic, everyone can still travel, go to museums, visit historic places near and far, listen to music…whatever makes you happy to be home and have these wonderful opportunities available from your easy chair. Hopefully, once the crisis is passed, some of these virtual trips will incite you to get out there and experience them first hand, instead of vicariously! Travel is a wonderful experience!

“Until next time, keep on travellin'”
Rick Steves