The Best Things to Do at Home When You Can’t Travel – the Ultimate Self-isolation Guide for Travellers!
There’s no denying this is a hard time, for everyone. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do. It’s hard. People are losing their jobs, everyone is stuck at home and people are sick. And mentally, being stuck at home can be hard. Sure, half of our problems might not be anywhere near what other people are going through – but that doesn’t make it any easier.
I’m going to be very real and honest here in this blog – I want to share, honestly, how I’m feeling with all my readers. And the truth is, I’m struggling. Mostly mentally. For me, I’m used to travelling. It’s basically the only thing that gets me through – so when that was taken away… I felt lost.
And slowly, I’ve been adapting to how to get through this time at home. I know that mentally a lot of people are also struggling with this – which is why I wanted to share this post. No matter what you are struggling with during this time adapting to life at home, I hope that this will help you to feel a little more content during this time.
So, how are we going to get through this?
- By remembering this ISN’T FORVER – a time will come when we can go back to normal
- By being grateful for our health and our friends and family every single day
- By working every day to better ourselves – our health, our skills, our career, our goals. Anything!
- By remembering that when the time comes, the travel industry will need our support more than ever – so we need to be ready to travel!
But anyways, enough with all that. The whole point of this is to provide the ultimate guide to self-isolation – packed full with ideas of things to do at home and how to stay sane and healthy!
How to Stay Sane and Healthy While Stuck at Home
Create a routine
This is an important one! Creating a daily routine is a vital step in staying sane. Get up at the same time every day, have a healthy breakfast, do a workout. Whatever it is that creates a good routine for you. If you like to do yoga on your ‘lunch break’, try to stick to it.
Create a routine that makes you look forward to the day (and stay sane!).
Here’s my goals for the moment:
- Get up at 7am daily
- Workout
- Healthy breakfast
- Work (blogging and client work!)
- Lunch break – another workout or yoga (wishful thinking!)
- Some more work OR relax – depending on the day
- Some online Spanish classes!
- Read and cook a nice healthy dinner
Workout, and eat well
Think of this as fuelling your body and soul.
There are so many ways to work-out and exercise while you are at home.
- YouTube workouts (one of my current faves is Yoga with Adriene).
- At home training programs
Eat well – but also cut yourself some slack as well. I’m going easy on this one and trying to stick to my usual routine of the 80/20 rule. 80% healthy, nutrient dense foods, 20% whatever I feel like. Because, c’mon, I need wine at the moment.
Take the time daily to unwind, relax and digital detox
This is one I personally struggle to do at the best of times, but now I’m trying even harder. Take the time out every single day to relax and unwind, disconnect from social media and to do something just for you. It can be 10, 15 minutes or longer. Whatever you can spare.
Here’s some things you can do:
- Read a book
- Listen to a podcast
- Stretch or yoga
- Take a bath
- Meditate
- Do a face mask
Top things to do to survive being stuck at home
Plan your next adventure
This is a huge one for me, and one that honestly, keeps me sane. I need to have something to look forward to, and that something is always travel. I like to plan lots of adventures, inspire my wanderlust and look for places to go. I also feel like this is so important at the moment, because when this is all over, the travel industry is going to need us more than ever. I know for a fact that I will be ready to go. Probably even have my bag packed, if I’m honest.
Research new places that you want to go. Find cool hotels that you would want to stay at. Researching travel is fun (atleast I think so!), and I find it’s a great way to get through.
Where should you start?
Read! Read travel blogs, books, articles. Anything to inspire you. Next, start looking more in depth in to places.
Research hotels on Booking.com, flights on Skyscanner and tours on Tour Radar. Remember – these businesses will need our support when this is all over!
Learn a new language
Learning a language will help you in some many aspects of life. Not only will it help when you travel, but it may also open your job prospects up even more. Plus, knowing another language is cool if you ask me.
I’m determined to learn Spanish while I’m stuck at home, and I’ve committed to 15 minutes a day, although I’m trying to do more when I can! I’m starting out on Duolingo, which is free, but will probably move to Babbel once I know I can stick to it!
Read, as many books as you can
There’s really no downsides to reading. Its relaxing, good for your soul, plus you get to learn something new, or get lost in a fiction world. I don’t know about you, but as much as I love reading, the first thing I tend to stop doing when I’m busy is read. Which is awful, and exactly why I’m using this time to build a habit of reading every single day.
Create an epic travel bucket list
Now’s the time to curate an epic travel bucket list for everything you want to do and see in the world!
Fancy admiring the temples at Angkor Wat, trekking in Nepal or backpacking around Europe? How about a safari in the Serengeti, an island getaway in South East Asia or sipping Sangria in Spain? Read some books, some blogs, research on the internet, and start to create an epic bucket list. If you are feeling creative, why not make a poster or vision board of all the things you want to see and do?
Looking for some inspiration? Check out my travel bucket list blog!
Cook!
Cooking is great, let’s be honest (as is baking!). So, use this time to create some new recipes, learn some new skills in the kitchen, or even cook recipes inspired by your favourite countries.
Some of my favourite recipes I love to cook up:
Sweet treats + desserts
Some of my favourite places to find new recipes:
Mindful activities
Make some more time for some mindful activities! Unwind and relax with some me time. Here’s some of my favourite ideas for mindful activities:
- Adult colouring in
- Yoga
- Light a candle and have a bath
- Meditation
- Pamper session
Start a side hustle
So, my blog is my side hustle, which means I’ll be using this time to try and get ahead. Obviously, the travel blog industry isn’t going great, so it can be hard to stay motivated. BUT, we can use this time to get ahead and prepare for the future, with whatever your side hustle may be.
Side hustle ideas
- Start a blog
- Sell homemade items online (Etsy!)
- Sell a service
- Create an e-book or course
As for blogging, here’s what I’m focusing on in this down time:
- SEO
- Writing great quality content
- Bulk designing pins and Pinterest strategy
- Connecting with fellow bloggers
- Working on back-end website stuff (so fun.. not!), such as my site speed
Looking for ideas to grow your blog traffic? Here’s how I tripled my blog traffic in my first 3 months of blogging!
I hope you have got some ideas out of this blog – on what you can do during this time to be more content, healthy and sane.
Remember, we are all in this together. Stay kind.
Happy social distancing,
