Why Launch A Travel Website During A Pandemic?
Dandelion Wishes For Our World. Photo by Tripscholars
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This post may contain affiliate links which means Trip Scholars may make a small commission (at no extra cost to you) if you make a purchase. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Read more here. Thanks for helping us keep the lights on!
During the COVID-19 crisis, we are all making many sincere wishes for our world.
Through these challenges, Tripscholars strives to be of actual value. The pandemic and its impact on individuals, societies, our worldwide economy, and of course travel, is unparalleled in modern times. Tripscholars is responding to this by creating a space for people to reflect on the value in deeper learning about our world, connect with other curious travelers, and inspire joy.
Many are dealing with food and shelter insecurities. Our response to this is feeble but earnest. We will be highlighting free resources in an effort to make the knowledge that nurtures curiosity more universally available. We will also be intentionally focussing on the systemic cultural and historical influences that lead to these disparities causing food and shelter insecurity by thoughtfully choosing some of the resources we make available. It is our hope that through knowledge we will be inspired to collectively address these disparities at their roots.
Travel Planning As An Enjoyable And Engaging Way To Homeschool
One of the aspects of travel planning that we are most excited to share and explore with our members will be travel planning as a much easier and more exciting way to homeschool. There will be a surge in families homeschooling this year and whether you will be exclusively schooling from home or looking for ways to supplement traditional education, thoughtful travel planning opens up countless opportunities to engage your children and teens. As a secular homeschooling family for the last 13 years, we have used this approach multiple times and are also enthusiastic about highlighting what other traveling families have done. We will have loads of tips for how to organize your year and get your kids on board with meaningful and worthwhile growth. Nature studies, language learning, living history, art appreciation –they all become more relevant and enjoyable looking forward to experiencing them in person!
Virtual Vacations
Most of us are home a lot more, let’s enjoy it as much as we can! For fellow curious wanderlusters, we will be focusing on how to take virtual vacations from home as we highlight a different travel destination in our VIrtual Vacation Spotlight each month. In addition to showcasing the best of the booming availability of virtual experiences available from many museums, hiking trails, and cultural landmarks we will be exploring how to incorporate them with other stay at home experiences to create educational and enjoyable immersive virtual vacations from home. We’ll gather the top resources about a travel spot so you can create a mini trip from home. Enjoy a movie, music playlist, at home curriculum for the younger folks, podcast, tasty meals and libations, and books to take a multifaceted approach to discovering our world.
Hope for the Future
Have you always dreamed of exploring the delights of Paris, photographing the wonders of the Serengeti, experiencing Mesoamerican pyramids, or rafting the Grand Canyon? We may not be able to enjoy these experiences now, both because of COVID and because of financial pressures, but we can learn all about these dream destinations, so that when health and finances allow, we will truly make the most of our time there. Whether you are comparing French wines while studying the language during quarantine, taking an online photography class, enjoying a deep dive into the history of Mesoamerica, or learning all about the natural history of the Grand Canyon ecosystem, imagine the joy and satisfaction of all you will learn now and richness it will bring to the trips when you take them years into the future.
As Stephanie Rosembloom highlights in her NYT article on the value on anticipating future travel:
Turns out, there is an art to anticipation. Savoring, said Elizabeth Dunn, an associate professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia and a leading happiness researcher, is an active, not passive, process. “It’s better to immerse yourself,” she said. Reading novels and poetry, watching films and television programs, browsing fashion and design blogs that are either from or about the place you plan to visit encourages you to not only learn about your destination, but to dream, providing some concrete details for your mind to latch on to.
Sharing, Teaching, and Remembering for Improved Mental Health
The COVID-19 pandemic is creating mental health stress for many of us. We attempt to contribute to our individual and collective mental health by encouraging people to share their good memories, be filled with hope in relation to future travels, and to experience the joy of helping and teaching others. We are intentionally cultivating an inspired community of curious travelers and hope that these connections provide value to our members.
Research has shown that savoring positive memories can generate positive emotions (big surprise!). This was found in a clinical setting, but most of us have plenty of anecdotal evidence that focusing on happy experiences makes us feel better. Have you ever returned from a trip brimming with wonderful experiences you want to share only to find a limited audience for all you learned? Share your stories, photos, and resource suggestions on Tripschoalrs with other people who will benefit from your experiences and research. You will find an audience of people who want to travel where you have already been and would like to learn from you. As many inspiring teachers know, there is nothing quite like teaching others, or asking your students to teach others, to deepen and solidify our knowledge and understanding. As you share your resources, reviews, and stories, you will be revisiting what you have learned and explaining it to others, which will help you understand it even better. In doing so, hopefully you will also have some peaceful memories bubble up that you can use as vivid scenes in your relaxation techniques.
Marveling at the World Around Us Through Staycations and Local Weekend Getaways
As we launch Tripscholars, we do not plan to advertise and instead allow our community to grow by word of mouth, with the hope that this will help solidify the desired tone for the site. In doing so, we expect our early community to be located in particular geographic areas and we hope members will share their favorite resources about their local regions. This way we can each dive deep into exploring and appreciating our local surroundings.
The Value of the Great Pause
We also hope to help foster a deeper understanding of our place in history and our natural world that can be grounding. Seeing ourselves within the rich tapestry of time and space provides a solid footing to look at our own mortality and that of our loved ones. Most would agree that the greatest value of living through the COVID-19 crisis is an opportunity to focus on what is most important in our lives. We hope this site can be of use as you live your intentional life!
Erica
