Are you missing the unbridled freedom of travel during these long days of lock downs? So are we.
For the common good we must comply with the self-isolation mandates, but Spring is coming and our wanderlust will soon be in full bloom.
Here’s an idea
In addition to challenging games of rug-putt golf, we decided to organize several arm-chair vacations. Think of it as a variation of the “staycation” idea so popular during the last recession.
Like us, we bet you have lots of digitized photos from past vacations and events.
Organize your photos
We have all our photo files on our computer in Google’s Picasa 3. We like the way Picasa organizes photos and have used it for years but unfortunately Google no longer supports it. If you don’t already have your digitized photos on your computer or in the cloud, check the internet for other places and programs to store photos. Make sure whatever program you choose has a “slideshow” feature.
Having taken tens of thousands of pictures during our 15+ years of travel writing, we have now corralled all the digitized photos from each trip and put them under one descriptive file such as “Oahu.”
As an added benefit of the process we have eliminated thousands of redundant images and really spruced up our photo presentations.
We then organized each trip under a category, country, or state destination heading such as “Hawaii,” or “Cruise – Mediterranean.”
Sit back and enjoy
Now, when we want to take a virtual “trip” we just select an album like “Cruise – Eastern Europe,” select “slideshow” from the “view” tab, set the display time we prefer for each image, and click “go.” We can pause the slideshow whenever we want to reminisce about a specific image.
For even more fun, we set the slideshow feature to “random sort.” and try to guess where and when each variable photo was taken — stimulates the brain cells.
Memory Lane is a great place to visit when you are house bound. Like Sinatra sang, “It’s oh so nice to go trav’lin’ but it’s so much nicer, yes, it’s so much nicer to come home.” 
Happy virtual travels and stay safe. We can get through this.
Note: There are also virtual tours on the internet to visit places you haven’t been. For starters, check out the US National Park Systems website. The parks are physically closed, but not to your computer.
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Copyright © 2020 Visit great vacation destinations with Wayne and Judy Bayliff.
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