Can travel! Even when it is not possible

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Editor's Note: Mari Rodríguez Ichaso has been a contributor to Vanidades magazine for more than two decades. Fashion, travel, gastronomy, art, architecture and entertainment specialist. Film producer. CNN Spanish Style Columnist.

(CNN Spanish) - Everyone who knows me and has read my articles knows that one of the passions of my life is traveling, a passion that I know I share with thousands of you!

Knowing the world, learning from its history, creating divine memories and coming face to face with places and monuments that I only knew in photos or movies, is a wonderful pleasure that for years has been a crucial part of my life.

"The adventure of a trip!" It was called the first travel section of my career, just as my father suggested, who shared this same passion. And it was what started, through the years, to know hundreds of unforgettable places and people.

And now, with the global crisis of covid-19, the pleasure of traveling has become - for everyone - something temporarily impossible, very far in the list of things and experiences that we yearn to recover, and at least for now, with a future uncertain. We all wonder: when can we travel? Can we ever achieve that dream of our "bucket list" -that list of things to do before dying-?

Well, oddly enough, in my 6 weeks of “stay at home”, I have managed to fill much of that emptiness that I have been left to, and I have done it dreaming and reliving past trips. And it is a delightful experience. I tell you…

Photo review

Just reviewing the photos that I keep on my cell phone, it has been wonderful to relive trips and fascinating moments that I had almost forgotten.

It has been very entertaining to remember everything, from the clothes I wore years ago (some of them made me laugh!), To repairing every detail that caught my attention on my many trips and to which I took a photo.

An ancient door in Rome ... that mysterious street in Istanbul. The three-hundred-year-old Parisian restaurant Le Procope, where Napoleon ate (and left his bicorne). The flower kiosk on Bond St. in London. The view of the Plaza Mayor in Madrid at Christmas. That divine beach in Puerto Rico. Frida Kahlo's Casa Azul in Mexico City, and the friends and family who were part of those memories.

It has been the best trip in many years!

And since I love to photograph food and markets. It was a delight to almost taste those Parisian “croissants” that seem to “get out” of the photo, golden and beautiful! And I can even imagine that very special fragrance of French bakeries with their freshly baked breads and cakes!

I recommend you relive your memories, checking the photos on your phone or computer. Surely they have many. And, if you have time, organize, transfer or copy them on your tablet or computer, divide them by trips and years, and send to make albums (printed or virtual) in the many businesses of this type that exist on the Internet. It will be fabulous!

Remember that in those businesses you can also copy your old photo albums and old videos, and keep your memories forever on a DVD or USB or make a gift to someone who will enjoy it from a distance and with whom, in a call, you can review those moments together, although far away.

Many more options

Unable to travel, from my home, I have loved visiting virtually museums around the world. On their websites, click on their virtual visits and it will be an excellent discovery to visit those you already know, as well as visit those you have never met. They are well-made visits, with excellent technology, being able to get close to the paintings, and even see what the brushstrokes and traces of the artists are like, as well as enjoy 360-degree views of the exhibition rooms.

There are also virtual tours of concert halls with opera, ballet, and even Broadway theater plays, just as we can enjoy them on our travels. On your Internet server you will find many.

And almost all countries have national tourism websites that now, more than ever, promote virtual visits to their most emblematic cities, their monuments and their streets, including their large hotels and even their restaurants. They can be found by typing "virtual tour" in the search engine - or "search" - and you will find amazing wonders.

The strangest thing is that travel sites have become so adapted to confinement that they offer very interesting and imaginative options. And they become so enthusiastic that I confess that I already have a new "bucket list" of novel places, that without a doubt -when traveling is part of our lives again-, I will be able to know and enjoy it.

And the adventure of a trip will be even more splendid and unforgettable!