Four DIY Travel Projects to Fight Quarantine Boredom

Wherever you may be in the world right now, you have been likely told by government officials to stay home due to COVID-19 (most widely known as Coronavirus)… and have been doing so for the past month. I’m currently in Los Angeles, and our local shelter-in-place mandate has been extended to May 15. That’s a whole extra month of pure time on my hands… woof.   

To fight boredom, and more importantly fight the urge to go outside, Instagram has been flooded with tagging challenges, at-home dance videos, and in-house exercise/cooking videos. I’m actually super proud of us for being so resourceful and creative in this time of crisis – really! 

But even so, a lot of us are finding ourselves sitting in long periods of idle boredom, a lot more than we’re used to anyway. My relationship with Instagram is borderline toxic at this point but that stays between you and I. 

If you’re fortunate enough to work from home during this pandemic, you may have a few minutes to revisit your passion projects in between conference calls. So perhaps there is a silver lining in all of this. More spare moments for Bible reading, blogging, dancing, meditation, meal prepping, and everything else we hardly got around to because we were just too busy. 

For my passion project (travel blogging), it’s been difficult to envision how this blog would survive without consistent travel content. It’s been even harder to cope with the fact that I won’t be able to book an international flight for a while. But determined not to give up, I used some of my spare time to pull together DIY projects for travelers coping with social distancing. 

But first, I’d advise anyone who identifies as an avid traveler to do heavy research into flight and hotel insurance for emergencies. If there’s anything to learn from this COVID-19 pandemic, it’s that at a moment’s notice, your dream vacation could be cancelled, and you might have to take the financial loss if your trip is not insured. 

The second piece of advice I’d recommend is to start planning your next trip. Of course, I do not recommend purchasing any flights at this moment, not even the cheap ones. Instead, start piecing together your next vacation essentials: destination, budget, itinerary, squad… all of it! It’s going to be a celebration when the travel restrictions lift, and although that might be a few months from now, a girl can still dream, right? 

The third advice I’d give is to start going through your travel photos. Many of these DIY projects include all of those unused photos in your archives that never made it to the ‘Gram. What is counter-productive to these projects is spending way too much time sifting through thousands of pictures and deleting the ones you don’t want anymore. Just pick the captivating ones since now is the time to glorify them. Save the deleting for another day. 

Let’s start with the travel wall collage.

Travel Wall  

If you’ve had the privilege to walk in my house, you know my favorite part of the apartment is my travel collage. It’s the first thing I want my guests to see. I sourced the idea from Pinterest and added my own touch and design.

Essentially, you would select however many of your best photos from your previous trips, then print, frame, and hang them. On Pinterest, you’ll find many many photo wall collages follow a theme (same size portraits, black and white photo, etc.), but you can always mix up the collage with your own flare. The point is to highlight your photography skills and make them a focal point in your home. 

For this wall collage I printed twelve 8×10 portraits from CostcoPhoto, ordered eight 11×14 frames from Amazon ($42.99 for four), and four 12×16 frames from IKEA ($7.99 each). With some measuring and tactical spacing, this masterpiece of my world travels came together. 

Photo to Puzzle Portrait 

Just last week I read an article that people stuck at home during self-isolation have been ordering puzzles at a higher rate than ever. It makes sense. Jigsaw puzzles take time and they keep the brain busy which is a great way to burn off some chronic boredom. Thankfully we have sites like Etsy and Zazzle that allow you to customize just about anything, even a jigsaw puzzle.

For this particular project, I recommend Zazzle since I’ve been using them for years. If you have a photo in mind, you can “Create Your Own” puzzle by uploading the photo to a digital canvas, then select the amount of pieces for printing and cutting (prices vary depending on vendor). 

Obviously because this is a travel-centric blog, the timeless window seat view is my go-to, but obviously a family portrait or a shameless selfie will do the job. 

Travel Scrapbooks/Photo Albums 

Scrapbooking is a skilled art form… not even going to sugarcoat the facts. The thought of cutting and pasting photos and trinkets onto a blank page is overwhelming. But what if I mess up? Is my scrapbook ruined?  So if you want to “cheat” on this project, the perfect alternative is a travel photo album curated and designed by you, never having to lift a glue stick. Shutterfly and Snapfish both offer templates for travel photo albums which you can personalize, add text, and customize. 

But if you’re like me, you save all your museum tickets, activity passes, maybe even boarding passes from most of your trips and store them somewhere safe for keepsake. That is until it is finally time to place them strategically in a scrapbook. 

Again, with some Costco printing of standard 4×6 prints, along with your tickets, passes, restaurant menus, etc., you have all the materials for the makings of a spectacular scrapbook or photo album. There’s plenty of craft sites and YouTube videos to help you design the perfect travel photo album or scrapbook along the way. Check out A Beautiful Mess for the best inspiration. 

World Map Scratch Posters and Journals

Ah! Finally a mind-numbing project that doesn’t require much except time and a steady hand. Just like the lottery scratchers you buy at 7-11, the internet offers tons of scratch-off world atlases that will satisfy your travel itch. 

These clever maps help you keep track of all your visited destinations in one glance. These maps also help you keep track of all the places you haven’t been. I quickly noticed that I haven’t even scratched the surface (no pun intended) on Africa, the Middle East, or Southeast Asia. On Amazon, there are plenty of scratch posters available, however my choice is TripsGeo  world map poster ($12.89). 

For scratch-off world maps that are a bit trendier (meaning more expensive), Waypoint Wanders offers watercolor maps and other items including (my new obsession) scratch-off travel journals ($38.00). 

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One thing to keep in mind about these quarantine projects, if anything, is that you shouldn’t quit them when normal life starts back up again. Like many others, I’m hoping to come out of this pandemic with a different mindset about how I manage my down-time, what projects, hobbies, and people I’ll commit more time to, and how to be more productive towards achieving my goals. 

Come May 15, we’ll check in again.

*** I apologize for the picture quality. One thing I will be doing when shelter-in-place lifts is buy a new camera phone.