In March 2020 when the last door shut behind her to start the Hard Lockdown in South Africa, Doret’s first thought was “I must find a way to not go crazy”.
On Easter Weekend 2020, she pitched a tent in her living room and found a campfire
on YouTube. A couple of days later she “left” for Ireland and she’s never been quite
back yet. In Part 1 this conversation with The Dusty Shelf “Academy” she shares Lesson 1-3 of the 10 lessons she learned on her armchair travels and her best advice to help you get more out of your couch. The original, expanded version of this essay will be published in Afrikaans on her website.
It was when I found myself in a tent in my living room on Easter Weekend, staring at a crackling campfire on YouTube, that I started traveling again. I rode a bus through London, bounced over waves on ferries and yachts, walked around ruins and museums – all from the creaking pages on my dusty shelf and the flickering screen to that untraveled virtual world.
Here are some of the lessons armchair and stovetop travels are teaching me about travel and life.
Lesson 1: I can travel wherever I am
Look, it’s not like I’d been in the habit of going camping on Easter Weekend, I don’t even remember where that sudden craving to go camping came from. But when the first serious bout of cabin fever hit in 2020 I had a (possibly leaky) tent, a new box set, nowhere to go and nobody to laugh at me.
So, that Thursday night I’m in dome tent on the mat in front of the TV, just to feel like I’m sleeping somewhere else. But after finding a campfire on YouTube and discovering that I could smell nylon above my head and watch Frasier at the same time, it felt more like Camping 2.0 than a pathetic imitation.
Lesson 2: It’s all in the adaptable props
Okay, so once you’ve gotten to the point where you put on a raincoat, you’re pretty far gone, you may as well make yourself a flask of coffee before settling in on the couch. Remember the towel in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy? My little quick-dry travel towel had been a beach towel, scarf, mop, bottle protector, picnic blanket… and after about twenty years I still get a kick out of how quickly it dries. Well, when your travel space is confined to your living room couch, almost anything in the home needs to be as versatile as that towel – including that couch. Over the months the couch became a bus through a London neighbourhood, a ferry to France, a catamaran to Alexandria, a canoe on the Amazon and a whole bunch of trains.
Lesson 3: Learn what it really means to do whatever I want
Anyway, so somewhere between reading Ullysses in my tent and staring at the campfire on my computer, I decide to not go back after Easter. I played around with different virtual cabins and settled for one with pinging announcements and a nice roar that is load enough so that it feels like flying and soft enough so that I don’t have an even tougher time keeping up with Joyce. So, with that mild hhhhhhmmmmmmmm in the background, I aimed for Dublin.
I started with what seemed like the obvious thing to do on a virtual trip to Dublin. Watched spectacular videos from the air, saw the top ten sights, stuff like that. It did not take long for it to start feeling like the same pieces of grey stone over and over again. And it’s not like you’d be drifting above a city and see the same ten sites over and over again if you really went there. Would I? Where would I really go if I could go to Dublin and do anything? For a moment I felt sad thinking that if anything were possible, I’d go have tea with Maeve Binchy.
Then it hit me: I was trying so hard to forget that this wasn’t real, that I forgot the most important part of it not being real. I made some tea, found a lovely old documentary and spent the rest of my afternoon “with” a writer who entered my life via a borrowed book in 2009 and now fills about half a shelf.
On my armchair travels, I learn to see my surroundings differently. And find possibilities in the most everyday objects. And the third lesson I took with me, is that going where I really want to go, is about more than just being able to choose a destination.
Stay tuned for Part 2…
The Dusty Shelf "Academy" 
Leave a comment