“Staycation Nation,” the cover of the current issue of Canadian Traveller magazine declares cheerfully, as if it were a choice, not a consolation. We pass the days thumbing though old travel journals and Instagram feeds. We’re merely between trips, like the unemployed salesman in between opportunities.
We can tolerate brief periods of forced sedentariness. Photograph by Volkmar Wentzel, Nat Geo Image Collection Right: A 1967 fall festival in Guadalajara, Mexico, starred traditionally costumed musicians and dancers. What if we can’t move, though? What if we’re unable to hunt or gather? What’s a traveler to do? There are many ways to answer that question. Robert Louis Stevenson put it more succinctly: “The great affair is to move.”
“Moving to a neighboring band is always an option to avoid brewing conflict or just for a change in social scenery,” says Ryan. For most of the time our species has existed, “we’ve lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers moving about in small bands of 150 or fewer people,” writes Christopher Ryan in Civilized to Death. It is not natural for us to be this sedentary. The numbers paint a grim picture of our stilled lives. Only a quarter of us plan on leaving home for Thanksgiving, typically the busiest travel time. Only a third of Americans say they have traveled overnight for leisure since March, and only slightly more, 38 percent, say they are likely to do so by the end of the year, according to one report. Obliterated by a tiny virus, and the long list of countries where United States passports are not welcome. Family reunions, study-abroad years, lazy beach vacations.
Canceled trips, or ones never planned lest they be canceled. Welcome to the pandemic of disappointments. I use it as a coaster and to level wobbly table legs. I’ve been putting my passport to good use lately.