live to travel from

‘To Travel is to Live’: 24 Quotes that Will Inspire You to Wander the Globe

By silvia mordini.

In the spirit of full disclosure, you must know I am an admitted travel addict and spiritual explorer. My life and the traveled paths I have chosen have been inspired by the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Make as many experiments as possible.”

For me, travel is the greatest experiment. It brings forth curiosity and the urge to investigate the experience of being alive. When we travel we get out of the old and settled habits of our daily lives and feel inspired to see the world anew. This heightened sense of awareness stays with us when we go home and permanently influences our perspective on life.

As Kate Douglas Wiggins puts it, “There is a kind of magic about going far away and then coming back all changed.” Once you allow yourself to get a little lost, reduce any over-controlling tendencies, and lose the sense of urgency, you no longer want to return to your old habits. You feel like life is offering you a new beginning, and it is.”

Let these quotes bring travel inspiration to your life as they do to mine!

1. “Travel brings power and love back into your life.” – Rumi

2. “Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” – Terry Pratchett,  A Hat Full of Sky

3. “Nobody can discover the world for somebody else. Only when we discover it for ourselves does it become common ground and a common bond and we cease to be alone.” – Wendell Berry. A Place on Earth.

4. “The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” – Christopher McCandless

5. “To move, to breathe, to fly, to float,

To gain all while you give,

To roam the roads of lands remote,

To travel is to live.”

– Hans Christian Andersen. The Fairy Tale of My Life: An Autobiography .

6. “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” – Mark Twain. The Innocents Abroad/Roughing It.

7. “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller

8. “There are several ways to react to being lost. One is to panic. Another is to abandon yourself to lostness, to allow the fact that you’ve misplaced yourself to change the way you experience the world.” – Audrey Niffenegger. Her Fearful Symmetry.

9. “What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? – it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.” – Jack Kerouac. On the Road.

10. “But that’s the glory of foreign travel, as far as I am concerned. I don’t want to know what people are talking about. I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can’t read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can’t even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.” – Bill Bryson. Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe.

11. “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” – Ernest Hemingway

12. “Traveling outgrows its motives. It soon proves sufficient in itself. You think you are making a trip, but soon it is making you – or unmaking you.” – Nicolas Bouvier. The Way of the World.

13. “Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

14. “Personally I like going places where I don’t speak the language, don’t know anybody, don’t know my way around and don’t have any delusions that I’m in control. Disoriented, even frightened, I feel alive, awake in ways I never am at home.” – Michael Mewshaw

15. “We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again- to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.” – Pico Iyer

16. “I travel light. But not at the same speed.” – Jarod Kintz. The Days of Yay are Here! Wake Me Up When They’re Over.

17. “I am infinitely curious and almost infinitely patient with mishaps, discomforts, and minor disasters. So I can go anywhere on the planet””that’s not a problem.” – Elizabeth Gilbert. Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage.

18. “Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things: air, sleep, dreams, sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” – Cesare Pavese

19. “There are as many worlds as there are kinds of days, and as an opal changes its colors and its fire to match the nature of a day, so do I.” – John Steinbeck

20. “The value of your travels does not hinge on how many stamps you have in your passport when you get home — and the slow nuanced experience of a single country is always better than the hurried, superficial experience of forty countries.” – Rolf Potts. Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel.

21. “Only it seems to me that once in your life before you die you ought to see a country where they don’t talk in English and don’t even want to.” – Thornton Wilder. Our Town.

22. “We want to make good time, but for us now this is measured with the emphasis on “good” rather than on “time”….” – Robert M. Pirsig. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values.

23. “There is a kind of magicness about going far away and then coming back all changed.” – Kate Douglas Wiggin. New Chronicles of Rebecca.

24. “Travellers understand, instinctively and by experience, that travel and adventure change and elongate time, even while navigating the deadlines of airline and train departures.” – Paul Sheehan

Love yourself, love your day, love your life! Silvia

ABOUT THE WRITER

Enthusiasm to love your life is contagious around Silvia.  Her expert passion connects people to their own joyful potential.  Silvia lives her happiness in such a big way that you can’t help but leave her classes, workshops, trainings and retreats spiritually uplifted!  Born in Ecuador, raised traveling around the globe, she is an enthusiastic citizen of the world and spiritual adventurer. She has over 10,000 hours and 15 years of teaching experience, owned a yoga studio for 9 years and after being run over by a car used yoga to recover physically and emotionally. Silvia leads Alchemy Tours Yoga Retreats and Alchemy of Yoga RYT200 Yoga Teacher Training. Join her on Twitter to keep inspiring greater happiness by answering the question #YRUHappy. Connect with Silvia on  Twitter  and  Facebook  and learn more about her story at  www.alchemytours.com  or  www.silviamordini.com .

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60 Virtual Tours To Travel The World During The Coronavirus Pandemic

• Post last modified: Updated on April 2, 2024
• by Post author: Chloe Smulian

A comprehensive list of free virtual tours that will intrigue and delight all types of travel lovers. Discover the Seven Wonders of the World, visit UNESCO World Heritage Sites and iconic landmarks around the world from the comfort of your home! Experience your first virtual travel experience with us.

With extensive travel bans, citywide lockdowns and strict social distancing measures, it’s hard not to eventually let cabin fever weigh you down. This is especially true if you’ve got a healthy addiction to travel like us. So we’ve found a way around the problem – virtual travel!

Obviously it doesn’t replace the real thing, but it’s better than nothing. It’s also a great way to get travel inspiration and learn some interesting facts about the destination until we can travel again.

It will give you something positive to look forward to while we all do the responsible thing and #stayhome. Treat it like Facetiming the world!

It’s also a great thing to do with kids at home. They’ll especially love the wildlife live webcam feeds! This list is guaranteed to keep them occupied for days if not weeks!

So whether you love city escapes, exploring museums or learning interesting facts about the natural and man-made wonders around the world, there’s something for everyone.

Make sure you share this with your friends and family who love travelling too.

What Do You Need To Virtual Travel The World

Virtual touring the world is easy. All you need is a laptop, cellphone or tablet and an internet connection. You don’t need a VR set (virtual reality set), but if you have one it’s a bonus.

We recommend using Google Chrome web browser because some of these virtual tour websites are not in English. Chrome makes it really easy translating foreign languages to English or whatever language you prefer.

Lastly, have a little patience as some of these virtual tours take a bit longer to load.

New Seven Wonders Of The World Virtual Tour

Everyone’s heard of the Seven Wonders of the World. But did you know that there are two different lists for the 7 Wonders of the World?

No? We didn’t either. The list most people know is the New Seven Wonders of the World. But there’s also the Ancient Seven Wonders of the World.

Are you one of the those rare humans that can list all New 7 Wonders of the World?

1. Great Wall of China

Often cited as the only human-made structure that is visible from space. The Great Wall of China is probably the most well known Wonder of the World. It captures over 2,000 years of history and stretches more than 21,000 km across several provinces in China. That’s as long as 5 times the length of Australia!

This iconic landmark is usually teemed with tourists all year round. But you can visit it crowd-free on this Great Wall of China virtual tour.

2. Chichen Itza, Mexico

The ancient city of Chichen Itza is one of the most well restored Mayan sites in Mexico and also its biggest tourist attraction. El Castillo may be the most famous pyramid of Chichen Itza, but there are many other ancient ruins to explore.

If you love astronomy, you’ll love learning how each structure was intricately designed to align with specific planets and stars. Sounds fascinating?

You can virtually tour Chichen Itza and explore some of its most popular sites and facts right from the comfort of your own home.

3. Christ The Redeemer, Brazil

The cultural icon of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and a symbol of Christianity across the world. The Christ The Redeemer statue is the largest art deco statue in the world. It stands 38 meters tall (around 13 storeys high) and stretches 28 meters wide.

It was built by the Roman Catholic community of Brazil following the end of World War I. The community was concerned about the growing ‘godlessness’ when Brazil officially became a republic and the church was officially separated from the state.

You can skip the 200+ step climb to the top on this stunning virtual tour of Cristo Redentor .

4. Petra, Jordan

Also known as the ‘Carved City’ or the ‘Lost City’, Petra is known as one of the oldest cities in the world. It is estimated that the city was established in the 4th century (312 BC) but was only discovered by Western civilisation in the 1800s.

Only 15% of Petra has been explored by archaeologists, so not much is known besides it being home to about 800 tombs.

It’s simply one of those places that you have to see to believe that it exists in real life. Petra is still on our travel bucket list, but this virtual tour is probably one of our favourites!

5. Taj Mahal, India

One look at the Taj Mahal and it’s easy to see why it’s a wonder. It’s considered to be one of the most magnificent masterpieces of architecture in the world. Besides that, it’s also a symbol of love. Don’t believe us? See the Taj Mahal in VR for yourself.

The emperor built it in remembrance of his third wife who passed away giving birth to their 14th child. Today the couple remains buried together beneath the main inner chamber of the Taj Mahal.

It took more than 22,000 workers, 1,000 elephants and 22 years to build this incredible structure. Now there are concerns that it will crumble into pieces as its wooden foundations are rotting away.

6. Rome Colosseum, Italy

Did you know that Italy has the most number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the world? There are a total of 51 World Heritage sites within Italy of which the Colosseum is the most famous.

Historically, the Colosseum was a place where gladiator fights and executions took place in Ancient Rome. Today it stands as a symbol of power and majesty of the Roman Empire. It’s also one of the most popular tourists attraction in the world.

7. Machu Picchu, Peru

Machu Picchu is famous for being the Lost City of the Incas. It is believed that this is where the Incas escaped to when the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the 16th century.

Besides its historical significance, Machu Picchu also showcases the Incas’ incredible mastery of stone. The stones used to construct some of the most beautiful structures in Machu Picchu were cut so precisely and wedged so closely together, that a credit card cannot be inserted between them.

Not only was this more aesthetically pleasing, it also has engineering advantages. The stones were designed to bounce through earthquake tremors and fall back into place. This was only possible because no mortar (or cement) was used and the reason why Machu Picchu still stands today.

Virtual Tours of Top UNESCO World Heritage Sites

Top unesco sites in africa.

8. The Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt

The Great Pyramid of Giza is one of the most famous landmarks around the world. Its sheer colossal size and perfect symmetry makes you wonder how this world icon was constructed more than 4,500 years ago.

Today, the Pyramids of Giza are the only surviving members of the Ancient Seven Wonders of the World.

9. Kilimanjaro National Park, Tanzania

Kilimanjaro is one of the largest volcanoes in the world and also home to Africa’s highest mountain.

If you love hiking as much as we do, then Kilimanjaro is probably on your bucket list too. Close to 35,000 people attempt to hike Mount Kilimanjaro every year. But only 40% of them successfully reach the summit and around 5 to 15 people die every year attempting it.

There isn’t a proper virtual tour of Kilimanjaro , but you can get some awesome 360 panoramic views using Google Map street views. Just drag the little yellow man to the circles on the map to ‘explore’ the area.

Save Me For Later

10. Drakensberg Mountains, South Africa

Not only is the Drakensberg Mountains a UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site, it’s also a UNESCO Cultural World Heritage Site. Drakensberg is culturally significant because it hides more than 20,000 San rock paintings inside its nooks and crevices.

These rock paintings are important because they represent the earliest form of human creativity. They also symbolise the beginning of art in the world today.

We’ve had the privilege of hiking the Drakensberg Mountains when we lived in South Africa. If you plan to hike it too, make sure you read our top Drakensberg hiking trails of the Royal Natal National Park . We also share tips on how you can hike the Drakensberg with children .

Since that’s not possible right now, you can enjoy the magnificence of the Drake nsberg on this beautiful virtual tour.

Top UNESCO Sites in Asia

11. Bagan, Myanmar

Bagan is known as the ‘sea of temples’ because it has the largest concentration of Buddhist temples in the world. There were originally 10,000 Buddhist temples, pagodas and monasteries built here in the 1000s and 1100s. But only 2,000 of them still exist today.

Needless to say that the entire Bagan Archaeological zone is too vast to explore by foot alone. You can compliment your walk with a ride on old rickety bicycles, hot balloon rides or on this mind blowing virtual tour of Bagan .

12. Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Angkor Wat is famous for being the largest religious monument in the world. Yes, it’s even bigger than Bagan! Before the fall of Angkor Wat in the 15th century, it was actually the largest city in the world.

Unlike Bagan, most of Angkor Wat still exists today. It was built with durability in mind because it was designed and dedicated to the immortal gods.

13. Terracotta Army, China

This World Heritage Site isn’t a temple, but a mass grave. It’s the burial ground for the First Emperor of China and his world renowned Terracotta Army.

No one knows exactly how many terracotta warriors were made. But it’s been estimated that more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses were sculpted. And if that wasn’t amazing enough, each soldier has its own distinct facial features and were all built to life-size.

It took around 40 years to ‘build’ the entire army and its sole purpose was for protecting the emperor in his afterlife.

You can wander between these soldiers yourselves on this Terracotta Warrior virtual tour.

Top UNESCO Sites in Europe

14. Acropolis of Athens, Greece

‘Acropolis’ translates into ‘high city’ in Greek. Most cities in ancient Greece had their city centres built on a mound or a hill. This is where they would build their important temples and where citizens could retreat to if under attack.

The most famous acropolis of Greece is, of course, the one in Athens with the iconic Pantheon dominating its skyline. The Acropolis of Athens has withstood the test of time, including bombardments, earthquakes and vandalism. Yet it still stands today as a reminder of the rich history of Greece.

15. Stonehenge, United Kingdom

Also known as the Bronze Age Ring of Standing Stones, Stonehenge is one of the UK’s most unique sites and visited attractions. It’s a prehistoric monument steeped in all kinds of myth and speculation because no one knows its true origin or purpose.

Some believe that Stonehenge was a Druid temple, built by ancient Celtic pagans as a centre for their religious worship. Others believe it to have astronomical significance as the light from sunrise and sunset aligns with the stones during summer and winter solstice.

Why don’t you decide for yourself based on the interesting facts you’ll learn on this Stonehenge virtual tour.

Top UNESCO Sites in North and South America

16. Mesa Verde National Park, USA

Mesa Verde is the largest and one of the most spectacular archeological sites in the USA. It was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site because it encapsulates how Native Americans once lived by carving their homes into the cliff.

It’s one of the most well preserved ruins of the Ancestral Pueblo people in North America and you can virtually explore Mesa Verde right from the comfort of your own home.

17. Mayan Ruins of Tikal, Guatemala

At first glance, the Mayan Ruins of Tikal appears to be quite similar to the ruins of Chichen Itza. They were both major cities in the history of the Mayan civilisation and are both declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The biggest difference between the two is that Tikal is less visited and often less crowded compared to the more popular Chichen Itza. That’s because Tikal is located in the remote Guatemalan forests whereas Chichen Itza is much easier to access.

Some areas of Tikal remain unmapped or excavated too. So if you love hidden gems, make sure you visit the Mayan Ruins of Tikal , even if it’s only by virtual tour for now.

18. Easter Island, Chile

Easter Island is a Chilean island in the south Pacific Ocean. It’s famous for its 900+ giant statues known as Moais, which are scattered around the entire island.

It is believed that the Rapa Nui natives built these Moais to honour chieftains and important individuals from their village. They believed that by doing this, the spirit of the person would forever watch over the tribe and bring good fortune.

Today, Easter Island is believed to be the most remote inhabited island in the world. That’s why it’s also very expensive to get to. But have no fear, you can admire Easter Island virtually until then.

Iconic Landmarks and Buildings Around the World

Some of the most iconic and recognised landmarks and buildings around the world that you can explore for free from home.

Iconic Landmarks and Buildings in USA

19. The White House, United States

Anyone can visit the White House free of charge. But you have to register and request a tour online and wait between 3 weeks to 3 months to visit. Skip the wait on this White House virtual tour.

20. Statue of Liberty, USA

More than 130 years ago, France gifted the Statue of Liberty to the United States to celebrate the friendship the two endured during the American Revolution. Today it represents freedom and democracy in the USA.

Iconic Landmarks and Buildings in the United Kingdom

21. Buckingham Palace, United Kingdom

The official residence of The Queen and a must-visit when in London. Skip the long 3 month wait and the €30 entrance ticket and see Buckingham Palace virtually.

Iconic Landmarks and Buildings in Italy

22. The Vatican, Italy

Vatican City is the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church and the seat of government. More than 5 million people come to Rome every year to feast their eyes on the prized paintings and sculptures of the Vatican and to experience the most religious and cultural site in the world. Check out youvisit.com/tour/vatican for the tour.

23. Leaning Tower of Pisa

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is one of the most recognised landmarks in the world. The intention was to build the tallest bell tower for that era in order to show off Pisa’s growing wealthy and prosperity. The ‘leaning’ part of the equation was actually an engineering mistake.

24. Doge’s Palace, Venice

More than a 1,000 years ago, Doge’s Palace was the home to the ruler of Venice and the seat of power for the Venetian Republic. Today it is one of Venice’s must-see museums. Wander around the corridors of the Doge’s Palace or along one of its many surrounding canals on this beautiful virtual tour.

Iconic Landmarks and Buildings in Germany

25. Reichstag Parliamentary Building, Berlin

The Reichstag is one of the most important buildings in Berlin today. Built to symbolise the reunification of Germany. It’s one of the few parliamentary buildings in the world that allows the public to watch over government processions. Similar to the White House, it’s free to visit but you have to book months in advance for a tour. Wait no more as this virtual tour of the Reichstag is pretty awesome.

Wondering how travelling in Berlin and Germany has changed since COVID? Find out what it’s like to visit Berlin during the coronavirus pandemic .

Iconic Landmarks and Buildings in France

26. Palace of Versailles, France

Did you know that the Palace of Versailles was a mere hunting lodge before it became the world’s largest palace? It’s one of the most important landmarks in French history because it symbolises the power and downfall of the French monarchy.

Explore its opulent, regal interior and admire its intricate details on this Palace of Versailles virtual tour.

27. The Louvre Museum, Paris

The Louvre use to serve as the royal palace for the French monarchy. It only became an art museum after the royal family moved their residence to Versailles. Today it is the world’s largest art museum and an iconic historical monument in Paris.

28. The Catacombs of Paris, France

It’s no coincidence that the word ‘catacombs’ rhymes with ‘tombs’. The Catacombs of Paris is the world’s largest underground burial site. The city was growing too fast for its cemeteries to handle the bodies of the dead. The solution was to move the bodies and bury them underground. Archaeologists estimate that around 6 to 7 million bodies were buried down there. Creepy…

Iconic Landmarks and Buildings in Israel

29. The Holyland, Bethlehem and Jerusalem

Also known as the most sacred place on earth. It is here at The Holyland that the main religious faiths believe that God first entered into a relationship with the human race.

Virtual Tours of Top Natural Wonders and Attractions

30. Niagara Falls , Canada – see live video feeds of these world famous falls on EarthCam.

31. The Northern Lights , Canada – another great live webcam to catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights. Remember to watch this in the evening Canadian time.

32. Victoria Falls , Zambia – a magnificent virtual tour of the world’s largest waterfall.

33. Sahara Desert , Africa – explore the world’s largest desert without getting sand in your eyes.

34. Mount St Helens , USA – travel back in time and witness the day Mount St Helens erupted back in 1980.

35. Mount Everest , Himalayas – the only way to trek the world’s highest mountain without training is going on this virtual tour. Remember to click on the arrows to explore around.

36. Cliffs of Moher , Ireland – discover the most beautiful natural landscapes of Ireland on this gorgeous virtual tour.

37. Hawaii Volcanoes National Park , USA – one of our favourite virtual tours from the whole list. Not only is it mesmerising, but you can also learn so many interesting facts on this tour.

38. Grand Canyon , USA – enjoy a virtual hike and explore one of the most famous national parks in the USA.

39. Yellowstone National Park , USA – a nature lover’s paradise. Make sure you use Google Chrome for this tour.

40. Zhangjiajie National Forest Park , China – otherwise known as ‘Avatar Mountain’. The mesmerising, otherworldly landscapes that inspired the ‘floating mountains’ in one of our favourite movies, Avatar.

41. Galapagos Islands , Ecuador – A scuba diver and nature lover’s idea of paradise! This is right on the top of our travel bucket list.

42. Raja Ampat , Indonesia – The epitome of utopia. Hundreds of jungle-covered islands as far as the eye can see and some of the best beaches, coral reefs and scuba diving spots in the world.

Virtual Tours From The Top: City Skylines

43. New York Skyline – New York, New York! Head up to the 102th floor of the Empire State Building on this virtual tour and admire the city that never sleeps from above.

44. Tokyo Skytree , Japan – Teleport yourself to the highest structure in Tokyo and admire the vibrant capital city of Japan from the top. We hope you aren’t afraid of heights because the Tokyo Skytree is 634 meters tall which is more than double the height of the Eiffel Tower.

45. The Eiffel Tower , Paris – Head to the top deck of the Eiffel Tower and marvel at the City of Love on this breathtaking virtual tour.

46. The Peak , Hong Kong – Ever heard the phrase ‘A New York minute is a Hong Kong second’ before? Discover one of the most populous and expensive cities in the world from its highest peak. When you’re ready to visit Hong Kong in person, make sure you read our 7 tips to travel Hong Kong on a budget before you go.

47. St Paul’s Cathedral , London – Admire London’s epic skyline from the top of St Paul’s Cathedral.

Free Virtual Museum Tours

You should download the Google Arts and Culture app to your phone if you’re a museum lover. You’ll find tons of stunning virtual tours and interesting things to learn from the arts and culture world. Here are some of our favourite free virtual museum tours.

48. The British Museum , London – The famous British Museum is dedicated to human history, art and culture. Their permanent collection consists of more than 8 million pieces of artwork. Making it one of the largest and most comprehensive compilations in the world.

49. Musée d’Orsay , Paris – If you love French art whether that’s paintings, sculptures, furniture or photography, you’ll love the Musée d’Orsay Museum.

50. Pergamon Museum , Berlin – Explore one of the largest and most visited museums in Germany. The Pergamon Museum is known for its antiquity collection and Islamic and Middle Eastern artworks.

If you love history and want to learn more about the story behind the Berlin Wall like why it was famous and so important. We’ve explained it simply (i.e. Story of the Berlin Wall for dummies) in our Berlin Wall by Bike guide.

51. Rijksmuseum , Amsterdam – The national museum of the Netherlands that holds some of the world’s most famous artworks from artists like Vermeer and Rembrandt.

52. Van Gogh Museum , Amsterdam – Another jewel from Amsterdam. The Van Gogh Museum needs no introduction.

53. The Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York – Also known as The Met. This is one of the largest museums in the world. You can easily spend days if not weeks here admiring everything from antiquities, paintings, sculptures to modern art and fashion. A museum that has something for everyone.

Live Webcam Feeds for Wildlife Watching and Scuba Diving

We saved the best for last. Watch wildlife and underwater sea life from home via live webcam feeds! If you didn’t know you could do that, now you know.

54. Tau Game Lodge in Madikwe , South Africa – The beautiful Madikwe Game Reserve is located on the edge of the South African border close to Gaborone, Botswana. They have a 24 hour live webcam looking over one of the water reservoirs where the animals come to drink.

55. Kruger National Park , South Africa – Have you always dreamt of going on safari? Wait no more! WildEarth is hosting daily safari rides, twice a day so you can see some of South Africa’s most beautiful wildlife live with their awesome rangers! This is definitely one of our favourite wildlife webcam feeds! Support WildEarth with a donation if you can during these difficult times.

56. African River Wildlife, Kenya – There are more than 10 live webcam feeds here so you’re spoilt for choice. Head over to Explore.org and enjoy ‘Facetiming’ these amazing creatures.

57. Virtual Dives with National Marine Sanctuaries – Discover the underwater world with virtual scuba diving! There’s a host of coral reefs waiting for you to explore. Just click on the video and use your mouse or VR set to look around.

58. Underwater Cave Diving – Even certified scuba divers like us are not allowed to explore underwater caves without the right technical qualifications and training. So whether you’re a scuba diver or not, you’ll most definitely enjoy this cave scuba diving virtual tour.

Want to learn how to scuba dive? Check out our Beginners Scuba Diving guide where we share how you can save time and money getting certified.

59. Georgia Aquarium – ‘FaceTime’ with the residents of Georgia Aquarium via their live webcams. See sea lions, puffer fish and even the elusive beluga whale.

60. Monterey Bay Aquarium – Another amazing aquarium with an array of live webcams. Spy on sea otters, jellyfish, penguins and even turtles and sharks.

Virtual Tours: How To Travel For Free From Home

We had a lot of fun looking for different ways to ‘travel’ the world from home. We hope you enjoyed your first experience of ‘armchair travel’. We’d love to hear which one was your favourite.

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20 Life Lessons from a Life of Travel

Before the world abruptly stopped and travel was put on hold, I had been travelling for the last eight years. My lessons from travel span an entire memoir.

I started a blog back in 2012 as a way to document my journey and before I knew it, writing about my travels has become my career.

I’m from a normal upbringing but my life these past eight years has been anything but normal. I’ve been climbing mountains in Pakistan , learning how to make pastries in the basement of The Ritz in Paris, staying with Buddhist monks in Japan and too many more experiences to count.

These experiences have taught me more than I ever realised.

That is, until now.

Home is wherever feels good

After eight years of living out of a suitcase, I finally decided last year that it was time to “move home”. But where exactly is home, when you’ve spent so much time away from it?

I bought a house, renovated it, and promptly realised the childhood town I grew up in did not feel like home anymore. Firstly, because I’d met a man in the Okavango Delta who I would later move to South Africa with. Secondly, because I had grown and changed so much since my departure, that my normal wasn’t so normal anymore .

The truth is, home is wherever feels good.

It is easier now than ever to live in a new country. If you feel up for it, give it a try. Nothing is stopping you but yourself.

Experiences are better investments than things

Has anyone ever told you not to buy a new car because of devaluation? The same could be said about new handbags, designer clothes, and keeping up with interior design trends.

Experiences are investments that pay more in life gains than possessions ever will.

Sometimes you need a trip to grow, find yourself, or find answers you’ve been looking for. Why not take one of these life-changing trips .

Some trips that shaped who I am include: renting a van and driving around New Zealand , 10 days in Pakistan and every single solo trip of self-discovery .

Money does not equal happiness

Growing up in a privileged country, I was conditioned to believe that money = happiness. How wrong I was. Having met people from all over the world who have much less than the average westerner locked into a mortgage, suffice it to say they are much happier than their counterparts.

What is it then, that warrants happiness?

Acceptance of your reality. Simplicity in all things. The gift of giving.

Quality trumps quantity

So the old saying goes; quality trumps quantity. The same is true in light of travel. The more you travel, the more you start to realise those snippets of a new city, country or culture aren’t quite enough.

The further you travel, the less you want to.

You realise it is better to know a place – like really know a place – instead of just know how to ride the metro. The more I explore, the deeper I want to get to know a place.

Gone are the days of my late teens country-hopping around Europe. I’d rather move into an apartment in Berlin for a few months or pack up my life and move to Cape Town.

Learning a new language

Growing up in an English speaking nation, learning a new language was not a necessity nor was it easy. Living in Australia leaves you isolated from foreign languages, cultures and traditions.

Travel is an easy way to break that cycle.

From German to French and a hint of Afrikaans, over the years it has become easier to learn the basics to communicate in foreign languages.

If you are eager to learn, try these language courses .

You learn to stop caring what people think of you

What is it about travel that forces you to leave your inhibitions at home? I can hardly remember my pre-travel self who was insecure, shy, and fearful of what others would think of me.

The woman I have become would not have been possible without travel. Without encountering strangers, meeting local heroes and discovering that everyone has a story to be told.

I care less now about what anyone thinks of me, despite having created a career where I live online. I’m susceptible to criticism on a daily basis but I’ve learned that if you don’t stand for something, you believe anything.

Own up to your mistakes

Another one of my life lessons from travel has been to admit my wrongs. Granted, I’m still working on this as we are often the last to admit our wrongs.

But who was responsible for catching a train from Munich that was westbound instead of heading East toward Budapest? Me. Whose job is it to fix the mistake? Mine.

Travel forces you to make mistakes and this makes it easier to own up to them. Especially travelling alone – no one is responsible for your mistakes but yourself.

You learn how to problem solve

Not only do you learn to own up to your mistakes, but you learn how to problem-solve as a knee jerk reaction.

Wrong train? Get off at the next stop and start again.

Booked a plane ticket for the wrong date? You’ll need to talk your way out of those change fees.

Mugged on the streets and suddenly your cash flow is halved? Time to start budgeting and cutting your expenses in half, too.

What is important in your life

After spending so much time alone exploring foreign lands, I’ve learned to value human connection and community more than anything else in my life.

As a Virgo who loves her alone time, I’m more than comfortable being on my own. I have however learned that too much time alone is not good for me – because what is life without human connection, interaction, and mutual dependence?

The more you learn, the less you know

The further I travel, the more I learn – or so I used to believe. The truth is, with all my prejudices and a Western mentality, the more I travel the less I actually know for sure.

The more I travel, the more I learn. But the more I learn, the less I know for sure.

I’ve been forced to question what the media tells us, how stories are spun for traction, and just face straight out lies.

Vulnerability is a strength, not a weakness

I used to think being vulnerable was a weakness.

However being vulnerable is being yourself. After years of travel and meeting so many people the world over, I’ve come to realise that there is no greater power than just being yourself .

Being your most authentic self is a weight off your shoulders as you never have to try prove anything, you just are. This gives you all the time and power back to work on what really matters to you.

Books are just as much of an escape

Sometimes you just can’t escape. Whether you’re stuck in the office or have used your holidays for the year, often we have the urge to go somewhere but we just can’t yet.

I have found over the years that books provide just as much of an escape. Hence, launching my book club for travellers .

You don’t have to know someone a long time for a deep connection

Some of my greatest connections with people have been accomplished in a day – some even less.

You don’t need to know someone for a long time to have a deep connection with them. You can connect in such a life-changing way with someone who tells you just what you need to hear at the right time you need to hear it.

You can travel without leaving home

Now more than ever, I’m learning there are some great ways to travel and fulfil my wanderlust without leaving home. Whether it be trying a new recipe from a foreign cuisine you love or virtually visiting a museum, there are some great ways to travel without leaving home. Here are my favourites .

You learn to invest in yourself

While we’ve already learned that experiences are a better investment than things, only in recent years did I learn to invest in myself.

Whether it be learning how to make French pastries in a kitchen basement in Paris or investing in life-changing books on entrepreneurship , the greatest investment is yourself. If you never stop learning, you never stop growing.

Long-distance works if you want it to

I’ve had a few different experiences with long distance relationships after 8 years living out of a suitcase. Some have worked and some haven’t.

The truth is, long-distance works if you want to. It’s like any other relationship – you make sacrifices, you make it work. This is one of the lessons from travel I’d rather not admit to – but we can only learn from our mistakes.

Silence speaks as loud as words

Travel has a way of bringing out the best and worst in people. Unfortunately, the good comes with the bad and we have to learn to deal with it.

In travelling with my partner more recently, I’ve learned that silence speaks as loud as words. Sometimes not saying anything really says it all.

Travel is really just about perception

The old saying goes: you see what you want to see.

Travel and your experience abroad really come down to perception. Had a bad day? It could be worse. Life on the road will throw you many curveballs but is all about how you deal with them. Choose to be positive. Opt to be optimistic. If you want to have a great experience, you will.

Your twenties are practically made for travel

I used to be scared by that window of time between living with my family I grew up with and creating my own. But the truth is, this window of time is the perfect opportunity to go out on our own and discover ourselves for the better.

I used to be scared by that window of time between living with my family I grew up with and creating my own.

I never would have shaped my own world view without taking this time to go out on my own. Just because my parents taught me a certain way of living, doesn’t mean I need to follow it. Sure, I will always hold dear the way I was brought up to see the world – but I had to go out and add my own flavour to it.

You won’t always be alone so enjoy the solitude

After spending a lot of time alone, human connection becomes more and more desirable. But the truth is, you won’t always have this time to yourself. You won’t always be able to be selfish. To choose yourself. And to do all the things you want to do and skip all the things you do not. Enjoy the time in your life where you can be alone. It won’t always be this way.

Brooke Saward founded World of Wanderlust as a place to share inspiration from her travels and to inspire others to see our world. She now divides her time between adventures abroad and adventures in the kitchen, with a particular weakness for French pastries.

Find me on: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

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To Live To Travel

Hi, I’m Marta!

I am a blogger, hiker, adventurer and love to travel. I share my experiences here on my blog, as well as over on my instagram @tolivetotravel. I’m currently aiming to be the world’s first person to complete two challenges: the 7 summits (highest mountain on each of the 7 Continents) and the Crown of Europe (highest peak of each of the 50 countries in Europe).

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How To Live A Life Of Travel and Have A Traveling Lifestyle

W e have all seen them. The travel influencers and social media stars who have a traveling lifestyle. For many, the idea of having a life of constant travel feels like a pipe dream, but we’re here to tell you that you can make traveling your life, too!

You don’t need a million followers on Instagram, nor do you need to sell your home. There are many ways to live a life of travel without making huge life changes or putting in hours of work.

If you’re wondering how to live a life of travel and not sure where to start, in this guide we’ve shared some tips and tricks for adopting a nomadic lifestyle and becoming full-time travelers.

Pros of a Traveling Lifestyle

Cons of a traveling lifestyle, why we adopted a travel lifestyle, 1. make it a working holiday, 2. travel long-term in affordable places, 3. make smart spending decisions, 4. save well, 5. create a lifestyle around travel at home, 6. make travel your focus, 7. have a strong enough why, final thoughts, pin to save on pinterest, is a travel lifestyle for me.

Before we go into how to adopt a travel lifestyle, we do want to quickly touch on whether it’s a lifestyle you really want.

Whenever we tell people we travel for a living, we’re always met with “you’re living the dream! I wish I could do that! You’re so lucky” and don’t get me wrong, we are lucky. But most of that luck we created.

There are some things that you don’t see through the screen about a traveling nomad lifestyle. It takes dedication, commitment, an unwavering desire, and plenty of sacrifices.

First, the positives of a traveling lifestyle. Of course, you get to explore so many countries, which is the number one reason for adopting this lifestyle.

You get to experience different cultures , meet new people , get out of your comfort zone and live life to your leisure.

You can find a slower pace of life while traveling , since you don’t have to rush to beat the commuter traffic to your day job.

You get to live life on your own terms and set a time limit for how long you stay in each place.

The most important thing though, is that it teaches you a lot about yourself. By engaging with the local culture and seeing how other people live, you can reflect on your own life, your contributions to the world, and realign your values.

It allows you to look at your past selves and see how far you’ve grown. Travel can be liberating and freeing, but you don’t need to make it your lifestyle to discover this.

Relevant Reading 55 lessons learned from a life of travel and 10 ways travel helps you to uncover who you truly are

Packing up your things and hitting the road requires some sacrifice, namely your relationships .

This is not always the case, but most digital nomads will tell you that your friends and family may want to deter your plans and encourage you to come back, or harbour some resentment towards you for “living the dream” while they will continue their daily routine back home.

It does become much harder to maintain relationships when you can only communicate digitally, especially with different time zones.

That being said, there is always that family member or friend who supports you 100% and encourages you on your world trip – and who knows, you may find your relationship is stronger with distance.

It’s also a lifestyle that requires some discipline . You will want to go from one adventure to the next adventure, without thinking “oh, I need to earn some money for this.”

Most people who adopt a traveling lifestyle will be remote workers, which means you need to set aside adventure time and work time.

It can also be tiring . While a travel lifestyle is fun, it doesn’t offer stability , and after a few years on the road you may start to miss having a home base and not want to travel for the rest of our lives.

It’s an unconventional life, but we love it. Make sure you know the sacrifices you’ll have to make to create this travel lifestyle . Otherwise, you might quit on your dreams and travel goals.

I left home at the age of 21, with my 3-day old teaching degree, a backpack, and only a few thousand dollars.

If I can be honest with you, that money wasn’t even mine, it came from the bank (I don’t recommend you do this by the way).

I’ve been traveling ever since, purely because I love it. Traveling is my passion, and I always knew I wanted to travel for the rest of my life.

I created a life of travel for myself so I can do this. And now I’ve created a life of travel with, and for, my children.

This does not mean I have endlessly been moving from one country to the next . I often stop for work breathers, a place to stock up again before moving on. We love slow travel and immersing ourselves deeply in other cultures.

The pauses can be acts of discovery, exploration and fun synonymous with travel as well. We’ve lived in 5 countries but have traveled through over 50.

I’m not a big counter, I count the memories, the experiences and the friendships more, because that is why you really travel.

How to Live a Life of Travel

I am often asked how to live a life of travel, and you’ll be shocked to know that I am not wealthy – far from it.

A life of full time travel is not as difficult as you may think. There are many clever strategies you can employ to travel around the world for low cost and sometimes even free.

We have created a lifestyle of travel. It’s what we do everyday, even when we are not travelling. When we are ‘settled” (not sure how to define that) we still have our travel attitude on, which is a major part of what travel is.

But to get to the nitty gritty, here are our biggest secrets to help you live a life of travel.

What? You mean I have to work? Ain’t nothing going to come to you unless you work hard for it. Glinda the Good Witch is a fantasy.

If I have disappointed you, I’m sorry, you are probably reading the wrong post and were hoping I was going to say we were rich travel bloggers, because then you’d have a good excuse to not follow your heart.

But I won’t lie to you, travel has become increasingly expensive and your hard earned cash doesn’t go as far as it used to. Which is why a digital nomad lifestyle is so popular.

If you’ve not heard the term digital nomad before, it’s simply a term used to describe someone who travels and works full time.

Since the pandemic, many companies have adopted a remote work environment to save on office costs, so you can always start by asking your current employer first if you can work from abroad.

Don’t just quit your job, talk to your employer and tell them what you want to do.

If they say “no”, then you can either look for a remote job such as becoming a freelance writer, an online English teacher, or data analyst – or try looking for work in other countries to fund your travels.

The best way to earn money on the road is to work in expensive countries, such as Hong Kong, Canada, New York, or The Middle East.

It’s better to spend the local currency and save your own money for other adventures. I never could have travelled the UK and Europe on the Aussie dollar, so I lived in an apartment in London with many other travelers and earned pounds to travel on instead.

Craig and I have followed the working holiday through 5 countries since 1997. Some of our richest travel memories come from the experiences we had living in another culture. It is by far the best strategy to have a life of travel.

We’ve had a wide variety of working holiday jobs overseas including teaching, teaching English as a Second Language , working on a pearl farm , hospitality and working for the airlines. There are so many jobs you can do!

Use platforms like WorkAway to find volunteer jobs where they provide free accommodation and meals in exchange for your service.

• Do you want to live and travel in Australia? Here is our complete guide to the Australian working holiday visa.
• Here is information on the working holiday visa in the UK
• Here are 20 ways you can work and travel in Australia – one of the most expensive places to travel in the world. A working holiday will help you make it a reality.
• Here’s another cool opportunity, How to teach English online to Chinese students , from anywhere in the world.
• One of the best ways to organize working holiday jobs – with Global Work and Travel
• Best work opportunities for Australia

Choose the countries that are cheap to travel to for the long-term. Our long-term trips have taken us through South East Asia and Africa – countries where the budget conscious could get by on $30-$50 a day or even less.

It’s much easier to afford than places in Europe or Australia . Plus, countries such as Thailand have remote worker communities, such as in Chiang Mai , so you can meet other travel nomads like you.

Traveling in cheaper countries means you can do more and travel for longer.

Read More : 20 best travel tips from 20 years of travel

It’s all about how you choose to spend your money in order to prolong your nomad life.

Is that luxury 5-star vacation rental really worth it? Especially if you are out exploring from sunrise to twinkling stars? Can you go the comfy 3-star hotel and have a little extra cash for the fun stuff?

Do you need to eat in a restaurant for three meals a day or can you cook your own breakfast and settle for a picnic lunch?

What about that city tour, couldn’t you do a self-guided one?

Prioritize how you spend money. Spend the bare minimum and always have a number in the back of your mind of what you’re willing to spend on things.

Work out what you are willing to sacrifice and what you aren’t, and craft your travel experiences around that.

Some travel experiences don’t have to cost you a penny, allowing you to make your monthly budget go further.

My advice is to make sure you leave with enough money to cover you for at least 3 months.

Read more: The better you get at spending, the more you will have a life of travel. Click to read our 52 ideas on ways to save money on travel.

Yep, not only do you have to become master budget spenders, but expert savers as well.

When adopting a travel lifestyle, there are two questions you must ask:

• How can I create more money?
• How can I save more money?

Just be careful that when you create more money, you don’t suddenly start spending more! Take the extra cash and put it in your travel fund.

Remember you also need to save for insurances, taxes, and maybe putting into a retirement plan if you’re self employed. You may also need to make a big purchase at a later date, such as if you need a new laptop or book a last minute flight back home.

To create more money, you can:

• sell your possessions
• take on boarders/lodgers
• rent out your property
• work extra hours
• work two or more jobs
• invest wisely

Look at your expenses and work out what you can cull and then work to save money in all areas.

To save more money you can:

• move in with your parents or house share
• cut out luxury items
• live off one wage (if you are a couple)
• save your bonuses
• buy in bulk
• eat out less
• reduce your entertainment costs
• use reward cards and frequent flyer programs
• use coupons
• pay off bad debt

Read more: How To Get Paid to Travel and Make Money Travel Blogging

Digital nomads and those creating their own travel lifestyles are becoming more common. If you want a life of travel, discover how you can make it happen before you hit the road.

If your current job won’t allow you to work remotely, and you have to leave to make it happen, don’t panic. There are other ways you can travel extensively without having a full time remote job.

You can travel in your own backyard. Putting the traveler’s eyes on was one way we coped with reverse culture shock and the inability to travel. We now have another site on life in Raleigh and travel in North Carolina that keeps us traveling all the time! Think about why you travel – what feelings are you looking for. Create that with experiences in your own backyard.

A creative way to be able to travel and live abroad is to try housesitting . This is when you look after someone else’s property while they travel.

You can do this locally in your own town, to get more experience before taking on international opportunities.

However, sometimes it can take years to find a way to make your travel lifestyle dream a reality.

When we first hit the road, all we had was a very clear dream of what our ideal travel lifestyle looked like , then we became 200% committed to it, and we took small steps each day with passion and conviction.

And look what the Universe delivered to us a result.

Read more: We had no idea how to create this travel lifestyle through our travel blog. We had no special talents and definitely no money (Read I want to know your secret to discover the truth).

Many people want a life of travel, but they don’t make it their focus.

You don’t always have to travel far and wide. There are plenty of ways you can make travel a focus of your everyday life.

I like to say make travel your magnificent obsession. That means it fills your daydreams and night dreams. Every decision you make from now on is directed towards making that life of travel a reality.

Once you start focusing on something, you start planning, and then usually the Universe helps you by bringing what you need to make it happen.

The small steps start to grow bigger and before you know it you are living the life of travel you thought was only possible for the lucky ones.

I knew from my first travel experience backpacking Indonesia and then living in London when I was 21 in 1997 that I was going to do whatever it took to craft a life around travel. I didn’t know how but I made it a non-negotiable, and travel has showed up in my life ever since – no matter my lifestyle, and even when everyone said it wasn’t possible once you had kids. I’ll show you!!

My keynote will offer some great insights into how you can create a life you love!

Read More: 15 tips for planning a trip – a step by step guide

Constant travel is tough, as I mentioned earlier. I often want to quit, but I never will because I have this huge why – a gigantic urge that only travel can fill.

I’m happy to ride on the back of a pick up, or sleep in a van, and eat two minute noodles for weeks, if it means I can continue to explore and experience newness every day.

There’s no other life that makes sense for me so I continue to leap over the hurdles.

For many people a life of travel would suck! Different strokes for different folks . You have to decide WHY you are traveling. What burning need are you trying to fulfill? How will this life of travel make a difference and why is this important to you?

Work that out all your paths will fall into place.

That life of travel you desire can be yours.

Most people place the idea of a life of travel in the too hard basket, or a basket that’s only accessible for the wealthy or lucky.

I mean, really, how could it be possible for someone with average, or less than average incomes, to travel the world for weeks, months or even years at a time?

Is it constant travel from one country to the next you yearn for? Or is it a slower form, with frequent pauses for a sampling of the “settled” life before travel calls you back on the road?

Or do you want to just have more travel, even if it is only an extra 2-3 weeks a year?

We hope this guide helped you learn a few tips to help you find your travel lifestyle and gave you some insight into what it is actually like. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us in the comments.

Unconventional language hacking tips from Benny the Irish polyglot; travelling the world to learn languages to fluency and beyond!

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Home » Articles » How to travel the world for life (and work while you travel)

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written by Benny Lewis

Reading time: 16 minutes

Published: Jul 10, 2014

Updated: Jun 29, 2023

How to travel the world for life (and work while you travel)

Today, July 10th , is my 32nd birthday! But it's also my 11 year travel anniversary .

Back in 2003 I left Ireland this day with no return ticket, and 132 months / 574 weeks / over 4,000 days later, I'm still on the road with no home or place I can call a base. Everything I own in the world weighs 23kg/50lb and comes with me.

On my 8 year travel anniversary, I wrote my site's most popular post ever by sharing the 29 most important life lessons I learned while travelling the world. And last year on my 10 year anniversary, I took those top-10 life lessons and presented them in a professionally edited video to summarize my travels visually.

This year, I'm doing something different and sharing my most practical tips on how you can travel the world (long-term) like I have, without winning the lottery (or having a mega savings). All throughout my travels – for over a decade – I've paid my way from money I earned while travelling .

So, how do I travel the world?

First, you don't need to save up money for years before you can travel the world. So many people make this mistake in mentality, and as a result they put off their travel goals for years unnecessarily. In fact, starting a travel lifestyle right now is well within the possibility of many people. I realize that there are exceptions, and some people might not want to travel the world long term like I do, so today I want to give you a heap of ideas for how to manage your own travel goals, whatever they may be.

I'll tackle four key points:

• How to lead a cheap travel lifestyle
• How to score cheap flights
• How to get the cheapest (and sometimes free) lodging
• How to work while you travel

If you're really serious about starting a travel lifestyle, I'll also share the best links for further reading on travel hacking. To get you started, you can't get better than checking out Nomadic Matt , since I learned a lot of the strategies I now use myself from his book How to travel the world on $50 a day .

(Oh yes – since it's my birthday, as a present request I'll ask that you share this post on your favourite social media site ( Facebook wall, retweet , Google+ share etc.) if you found it useful. Thanks! 🙂

How to travel the world for cheap

Before we discuss how to travel cheaper, it's very important to tackle how to live cheaper . This applies to you right now, even while you are settled.

If you have expensive habits now in your settled life, those habits will follow you into your travel lifestyle and rack up unnecessary expenses. It doesn't need to be this way.

So how expensive is your current life? Before you start travelling, track your actual expenses now and see where they go. Do you eat out a lot? Spend a lot on fuel costs? Does most of your money go to car or home insurance payments?

The good news is that if you start travelling for the long-term, you can live cheaper in part because you'll no longer need to spend hundreds of dollars of month to pay for your car, its insurance, its gas… and all the other major expenses that comes with leading a settled life. When you think about it, with all of these major expenses, leading a settled life is expensive!

But if you're finding that the biggest sticker shock comes from your lifestyle habits, then you'll have to make some tough choices.

Can you cut back on coffee, cigarettes and beer in exchange for extra cash you can put towards train tickets to the distant corners of the world?

Not everyone can, or wants to. But if you can save just ten dollars a day by living a cheaper lifestyle … just 10 dollars a day! … that's enough to pay the cost of your entire monthly rent for a hut on the beach in India or Thailand.

Think about that for a minute.

You might consider making other cheap lifestyle choices, like keeping a vegetarian diet and learning to cook from home. In a lot of countries, you can rely almost entirely on the use of public transport instead of a car, or get around on a bike. You can share accommodation costs by having room-mates. You can choose to be happy with the current technology and clothes that you have instead of updating them every few months.

These changes can increase the amount of your expendable cash dramatically .

After you learn to decrease the cost of your life in general, this will absolutely spill over into savings for your travel life. Then, I recommend you:

• Follow these 25 travel on the cheap tips from myself and Graham Hughes (who has visited every country on earth on a shoestring budget)
• Get rid of all your stuff. Use sites like Ebay , craigslist , gumtree , go to 2nd hand shops, the options are endless. There is no physical item that you actually can't live without unless it is the clothes on your back, food, or your means of earning money (for me, that's my laptop). This will both give you a financial boost and allow you to travel with all your posessions and not need to pay for storage or rent back home.
• Learn how to travel with everything you own carried along with you.
• When eating in a country, don't forget to try to get a place with a kitchen if you can (many youth hostels have one) and cook your meals. Otherwise, try to eat out at lunch time instead of dinner, since many places do lunch specials. Cities like Berlin and Paris have great “business lunch” options that offer several courses for just a few euro. Also, do indeed visit tourist sites, but leave the area when it's time to eat, since you'll be paying tourist rates. Find out in advance where the locals eat .

My number one biggest tip by far for how to travel for cheap is to learn the local language . This will save you heaps of money. I honestly feel this is one of the main reasons that I've been able to afford to travel so long – I've avoided paying the “English speaking tax”, and trust me, that tax exists pretty much everywhere that English is not the native language.

How to find cheap airfares

When your general lifestyle is less expensive, the next biggest expense people imagine is flights .

Flights, I'll admit, can cost thousands of dollars. But if you know where to look, there are several ways to make these dramatically cheaper than you think. Here are some rules to live by when checking out flights.

• Never go to the airline's own website. Instead, use “meta-search engines” while check and compare the rates for multiple travel sites at once. Also, try to book tickets around 3 months in advance, and choose flexible criteria – especially for the exact day of travel. See what the cheapest day is during the week or month around when you can fly. You can save hundreds of dollars by flying even a single day earlier or later! And try multiple searches on several of the following websites until you get the best results:
• www.skyscanner.com
• www.momondo.com
• www.kayak.com
• www.expedia.com
• www.hipmunk.com  [This site ranks flights by “Agony”, taking inconvenience into account]
• For long-haul, cross continental flights, use  flightfox.com. For $49 they can save hundreds or get you nice upgrades. Definitely worth it for many people. I got Lauren's return flight (from US to Spain to live with me for 3 months, then from Ireland to US for Christmas) for $450/€330, because of some strange rule where we added an extra leg to Canada 2 days after she landed in DC that she didn't even take. This website did the research for us in a way you wouldn't get on the above meta-searches.
• If your goal is to fly a lot, you can use “Round-the-world tickets”, which can cost about €3,000+ depending on the number of continents you want to visit. You can book through  airtreks.com  or flightcentre.com , but it's better if you can save miles through credit card sign-ups. This is more appropriate if you want to travel the world for a year and know where you want to go in advance. Using the above options and buying individual tickets still tends to work out cheaper most of the time though, and allows for more flexibility.

How to find cheap or free lodging

For those of you travelling very fast and moving around once every few days, travel will be more expensive, but you can reduce costs by getting last-minute prices on hotels on sites like laterooms.com ,  lastminute.com , hoteltonight.com , priceline.com ,  hotwire.com  (name your price – you won't know where you'll stay until you've paid).

I can understand why people think long term travel is not possible for them, when they think it's a $1-200/night hotel stay, but the fact of the matter is that long term travellers do not tend to stay at hotels .

Instead, we:

• Stay for free with couchsurfing , servas (reference letter required, mostly US senior travellers), hospitality club , globalfreeloaders ( I use Couchsurfing a lot for its search feature to find language learning partners too )
• If you speak Esperanto, Pasportaservo.org is like the above sites with the only catch being that you communicate with your hosts in a language you can learn in a few weeks ! ( Here's how well my girlfriend did with just an hour a day for 6 weeks )
• Use wwoof.org  (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms – about €20 per country membership – you work on a farm and get free accommodation, as well as the amazing experience)
• House-sit at housecarers.com ,  mindmyhouse.com ,  caretaker.org – This is more suited to stays of a month or longer; you get free accommodation in exchange for keeping an eye on pets, gardens, and other chores.
• Stay in youth hostels – as low as just $5/night in countries like Thailand, cheaper across Europe. Find your options on hostelworld.com or hostelbookers.com .
• For stays of a few days or a few weeks, I highly recommend staying in a serviced apartment. For mid-range budgets this is my go-to choice. Find your home away from home on 9flats.com ,  airbnb.com ,  homeaway.com , roomorama.com , or wimdu.com .
• Go camping! You are only paying for the space and can access water, electricity and other services as required in specialized campsites for a fraction of the cost of alternatives.
• Here is more on how I find accommodation while travelling

How to work while travelling

Most people think they have to save their pennies for months or years in advance until they have “enough” money to travel and live off of for a while. Unfortunately, this can only last you so long (unless you have won the lottery, in which case send a donation my way! 😛 ). The fact is that you can earn while on the road.

There are two ways to do this:

1) Get a job on-location

If you are an EU citizen you can do this automatically in any other countries in the EU. In most other situations though, you need to obtain a visa in advance.

As an Irish citizen, I got a J1-visa to work in America twice when I was a student (this was part of the 6 months of travel I did before my 11-years-non-stop travel, so I am actually approaching 12 years depending on how you count it…) I applied for this through the Irish organization USIT . They also offer Irish people working visas in many other countries. Your country may have an equivalent service.

In most other situations, you may have to see in advance what your options may be. If you are a student, your university most likely offers study abroad options, and definitely use your network of friends and colleagues to see if any of your fellow students have experience working abroad.

If you are looking for a job on your own, it is actually usually much easier to get hired by a company  before  you travel, and then have that company arrange the visa. This was a possibility for me the first time I went to the US, because I worked as a summer school teacher for a university, which was experienced in hiring foreigners, so I actually didn't need to arrange the working visa myself.

Finally, have a look at the country's embassy website and see what they recommend for working visas.

What work can you do on-location?

The easiest way by far that English speakers can work abroad is to do it as an English teacher . In countries were English teachers are in high demand, the school will arrange the visa and all logistics for you.

I've done lots of work as an ESL teacher myself, all based on an initial weekend affordable TEFL certificate I got from i-to-i , and then building upon my experience earned to get me higher paid jobs with time, eventually working for prominent schools like Berlitz and Wall Street Institute. I've also worked the following jobs on location, to give you an idea of your options (your options expand immensely if you learn the local language – don't forget to sign-up to my newsletter for a week long crash course if you aren't sure how):

• Youth hostel receptionist
• Store manager
• Photographer
• Basic office work
• Engineer (what my undergraduate degree was in – in this case I worked as an intern)
• Go Kart race controller
• Computer repair / on-site tech support
• Lots of English teaching
• On-site translator

You may find other work depending on your work skills and the opportunities available.

2) Get a location independent job

I worked on-location for my first years travel, but the catch was that my wages remained stagnant for all work other than teaching English, since I moved every few months and had to start over from scratch again.

That's why the future of many jobs (not all of course) is that they can be based online , and you can take them with you around the world!

Here are a few ideas:

• If you are good at languages, and willing to go through training for it, become a freelance location independent translator . I found my initial work on proz.com
• Teach your native language online . You can become a teacher on italki for instance and take your students with you wherever you go. My girlfriend did this for her first months of travel with me, and was working full-time with the work she got.
• Become an online coach – while I do this myself to help people expand the popularity of their websites and craft their language learning projects, there are many ways you can implement this. I once met someone who earned her living coaching people to give up smoking (her background was in psychology) over Skype!
• Write an e-book or sell a course online. My site fi3m premium supports this completely free blog (no spammy irrelevant advertising anywhere here – that's a really poor way to do anything but cover hosting costs) through a video course and resource database. I used to sell an e-book too. You can distribute this yourself if you put the time into creating a really high quality free site/Youtube channel/podcast or similar that sends traffic to it. You can also sell it directly on Amazon (self published) or through various other channels. Note that traditional publishing is not a good way to earn a living for most people – my book is an international best seller and this does not translate into money in my pocket because of traditional publishing logistics.
• Take a skill that you have and see if it works online. Here is a list of 64 ideas to work online depending on the skill. You can also see if job openings are available through various online advertising boards, or a job outsourcing site like Upwork .

What kind of working visa do I need?

The question of how you manage the logistics of working online is tricky because there are no international laws that govern such things. What many of us do is simply set ourselves up legally and officially in our home country – so we have a bank, and pay taxes there.

Then we stay in a country on a tourist visa – a grey line depending on where you go. I actually have a business visa while I'm in America right now, since its immigration tends to be the most strict about what I can and can't do here – this is despite the fact that I am not actually technically employed for any of my time here, but my book tour is business of sorts. In most countries though, a tourist visa is OK for online workers. (Disclaimer: Please don't take what I'm saying here as legal advice – I accept no responsibility if you run into issues!)

You aren't legally working in the eyes of many countries as you are not taking any money or employment from its citizens, only spending, as any tourist would. In case you are wondering, the “3 months” in my blog title comes from the 3 month visas I typically have as my limit in most places 😉

How do I set myself up as a business?

Whether you should operate as a freelancer or start your own business depends on too many factors for me to cover here, most important of which being the kind of work you'll be doing, but you can contact a lawyer in your home country if you are unsure.

You can receive payments directly to your bank account (when I was a freelance translator, my clients were European and bank transfers within Europe are free – working with American clients is a pain in the ass to be honest because they are one of the few first world countries that still insist on printing your money on dead trees, i.e. snail-mailing checks/cheques).

Another solution is to set up a pro or business paypal account, but keep in mind that you do pay fees for many transactions and withdrawals.

When everything is combined – working and travelling long-term is easier than you think

A really cool benefit of working location independently is that you can earn in a strong currency like the euro/dollar/pound and spend in a cheaper country where that money will take you really far. Leveraging currency differences is another thing that allows “technomads” to travel so extensively.

The combination of everything I've said in this post, namely

• SPENDING less through a minimalistic lifestyle
• Finding cheaper flights through a bit of research
• Finding cheaper or free accommodation, especially through slower travel
• Working online and earning in a stronger currency, while spending in a weaker one

Means that long-term travel is absolutely sustainable. I break some of these rules sometimes, like this year I'm travelling very fast on my book tour, and accommodation is much more expensive as a result, but flights are still cheap, we eat in as often as possible, we earn online, and we generally don't spend much otherwise.

This kind of fast-travel wouldn't be sustainable for me in the long-term, but we'll be back to three month stays later this year, and back to saving plenty for intensive periods like this.

Benny Lewis

Founder, Fluent in 3 Months

Fun-loving Irish guy, full-time globe trotter and international bestselling author. Benny believes the best approach to language learning is to speak from day one .

Speaks: Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Esperanto, Mandarin Chinese, American Sign Language, Dutch, Irish

Have a 15-minute conversation in your new language after 90 days

14 ways to travel the world without leaving your sofa

Have you been stuck inside for weeks? Us too.

Though some destinations are cautiously lifting travel restrictions and people are learning to navigate a new version of normal, it's safe to say this Memorial Day weekend — typically one of the biggest weekends for travel of the year — will look a little different.

If you're staying home this holiday weekend , it's a great time to start planning your next real-life adventure . And, in the meantime, we rounded up some of our favorite ways to travel the world without leaving the comfort of your home. So, break out your comfiest sweats and buckle up for your next virtual trip.

For more TPG news delivered each morning to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter .

Celebrate summer at Stonehenge

Stonehenge boasts some of the most popular summer solstice celebrations on Earth, a magical event you'll just have to see to believe. And while you probably won't be able to visit in person this year, the show must still go on.

You'll be able to livestream the summer solstice at Stonehenge this summer. Just tune in to the English Heritage Facebook account , where they'll be broadcasting the sunset on June 20 at 9:26 p.m. BST and sunrise on June 21 at 4:52 a.m. BST. They'll be live for at least 30 minutes before sunrise and sunset — and no matter where you are in the world, you can join in on the fun.

Discover a museum

Iconic museums from the Guggenheim in New York City to the Louvre in Paris are available through Google Arts & Culture, a platform that allows you to take digital tours of some of the world's most famous museums. You can browse through all the available museums , and even see some of the most famous pieces of art up close . Historic sites, such as the Palace of Versailles, are also available to tour through Google. The best part? Access is 100% free.

If you want something that sparks your inner child (or keeps your actual children occupied), you're in luck. The Children's Museum of Houston is sharing do-it-yourself experiments, as well as activities and behind-the-scenes exhibit content on YouTube , Instagram and Twitter . You can make a cardboard kazoo, listen to story time and even learn about how the water cycle works. This is a surefire way to pass the time if you've found yourself suddenly homeschooling your kids .

Read more: No travel required: 10 iconic museums you can tour online

Take a cooking class

Is there anything better than having a home-cooked meal from an Italian grandma? We don't think so. While Italy will start to reopen to tourists in early June , you can still get your fix of some incredible Italian cooking before your next trip there, whenever it may be.

Nonna Nerina, an 84-year-old Italian grandmother in Palombara Sabina, Italy, has set up a virtual cooking class on Airbnb Experiences. Here , she'll virtually teach you how to make Italian classics such as ravioli, gnocchi and fettuccine. Just note that she only teaches classes on weekends; the weekday classes are taught by her granddaughter. Plus, if you enter your email, you can get 25% off the class for a limited time. Better yet, the classes are on sale, too. For example, her class usually costs $100 but is just $60 right now.

Related: How to plan a bucket list trip to Italy with points and miles

Go on a ride at Disney

The magic isn't over just because most Disney parks remain closed . You can stream virtual Disney rides from parks around the world, from Florida to France , in the comfort of your own home. How's that for a bargain on a Disney vacation ?

Related: How to take your kids on virtual Disney rides around the world

Explore parks and attractions

Take a trip to the great outdoors from, well, indoors. You can virtually explore national parks and famous attractions around the country, all courtesy of Google Arts & Culture . Think: the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park and Alcatraz Island. Better yet, they're all accessible for free and you won't have to wait in a single line.

Google Earth can even help you enjoy the cherry blossom blooms around the world, though the season has passed. From the Meguro River Cherry Blossoms Promenade in Tokyo to the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C. , there's something for everyone here. You could easily spend hours taking virtual tours.

Visit a botanic garden

A handful of botanic gardens around the country are also offering virtual tours for travelers to enjoy. The indoor conservatory at the United States Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C., for example, is temporarily closed to the public. In the meantime, though, you can take a virtual tour of the gardens and soak in all of the beautiful scenery.

Join an art class

A handful of universities are hosting free, virtual art classes , according to Artsy, and many have a global perspective. You can study the history of Japan through images or discover ancient Egyptian art and antiquities. You know what they say: If you can't travel, you might as well spend a few hours every week looking at pictures of places you wish you were. Right?

Listen to live music

Did coronavirus derail your plans to travel to a major musical event like South by Southwest (SXSW), the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival or Coachella?

Fortunately, a number of bands and musicians are performing "couch tours," as many of their concerts were canceled. Acording to NPR , travelers can also catch live, virtual jazz performances, electronic festivals, classical concerts and more.

Instead of watching the annual National Memory Day Concert from the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol, for example, you can catch the event (and a performance from the National Symphony Orchestra) online at 8 p.m. Billboard also highlighted concerts by the Dropkick Murphys (performing to an empty Fenway Park on May 29 at 6 p.m.), and a livestream performance by David Guetta from New York on May 30 at 7 p.m.

Watch a movie

Give yourself a much-needed break from all the craziness out there and curl up on the sofa with one of these feel-good and wanderlust-worthy films this weekend. Some of our top picks include "Eat, Pray, Love" and "Mamma Mia" — but there are plenty of classic flicks and television series to choose from.

Anthony Bourdain's famous documentary, "Parts Unknown," is coming back to Netflix on June 1. The only catch? It will only be available in the U.K. and Ireland. Here's hoping it's a good sign, though, and will be available to stream in the U.S. and rest of the world soon.

Related: Stuck at home? Stream these 12 movies to cope with travel wanderlust

Live like a royal for the day

Put on your crown and get ready to take a virtual tour of Buckingham Palace . You can take a peek at the Throne Room, Grand Staircase, White Drawing Room and more. The entire palace isn't up for viewing, but it's certainly enough to keep you occupied for hours.

Related: Using points and miles to get to London

Take a trip to the beach

In need of some sunlight and vitamin D? Enjoy the sun and sand in St. Lucia. All you have to do is go to @TravelSaintLucia 's Instagram Live to take part. Every Tuesday and Thursday, they go live and show off things like the island's beautiful sunsets, rainforests and more. You might be so inspired, you book a trip there when the island nation reopens to Americans on June 4.

Another option? The beautiful island of Bermuda is also hosting a daily livestream . Put on some Jimmy Buffet, make yourself a piña colada and enjoy your makeshift beach day.

Learn a magic trick

Airbnb recently began offering virtual "travel" experiences, so you can book online activities from around the world right at home.

For just $20, you can take a magic class with Martin, a Guinness World Record-holding magician based in Berkhamsted, U.K. His class will show you magic tricks you can perform with everyday objects, such as playing cards, phones, rings, money, sweets and even fire. Prepare for some mind-reading, too, as well as the psychology that turns a trick into magic. The class is an hour and a half long, and availability is open through the end of June.

Make Portuguese tapas

Another Airbnb Experience that's sure to please? This Portuguese tapas class . You'll learn how to make popular dishes such as tuna paté and açorda alentejana — and of course, plenty of sangria. The host, Joana, spent 10 years teaching hotel management before opening her own restaurant in Lisbon. The class costs $17 per person and is available through September.

Related: Vacation rental guests and hosts are all feeling the cancellation crunch .

Hang out with wild animals

OK, so you might not be hanging out with real penguins in real life. But for only $12, you can spend an hour learning about the history of African penguins , as well as some little-known facts and insights. You can even build your own penguins from items lying around the house. Your host, Jon, is based in Cape Town, South Africa and his class is sure to be a hit with the whole family. You can check out even more of these virtual experiences here .

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• Fact Sheets

Frequently Asked Questions: Guidance for Travelers to Enter the U.S.

Updated Date: April 21, 2022

Since January 22, 2022, DHS has required non-U.S. individuals seeking to enter the United States via land ports of entry and ferry terminals at the U.S.-Mexico and U.S.-Canada borders to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 and provide proof of vaccination upon request.  On April 21, 2022, DHS announced that it would extend these requirements. In determining whether and when to rescind this order, DHS anticipates that it will take account of whether the vaccination requirement for non-U.S. air travelers remains in place.

These requirements apply to non-U.S. individuals who are traveling for essential or non-essential reasons. They do not apply to U.S. citizens, Lawful Permanent Residents, or U.S. nationals.

Effective November 8, 2021, new air travel requirements applied to many noncitizens who are visiting the United States temporarily. These travelers are also required to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination. All air travelers, including U.S. persons, must test negative for COVID-19 prior to departure. Limited exceptions apply. See  CDC guidance  for more details regarding air travel requirements.

Below is more information about what to know before you go, and answers to Frequently Asked Questions about cross-border travel.

Entering the U.S. Through a Land Port of Entry or Ferry Terminal

Q. what are the requirements for travelers entering the united states through land poes.

A:  Before embarking on a trip to the United States, non-U.S. travelers should be prepared for the following:

• Possess proof of an approved COVID-19 vaccination as outlined on the  CDC  website.
• During border inspection, verbally attest to their COVID-19 vaccination status. 
• Bring a  Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative  compliant border crossing document, such as a valid passport (and visa if required), Trusted Traveler Program card, a Department of State-issued Border Crossing Card, Enhanced Driver’s License or Enhanced Tribal Card when entering the country. Travelers (including U.S. citizens) should be prepared to present the WHTI-compliant document and any other documents requested by the CBP officer.

 Q. What are the requirements to enter the United States for children under the age of 18 who can't be vaccinated?

A:  Children under 18 years of age are excepted from the vaccination requirement at land and ferry POEs.

Q: Which vaccines/combination of vaccines will be accepted?

A:  Per CDC guidelines, all Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved and authorized vaccines, as well as all vaccines that have an Emergency Use Listing (EUL) from the World Health Organization (WHO), will be accepted.

Accepted Vaccines:

• More details are available in CDC guidance  here .
• 2 weeks (14 days) after your dose of an accepted single-dose COVID-19 vaccine;
• 2 weeks (14 days) after your second dose of an accepted 2-dose series;
• 2 weeks (14 days) after you received the full series of an accepted COVID-19 vaccine (not placebo) in a clinical trial;
• 2 weeks (14 days) after you received 2 doses of any “mix-and-match” combination of accepted COVID-19 vaccines administered at least 17 days apart.

Q. Is the United States requiring travelers to have a booster dose to be considered fully vaccinated for border entry purposes?

A:  No. The CDC guidance for “full vaccination” can be found here.

Q: Do U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents need proof of vaccination to return to the United States via land POEs and ferry terminals?

A:  No. Vaccination requirements do not apply to U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, or Lawful Permanent Residents (LPRs). Travelers that exhibit signs or symptoms of illness will be referred to CDC for additional medical evaluation.

Q: Is pre- or at-arrival COVID testing required to enter the United States via land POEs or ferry terminals?

A: No, there is no COVID testing requirement to enter the United States via land POE or ferry terminals. In this respect, the requirement for entering by a land POE or ferry terminal differs from arrival via air, where there is a requirement to have a negative test result before departure.

Processing Changes Announced on January 22, 2022 

Q: new changes were recently announced. what changed on january 22.

A:  Since January 22, 2022, non-citizens who are not U.S. nationals or Lawful Permanent Residents have been required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to enter the United States at land ports of entry and ferry terminals, whether for essential or nonessential purposes. Previously, DHS required that non-U.S. persons be vaccinated against COVID-19 to enter the United States for nonessential purposes.  Effective January 22, all non-U.S. individuals, to include essential travelers, must be prepared to attest to vaccination status and present proof of vaccination to a CBP officer upon request. DHS announced an extension of this policy on April 21, 2022.

Q: Who is affected by the changes announced on January 22?

A: This requirement does not apply to U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, or U.S. Lawful Permanent Residents. It applies to other noncitizens, such as a citizen of Mexico, Canada, or any other country seeking to enter the United States through a land port of entry or ferry terminal.

Q: Do U.S. citizens need proof of vaccination to return to the United States via land port of entry or ferry terminals?

A: Vaccination requirements do not apply to U.S. Citizens, U.S. nationals or U.S. Lawful Permanent Residents. Travelers that exhibit signs or symptoms of illness will be referred to CDC for additional medical evaluation. 

Q: What is essential travel?

A:  Under the prior policy, there was an exception from temporary travel restrictions for “essential travel.” Essential travel included travel to attend educational institutions, travel to work in the United States, travel for emergency response and public health purposes, and travel for lawful cross-border trade (e.g., commercial truckers). Under current policy, there is no exception for essential travel.

Q: Will there be any exemptions? 

A: While most non-U.S. individuals seeking to enter the United States will need to be vaccinated, there is a narrow list of exemptions consistent with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Order in the air travel context.

• Certain categories of individuals on diplomatic or official foreign government travel as specified in the CDC Order
• Children under 18 years of age;
• Certain participants in certain COVID-19 vaccine trials as specified in the CDC Order;   
• Individuals with medical contraindications to receiving a COVID-19 vaccine as specified in the CDC Order;
• Individuals issued a humanitarian or emergency exception by the Secretary of Homeland Security;
• Individuals with valid nonimmigrant visas (excluding B-1 [business] or B-2 [tourism] visas) who are citizens of a country with limited COVID-19 vaccine availability, as specified in the CDC Order
• Members of the U.S. Armed Forces or their spouses or children (under 18 years of age) as specified in the CDC Order; and
• Individuals whose entry would be in the U.S. national interest, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security.

Q: What documentation will be required to show vaccination status?

A:  Non-U.S. individuals are required to be prepared to attest to vaccination status and present proof of vaccination to a CBP officer upon request regardless of the purpose of travel.

The current documentation requirement remains the same and is available on the CDC website . Documentation requirements for entry at land ports of entry and ferry terminals mirror those for entry by air.

Q: What happens if someone doesn’t have proof of vaccine status?

A: If non-U.S. individuals cannot present proof of vaccination upon request, they will not be admitted into the United States and will either be subject to removal or be allowed to withdraw their application for entry.

Q: Will incoming travelers be required to present COVID-19 test results?

A: There is no COVID-19 testing requirement for travelers at land border ports of entry, including ferry terminals.

Q: What does this mean for those who can't be vaccinated, either due to age or other health considerations? 

A: See CDC guidance for additional information on this topic. Note that the vaccine requirement does not apply to children under 18 years of age.

Q: Does this requirement apply to amateur and professional athletes?

A: Yes, unless they qualify for one of the narrow CDC exemptions.

Q: Are commercial truckers required to be vaccinated?

A: Yes, unless they qualify for one of the narrow CDC exemptions. These requirements also apply to bus drivers as well as rail and ferry operators.

Q. Do you expect border wait times to increase?

A:  As travelers navigate these new travel requirements, wait times may increase. Travelers should account for the possibility of longer than normal wait times and lines at U.S. land border crossings when planning their trip and are kindly encouraged to exercise patience.

To help reduce wait times and long lines, travelers can take advantage of innovative technology, such as facial biometrics and the CBP OneTM mobile application, which serves as a single portal for individuals to access CBP mobile applications and services.

Q: How is Customs and Border Protection staffing the ports of entry? 

A: CBP’s current staffing levels at ports of entry throughout the United States are commensurate with pre-pandemic levels. CBP has continued to hire and train new employees throughout the pandemic. CBP expects some travelers to be non-compliant with the proof of vaccination requirements, which may at times lead to an increase in border wait times. Although trade and travel facilitation remain a priority, we cannot compromise national security, which is our primary mission. CBP Office of Field Operations will continue to dedicate its finite resources to the processing of arriving traffic with emphasis on trade facilitation to ensure economic recovery.

Q: What happens if a vaccinated individual is traveling with an unvaccinated individual?  

A:  The unvaccinated individual (if 18 or over) would not be eligible for admission.

Q: If I am traveling for an essential reason but am not vaccinated can I still enter?

A:  No, if you are a non-U.S. individual. The policy announced on January 22, 2022 applies to both essential and non-essential travel by non-U.S. individual travelers. Since January 22, DHS has required that all inbound non-U.S. individuals crossing U.S. land or ferry POEs – whether for essential or non-essential reasons – be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 and provide related proof of vaccination upon request.

Q: Are sea crew members on vessels required to have a COVID vaccine to disembark?

A:  Sea crew members traveling pursuant to a C-1 or D nonimmigrant visa are not excepted from COVID-19 vaccine requirements at the land border. This is a difference from the international air transportation context.

Entering the U.S. via Air Travel

Q: what are the covid vaccination requirements for air passengers to the united states  .

A:  According to CDC requirements [www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/noncitizens-US-air-travel.html | Link no longer valid], most noncitizens who are visiting the United States temporarily must be fully vaccinated prior to boarding a flight to the United States. These travelers are required to show proof of vaccination. A list of covered individuals is available on the CDC website.  

Q: What are the COVID testing requirements for air passengers to the United States?  

A:  Effective Sunday, June 12 at 12:01 a.m. ET, CDC will no longer require pre-departure COVID-19 testing for U.S.-bound air travelers.

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These 14 Livestream Travel Cams Around the World Will Help You Stay Sane During Quarantine

Our social lives may have come to a screeching halt, but the world keeps on turning. Want to check in on life outside your front door? Tune into one of these live video feeds: from African wildlife to one of America's great national parks, they're some of our most favorite scenes in the world.

Senior Editor, Jetsetter | @lindseytravels | lindseytravels.com

See recent posts by Lindsey Olander

Times Square , New York City

Interested in seeing what’s going on around New York’s once busiest intersection? Take a peek.

Sydney Harbour , Australia

Sydney’s iconic Opera House, Circular Quay, and twinkling Harbour Bridge all make appearances in this live feed of Australia’s most iconic skyline.

Waikiki Beach , Honolulu, Hawaii

Paradise is just a click away thanks to this live feed above Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort.

Mountain Gorillas , Democratic Republic of the Congo

The best part about this gorilla trekking safari live feed—besides the sightings? It’s free.

Cracroft Point Orca Lookout , British Columbia

Whale lover? See if you can spot orcas plying the waters from this live stream in stunning British Columbia.

Old Faithful , Yellowstone National Park , Wyoming

Witnessing America’s most famous geyser erupt in a flurry of steam and water is always a thrill.

Monterey Bay Aquarium , California

The aquarium’s one-million-gallon Open Sea exhibit is large enough to house giant tuna, hammerhead sharks, and swarming schools of fish….with room to spare.

Pandas , Gengda, China

Honestly, we could watch these bears play all day long.

Venice , St. Peter’s Square , and Florence’s Ponte Vecchio

Italy’s most crowded corners are now empty of visitors, giving them an ethereal, otherworldly quality.

Lake Tahoe , California

It’s one of the prettiest lakes in America—no matter the season.

The Western Wall , Jerusalem, Israel

Despite—and perhaps because of—desperate times, you can still see people praying at Jerusalem’s holy Western Wall.

Shibuya Crossing , Tokyo

Japan’s answer to Times Square is famous for the amount of pedestrians—in the thousands— that pass its crosswalks throughout the day.

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Middle East crisis live: Israel says aid trucks have entered Gaza after US official warns famine has begun

IDF says truck carrying food aid entered via new crossing in northern Gaza – but famine already present in the strip, according to a US official

• 45m ago 89 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, says health ministry
• 2h ago Israeli forces kill two Palestinians near Tubas
• 2h ago Israeli food trucks enter Gaza
• 2h ago France warns its citizens to 'refrain from travel' to Iran, Lebanon, Israel and Palestinian territories
• 3h ago Australia urges Iran not to escalate tensions in the Middle East
• 3h ago Aid worker says convoy shot at in Gaza mission
• 4h ago OCHA say assessment by UN team in Khan Younis found 'widespread destruction' and 'unexploded 1,000 pound bombs'
• 5h ago Aid ‘still not reaching Gaza’, as top US official warns famine has started
• 5h ago Two Palestinians shot by Israeli forces in West Bank, says Palestinian news agency
• 5h ago Hamas says it does not have 40 hostages who fit criteria for deal with Israel
• 6h ago Hundreds of ultra-orthodox men and boys clash with Israeli police at Jerusalem demonstration
• 6h ago US seeking to deter Iran from strike on Israel, officials say
• 6h ago Irish taoiseach and Spanish PM to discuss Palestine nation state plan
• 7h ago Opening summary

Israeli food trucks enter Gaza

The first trucks carrying food aid have entered Gaza through the newly opened northern crossing point on Thursday , the military has said, as Israel stepped up supplies following mounting pressure to ease the humanitarian crisis in the enclave.

It said the trucks were inspected at the Kerem Shalom crossing point on the border with Egypt before moving north to cross.

Israel said earlier this month it would re-open the Erez crossing point that was closed since the start of the war with Hamas last October.

A Turkish state television journalist was badly wounded and another slightly hurt in Gaza on Friday, the TRT channel said, adding that the team had been targeted by an Israeli strike.

“The vehicle of a team from TRT Arabi [TRT’s Arabic-language channel] that was preparing to broadcast from the Nuseirat camp … was targeted by an Israeli army strike,” the broadcaster said, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“Sami Shahada, a freelance cameraman, was badly wounded,” it added.

TRT’s chief Zahid Sobaci said Shahada had “lost a foot and is currently in surgery”, calling the attack “Israeli brutality”. The channel reported that other journalists were wounded in the central Gaza refugee camp.

A tally from the New York -based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) numbers at 95 the number of media workers killed in fighting since 7 October, 90 of them Palestinians At least 16 more have been injured.

Germany will face a fresh call to revoke all arms sales to Israel on Thursday in a lawsuit that puts more pressure on Berlin amid a rising outcry about the scale of deaths and destruction in the war on Gaza .

A lawsuit in the German domestic courts will ask judges to urgently direct the government to revoke all arms licences to Israel issued since 7 October, when Hamas launched its attack on Israel.

Germany is widely seen as the second largest arms exporter to Israel behind the US, and is certainly a more significant provider of arms than the UK .

The lawsuit has been issued by four human rights groups on behalf of five named Palestinians who say they are in fear of their lives in Gaza , and are suffering a form of collective punishment by Israel.

The legal action is directed against the Green party-led federal ministry for economic affairs and climate action , the department responsible for export licences under the weapons of war control act.

You can read more on this story by the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour , here:

89 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, says health ministry

The latest figures from the Gaza health ministry , which is run by Hamas , said 89 Palestinians were killed and 120 injured in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours.

According to the statement, at least 33,634 Palestinians have been killed and 76,214 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October.

The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.

NGO Action For Humanity has shared some images of the slogans it projected onto Tower Bridge in London alongside the Save The Children charity last night.

The projection read:

Over 14,000 children killed in Gaza. What are you waiting for? Stop arming Israel. Ceasefire NOW.

The charity commissioned polling from YouGov, which shows increasing support from the public for stops on exports of arms and parts to the government of Israel . Results showed the percentage of the UK public who think the UK should stop exporting arms or parts to Israel rose from 56% to 62% between 27 March and 7 April.

Residents have reported heavy Israeli fire in central Gaza today , as regional tensions soar after Iran threatened reprisals over a strike in Syria this month that killed two Iranian generals.

AFP reports:

As ceasefire talks aiming to pause the six-month-old war dragged on, fears that Iran could soon launch an attack on Israel spurred France to recommend its citizens avoid travelling to the region.

Mohammed al-Rayes, 61, told AFP that he fled Israeli “air strikes and artillery shelling” in Nuseirat, central Gaza overnight.

It was all fire and destruction, with so many martyrs lying in the street.

Another resident, Laila Nasser, 40, reported “shells and missiles” throughout the night. She vowed to flee to the southernmost city of Rafah, like most of Gaza’s population.

They will do to Nuseirat what they did to Khan Yunis.

Israel last week pulled its troops from the devastated city of Khan Yunis after months of fighting, but officials said they were preparing for operations against Hamas militants in Rafah, near the Egyptian border.

Authorities in the Hamas-ruled coastal Palestinian territory on Friday reported dozens of new air strikes in Gaza’s central region.

The Hamas media office said 25 people were taken to hospital in Deir al-Balah city “as a result of an air strike on a house of the al-Tabatibi family.”

Israel’s military said its aircraft had struck more than 60 militant targets in Gaza over the previous day.

Israeli forces kill two Palestinians near Tubas

Israeli forces have shot dead two Palestinians, including a member of the armed wing of Hamas , near Tubas in the occupied West Bank following a raid on the town earlier in the morning, the Israeli military said.

It said Mohammad Omar Daraghmeh, whom it described as the head of Hamas infrastructure in the Tubas area of the Jordan valley was killed during an exchange of fire with security forces. It said a number of weapons and military-style equipment, including automatic rifles were found in his vehicle.

Hamas confirmed Daraghmeh’s death and his membership of its armed Al Qassem Brigades.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said another man was killed by Israeli forces conducting a raid in the Al-Fara refugee camp in Tubas. Hamas said it mourned the man’s death but did not claim him as a member.

The military said forces carrying out the operation opened fire on Palestinians who threw explosive devices and killed one man it said was attempting to attack them.

The UK government’s continued refusal to suspend arms sales to Israel is inconsistent with previous wars and could make it complicit in war crimes , Oxfam has warned.

Writing ahead of an open letter that the charity is delivering to ministers, Oxfam said:

Despite the fact the government of Israel has killed over 33,000 people, forced three quarters of the population to flee their homes and destroyed vital infrastructure in Gaza , the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have repeatedly defended the UK’s decision to continue arms sales.

Yet in every previous escalation of violence in Gaza and against Palestinians in the region, the UK has at least revoked some licenses or otherwise suspended arms transfers to Israel.

In 2014, the UK government reviewed and suspended twelve export licences to Israel following the outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza.

In 2009, licences for naval guns were revoked due to their use against civilians in Gaza in contravention of international humanitarian law.

During escalations in violence in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and early 2000s the UK imposed complete arms embargoes on Israel, because of violations of international law.

Aleema Shivji, Oxfam’s chief impact officer, said:

It is illegal, immoral and inconsistent for the UK to continue to sell arms to Israel, when it is clear that UK-made weapons and components are being used in serious violation of international humanitarian law – and after it imposed restrictions in previous escalations of violence when the scale of death and destruction had been lower. The people of Gaza are facing unprecedented levels of bloodshed, schools and hospitals are being deliberately targeted and starvation is being used as a weapon of war. What more suffering must they endure for the UK Government to act? It must immediately suspend all arms exports – including parts and components – or it risks being complicit in war crimes.

For over 20 years, successive UK governments have sought guarantees from the Israeli government not to use any UK-exported weapons in the occupied Palestinian territory. However, Israel has frequently disregarded these conditions, and rather than enforcing them the UK government has chosen to stop imposing any conditions, Oxfam said.

Later today, campaigners will hand in an open letter, with nearly 45,000 signatories - and fronted by over 50 high profiles names from celebrities such as Annie Lennox, Brian Cox and Robert Lindsay, to a wide range of CEOs, experts and politicians - urging the foreign secretary, David Cameron, and Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch to end arms sales to Israel.

Oxfam is calling for the UK government to immediately suspend the sale of all weapons, parts and components to Israel and to use every diplomatic and economic lever at its disposal to help secure an immediate and permanent ceasefire, to stop the death and destruction, allow more aid in, and to ensure the safe release of hostages.

France warns its citizens to 'refrain from travel' to Iran, Lebanon, Israel and Palestinian territories

France on Friday warned its citizens to “imperatively refrain from travel in the coming days to Iran, Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories”, the foreign minister’s entourage told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

France’s foreign minister Stéphane Séjourné at a crisis meeting also asked that family members of French diplomats in Iran be evacuated, and no French civil servants be sent on missions to the listed countries, reports AFP.

Australia urges Iran not to escalate tensions in the Middle East

Australia has urged Iran not to escalate tensions in the Middle East after Tehran ’s supreme leader threatened to retaliate against Israel , reports the Associated Press and Reuters.

Iran has vowed revenge after Israeli war planes destroyed the Iranian consulate in Damascus , killing at least 11 people, including a senior commander in the al-Quds force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) .

Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called the strike tantamount to an attack on Iranian soil and said Israel “must be punished, and it shall be”.

Australian foreign affairs minister Penny Wong said on Friday she had spoken with her Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and urged his nation to “use its influence in the region to promote stability, not contribute to escalation”.

“Australia is deeply concerned by indications Iran is preparing military action against Israel,” she said in a post on X. “Further conflict will only add to the devastation in the Middle East.”

Australia is deeply concerned by indications Iran is preparing military action against Israel. Tonight I spoke to Iran’s Foreign Minister @Amirabdolahian to urge Iran to use its influence in the region to promote stability, not contribute to escalation. — Senator Penny Wong (@SenatorWong) April 11, 2024

Wong also called on Iran to push Hamas towards an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and a hostage release.

Here are some of the latest images on the newswires:

Aid worker says convoy shot at in Gaza mission

Unicef spokesperson Tess Ingram says she was on an aid mission on Tuesday when the UN-marked , armoured Toyota LandCruiser she was in was shot, she told ABC News on Friday.

“If we hadn’t been in an armoured vehicle that would have shattered the window and things could have been a lot worse,” she said, according to a report by the Associated Press and Reuters.

Ingram, an Australian citizen, said the IDF and Hamas were aware of the convoy’s movements as part of the mission, but she did not see the source of the gunfire. “It appeared to come from the direction of the checkpoint towards civilians who then turned and ran in the other direction,” she said.

The shooting showed issues surrounding aid coordination have not been resolved since seven humanitarian workers were killed when Israeli drones struck a World Central Kitchen convoy earlier in April, Ingram said.

The AP and Reuters report that she remains determined to go back. “I’ll be a bit more nervous … we know that it’s dangerous here in Gaza , but we’ve just got to keep trying,” she said.

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Middle East Crisis U.S. Personnel in Israel Face New Travel Restrictions

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The U.S. imposes new travel rules in Israel ‘out of an abundance of caution.’

The U.S. State Department has barred its employees in Israel from traveling to large parts of the country, a reflection of deepening concern that Iran could strike Israeli territory in retaliation for the deadly bombing of an Iranian Embassy complex in Damascus this month.

Iran has repeatedly vowed to strike back at Israel over the Damascus attack, which killed three generals and four other military officers. On Wednesday, President Biden told reporters that Iran was threatening a “significant” attack.

The State Department issued the travel warning on Thursday as the top American military commander for the Middle East, Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, traveled to Israel to coordinate a response to possible Iranian retaliation, U.S. officials said. It was the first time the U.S. government has restricted the movement of its employees in this way since the war in Gaza began six months ago.

Asked about the travel warning , Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, said: “We have seen Iran making public threats against Israel in the past few days.” He declined to provide details about any specific information that prompted the warning.

The new guidelines bar U.S. government employees and their families from traveling to locations outside the Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Beersheba metropolitan areas “out of an abundance of caution” until further notice. The State Department said U.S. personnel could move between those areas for personal travel.

“Israel’s in a very tough neighborhood, and we have been monitoring the security situation,” Mr. Miller said at a regular news briefing on Thursday. “You saw us slightly adjust our travel warnings at the beginning of this conflict, and we conduct ongoing assessments all the time about the situation on the ground.”

— Liam Stack reporting from Jerusalem

The relief organization Anera says it is resuming operations in Gaza.

An aid group that was a partner with World Central Kitchen in Gaza and had suspended its operations after Israeli strikes killed seven humanitarian workers has said it is resuming work in the territory.

The Israeli authorities this week told the group, Anera, that its military would take “certain measures” to protect aid workers in Gaza, the group’s chief executive, Sean Carroll, said in a statement on Thursday, without elaborating what those were. The longstanding U.S.-based nonprofit, also known by its full name, American Near East Refugee Aid, said it was fully resuming its work in Gaza distributing meals, hygiene kits and tents, and providing medical treatment.

“Our ability to help people in Gaza relies on our heroic staff and hundreds of volunteers,” Mr. Carroll said in the statement, saying the group was “cautiously hopeful” that Israel’s assurances would mean that its workers will be safe.

World Central Kitchen, which also suspended its work in Gaza after the deaths of its staff members, has not announced plans to restart operations.

At least 224 humanitarian workers have been killed in Gaza since the current conflict broke out on Oct. 7, the U.N. Security Council said in a statement Thursday. That toll is at least three times higher than in a single conflict in a given year, the Security Council said.

With Israel’s blockade and heavy bombardment of the territory, Gaza’s 2.2 million civilians have become ever more dependent on aid organizations to meet even a fraction of their basic needs. At the same time, aid groups say the constant risk of strikes, crumbling roads and infrastructure, and staggering levels of need make their work immensely challenging .

In a sign of the continuing peril for aid workers, UNICEF said on Thursday that one of its vehicles had been hit with live ammunition while waiting to enter northern Gaza this week. The Palestine Red Crescent Society said separately that a staff member had died on Thursday after having been wounded in March during the evacuation of a hospital in Khan Younis.

The seven workers with the relief organization World Central Kitchen were killed April 1 leaving a warehouse in central Gaza. The team was part of the group’s efforts to get hundreds of tons of food aid, sent in by ship through a makeshift jetty the organization built on the Mediterranean coast, to a population among whom famine is beginning to set in .

They were killed when at least one Israeli drone struck three vehicles in their convoy in rapid succession, which Israel’s military later said was the result of a “grave mistake.”

Anera, which was a partner with World Central Kitchen to distribute meals, said it had also lost one of its workers on March 8 in an Israeli airstrike, even though the location of his shelter had been shared with the Israeli authorities. Mousa Shawwa, 41, a logistics coordinator, had been a member of its staff for nearly 15 years and was wearing a vest with its logo when he was killed, according to the organization.

— Victoria Kim

Here’s what to know about Gaza’s hunger crisis.

Six months into the Israel-Hamas war, the people of Gaza are facing a hunger crisis that the United Nations says borders on famine.

The crisis in Gaza is entirely human-made, a result of Israel’s war on Hamas and a near-complete siege of the territory, aid experts say. Conflicts were also at the root of the other two disasters in the last two decades that were classified by a global authority as famines, in Sudan and Somalia, though in those countries drought was a also significant underlying factor.

Here’s a look at how Gaza reached this point.

The food shortages in Gaza have been created by Israel’s blockade and military operations.

For years before the latest war, Gaza was subject to an Israeli blockade , backed by Egypt. Under the blockade, humanitarian aid, including food and commercial imports, was tightly restricted. Even so, levels of malnutrition among Gaza’s roughly 2.2 million people were low and comparable to those of countries in the region.

After Oct. 7, when Hamas led a deadly attack on Israel that incited the war, Israel imposed a siege and instituted much stricter controls on what could go into Gaza, stopping anything it believed could potentially benefit Hamas from entering. At the same time, Israel blocked commercial imports of food that had filled Gaza’s shops and markets.

It also bombed Gaza’s port , restricted fishing and bombed many of the territory’s farms. Airstrikes and fighting have shattered Gaza’s infrastructure and forced almost all of its population to flee their homes. That displacement, plus the destruction of businesses and a surge in prices, has made it hard for families to feed themselves.

“The food production system has been completely obliterated, and the lack of entry of emergency aid within a short time has created a free fall,” said Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the U.N. humanitarian office.

Famine has a precise definition for the United Nations and aid groups.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification , an initiative of U.N. bodies and major relief agencies that is also known as the I.P.C., said last month that famine was imminent in northern Gaza. The body declares a famine when at least 20 percent of households face an extreme lack of food; when at least 30 percent of children suffer from acute malnutrition ; and when at least two adults or four children for every 10,000 people die each day from starvation or disease linked to malnutrition.

Since 2004, when the system was set up, there have been two famines , according to that definition. In 2011, the I.P.C. declared famine in parts of Somalia, which had endured decades of conflict. Years of drought wrecked the agricultural sector and the economy, forcing many people to leave their homes in search of food. At the same time, an Islamist insurgent group blocked starving people from fleeing and forced out Western aid organizations. In all, around 250,000 people died.

Six years later, a famine was declared in parts of South Sudan. The country had suffered years of drought, but the U.N. said that the famine was human-made. Millions of people had fled because of a civil war, destroying the country’s economy, and rebel forces and government soldiers blocked aid and hijacked food trucks. Tens of thousands died.

Gaza is small and mostly urban, so food should be close at hand.

Gaza is just 25 miles long and largely urban, and there is no shortage of food on the other side of its borders, with Israel and Egypt.

Still, aid agencies have found doing their jobs difficult. Six months of war have included the killings of scores of aid workers, including seven from World Central Kitchen, the relief group founded by the chef José Andrés. Those employees were killed by an Israeli drone strike on April 1 after delivering tons of food to a warehouse.

There is a sharp disagreement in Gaza between the U.N. and the Israeli government about how much aid is entering Gaza each day, but aid organizations say they need better access, particularly to northern Gaza. The Israeli authorities have repeatedly denied permission for aid convoys to move within Gaza, they say.

Arif Husain, the chief economist at the World Food Program, said that what made the situation in Gaza so shocking was the scale and severity of the crisis and how quickly it had developed.

Israel claims it has placed no limits on aid. Critics disagree.

Critics of the way Israel is conducting the war say that the hunger crisis derives largely from Israeli restrictions on where trucks can enter and from an onerous inspection process. Some have accused Israel of slowing aid down to punish Gazans for the Oct. 7 attack.

Israeli officials say they have placed no limits on the amount of aid that can flow into Gaza. They blame the U.N., particularly UNRWA, the main agency that helps Palestinians, for failing to distribute aid effectively.

COGAT, the Israeli agency responsible for coordinating aid deliveries into Gaza, says that it has “surged” deliveries in recent days and is opening an additional entry point in northern Gaza. More broadly, the Israeli government holds Hamas responsible for all civilian suffering in Gaza. ( UNRWA said last month that Israel had denied the group access to northern Gaza, though Israel has rebutted that claim.)

Governments around the world have urged Israel to address the crisis quickly. President Biden last week warned that the United States could withhold support for Israel if it did not ensure adequate aid deliveries and protect civilians. On Wednesday, Mr. Biden said that the steps Israel had taken since then were “not enough.”

Adam Sella contributed reporting.

— Matthew Mpoke Bigg

UNICEF says one of its vehicles was hit by fire in Gaza.

UNICEF said on Thursday that one of its vehicles had been “hit by live ammunition” this week while it was waiting to enter northern Gaza, and that the agency had raised the matter with the Israeli authorities.

Tess Ingram, a spokeswoman for UNICEF, said she had been traveling with a convoy that came under fire on Tuesday while waiting to pass an Israeli checkpoint leading to northern Gaza. No one in the convoy was harmed, Ms. Ingram said in an interview, but the shooting emphasized the ever-present risks for humanitarian workers in the enclave.

It was “one of many examples of how we are continually delayed and put in danger during these missions and how that impacts our ability to do the work,” she said.

After the shooting, the convoy had planned to proceed with its mission to deliver 10,000 liters of fuel and a truckload of medical supplies and food to Gaza City and Jabaliya, in northern Gaza, Ms. Ingram said. But the group eventually turned back because Israeli forces kept their vehicles waiting at the checkpoint for so long that “our mission wasn’t feasible anymore,” she said. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to questions about the report.

Ms. Ingram and her colleagues were not told the reason for the delay on Tuesday, but they hoped to coordinate another attempt with the Israeli military in the coming days, she said.

The episode is the latest example of aid-group staff members coming under attack despite international laws meant to protect them. Hundreds of humanitarian workers have been killed in Gaza since the war began.

Aid agencies say that they are struggling to distribute the few supplies that are getting into Gaza and that Israeli forces have fired on relief convoys.

Last week, seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen charity were killed in Israeli strikes after delivering food to a warehouse in central Gaza. In that case, the Israeli military, which has described the strikes as a mistake, had been informed of the aid workers’ movements, the charity said.

The World Central Kitchen workers’ deaths drew international condemnation, and Israel responded by pledging to reopen a critical border crossing between Israel and northern Gaza for aid delivery. But there have been few signs of progress toward its promise, and aid groups say Israel must do more to support Gazan civilians trapped amid the conflict.

“Issues with coordination have not been resolved since the tragic World Central Kitchen incident,” Ms. Ingram said.

— Liam Stack

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Part of the fun of traveling, besides the travel itself, is the experiences that happen along the way. Getting hopelessly lost in eastern France, being tossed into a stranger’s car in the Sinai peninsula, discovering the most mouth-watering wines in Mendoza, etc. all enhance the travel experience. 16 years of travel writing, first just emails to friends and family as I went around the world and, since 2008, via this blog! Drop me a note about your own travels any time – I love discovering new jewels for future travel opportunities!

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Pope Francis to travel in September to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore in longest trip of papacy

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis to travel in September to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore in longest trip of papacy.

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U.S. restricts travel for Israel staff as Iran attack fears rise

The United States has restricted travel for its staff in Israel , as fears grow of an imminent retaliatory attack by Iran .

The U.S. embassy in Jerusalem issued a security alert Thursday restricting its employees and their family members from personal travel outside the greater Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Be’er Sheva areas until further notice “out of an abundance of caution.”

The warning comes as Israel’s military vowed it would defend the country and respond, with expectations mounting that Tehran will soon strike back for the attack on its embassy in Syria that killed a number of senior commanders. The exchanges have raised fears that the Israel-Hamas war that has devastated the Gaza Strip could escalate into a wider conflict.

Israel never claimed responsibility for the airstrike on its rival’s consulate in Damascus, but Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said earlier this week that Israel “must be punished and it shall be,” for what he considered an effective attack on Iranian soil.

The U.S. has promised support for its ally in the face of Iranian threats and worked to persuade Tehran to avoid significant escalation, but Israel has signaled its readiness for whatever retribution may be coming.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Thursday that a direct Iranian attack will require “an appropriate Israeli response” against Iran, while an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said that the country was “alert and highly prepared” for a variety of scenarios.

“Whoever harms us, we will harm them,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also said Thursday as he visited an airbase. “We are prepared to meet all of the security needs of the State of Israel, both defensively and offensively,” he added.

The growing tensions in the Middle East come as Palestinians in Gaza marked somber Eid celebrations this week amid severe food shortages despite Israeli promises to allow more humanitarian aid into the enclave. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday that famine in Gaza was “imminent,” after USAID Administrator Samantha Power said a day earlier that it was “credible” to assess that famine had already begun in the territory.

More than 33,600 people have now been killed in Gaza, the enclave’s Health Ministry said, in the six months of war since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, which killed an estimated 1,200 people.

The militant group’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said Hamas was still seeking a cease-fire deal despite the deaths of his three sons in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza earlier this week, but talks to secure a truce and the release of remaining hostages remain deadlocked .

It remained unclear whether Iran’s retaliation would come in the form of a direct attack or through some of the web of Tehran-backed groups who have already waged attacks from Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen in recent months.

Tehran has so far avoided direct confrontation with Israel or Washington. But Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said Thursday that “legitimate defense with the aim of punishing the aggressor” was a necessity in the wake of the consulate strike, accusing Israel of targeting diplomatic premises in violation of international law, according to Iranian state-run news agency IRNA.

The Pentagon said Thursday that top U.S. commander for the Middle East, Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, had moved up his trip to Israel so he could meet with Israeli military leadership and discuss “current security threats.”

President Joe Biden said Wednesday that Iran was threatening to launch a “significant attack on Israel,” and that the U.S. commitment to Israel’s security against threats from Iran and its proxies remained “ironclad” despite growing criticism from Washington of its ally’s actions in Gaza.

The White House also said Thursday that the U.S. has communicated to Iran that it had no involvement in the strike in Damascus, and warned Iran not to use this attack as a pretext to escalate further in the region, or to attack U.S. facilities or personnel.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has held telephone conversations with his Chinese, Turkish and Saudi counterparts “to make clear that escalation is not in anyone’s interest” and that countries should urge Iran not to escalate.

“We have also engaged with European allies and partners over the past few days and urged them as well to send a clear message to Iran that escalation is not in Iran’s interest, it’s not in the region’s interest, and it’s not in the world’s interest,” spokesman Matthew Miller said Thursday .

British foreign minister David Cameron said he had made it clear to his Iranian counterpart that the Islamic Republic must not draw the Middle East into a wider conflict.

“I am deeply concerned about the potential for miscalculation leading to further violence,” Cameron said on X .

France warned its citizens Friday to “imperatively refrain from travel in the coming days to Iran, Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian Territories.” German airline Lufthansa and its subsidiary Austrian Airlines, the only two Western carriers flying into Tehran, extended a suspension of flight to the Iranian capital.

Yuliya Talmazan is a reporter for NBC News Digital, based in London.

Los Angeles Times

Live DJ sets! Freebies! Exclusive drops! 12 L.A. shops going big for Record Store Day

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420 isn’t just for stoners. This year, Record Store Day — the worldwide celebration for independent record shops that typically happens every third Saturday of April — falls on the storied day.

Across Los Angeles County, audiophiles and vinyl collectors will converge at participating stores to search for one-of-a-kind wax and CD releases by artists new and old, along with other one-of-a-kind items. Even in the age of Spotify, vinyl records have stayed in demand — more than 43 million people bought vinyl records last year, according to the Recording Industry Assn. of America (RIAA).

“It’s really like an Easter egg hunt,” says longtime collector and DJ Johnny Young, who goes by the moniker Black Museumist, of Record Store Day. “There’s a lot of energy.”

This year’s event brings in roughly 400 anticipated titles including a live recording of Talking Heads from a 1977 performance (featuring seven previously unheard songs), a 12-inch vinyl release of Daft Punk’s “Something About Us (Love Theme From Interstella 5555)” , an unreleased live solo recording of “The Godmother of Rock n’ Roll” by Sister Rosetta Tharpe (from 1966) and a 10-year anniversary edition of Freddie Gibbs & Madlib’s “ Piñata .”

Planning your weekend?

Stay up to date on the best things to do, see and eat in L.A .

Also, this year’s Record Store Day ambassador, Paramore , will release a remix version of its 2023 album, “This Is Why” and Cheech and Chong will reissue the soundtrack for their 1978 film, “Up in Smoke,” on smoky green vinyl just in time for 4/20.

You can see the full list here . Also, note that there are three types of special releases: RSD Exclusive (when the record is pressed specifically for the holiday and isn’t expected to otherwise be available), RSD First (a special variant is being made for Record Store Day and a standard black version will be released later) and RSD Limited run/regional focus (quantities are typically fewer than 1,000 units and may be easier to find in a specific city or region), according to SCNow .

For people like Young and Mathieu Schreyer , a music supervisor and former KCRW DJ, every day is Record Store Day. But Schreyer, who’s been DJing for two decades, says he understands the value in having an intentional day to patronize local vinyl shops.

“We can’t just diss Spotify and then not participate and support when it’s needed,” he says. “I think it’s important to support the record stores and the culture.”

But even if you’re not interested in copping a special release, it’s still worth checking out what your favorite record store has to offer on April 20. You’ll find events like in-store DJ sets, pop-up shopping experiences and in-store performances.

To help you plan, we’ve rounded up a list of local Record Store Day events you should check out. Pro tip: If you’re looking for RSD collectibles, be sure to call the vinyl shop beforehand to see what they’ll have in stock. Quantities will be limited and every store won’t carry the same titles.

Additional reporting by August Brown, Kenan Draughorne, Vanessa Franko, Nate Jackson and Steve Appleford.

Amoeba Music

Record Surplus

On Maritime Records

Freakbeat Records

Cosmic Vinyl Cafe

Poo-Bah Record Shop

Canterbury Records

Going Underground Records

Counterpoint Records & Books

Nivessa Vinyl Records Store

Atomic Records

The Artform Studio

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