Bored at home? 7 Ways to satisfy your International Travel Cravings.

You’re stuck at home with an insatiable appetite to travel abroad. You’re still looking at pictures, skyping old friends, and experiencing daily deja vus that remind you of your glorious past experiences on the road and in foreign bathrooms. Short of throwing yourself off the cliff, you need something else to do. Here are a few things to do, of both the sulky and productive variety, to buy (waste) time in a hipster-backpacker manner while you’re waiting to use your passport once again.

1. Learn a language

How? Local community college, Rosetta Stone, local friend/cultural group, or LiveMocha. Learning a language will be fun and give you an excuse as to why you’re still in the States. It’s productive, will let you meet likeminded people, and prevent you from being the rich-puta-that-only-speaks-english when you finally do leave.

2. Get spicy. Cook!

Seriously. Go to your local ethnic grocery store and buy everything. Oyster sauce? Check. I-can’t-read-the-label spice? Mmhmm. Make some foreign dishes. It’ll likely taste like shit, but it’s a good way to get your cultural fix and open up your senses again to tastes outside of sandwiches and Kraft Mac n Cheese.

3. ..Or, just eat out

For everyone that dismissed #2, I suppose this is for you. Go get some ethnic food. Nothing fusion, nothing over $8. If you’re fortunate to live in a real urban area, check out a real ethnic corner restaurant and feast.

4. Date a foreigner

No comment.

5. Get involved

If you live in a city, there are a million cross-cultural volunteer opportunities. From refugee centers to minority support groups there is no lack of ability to get involved. Outside a real city, check out a Rotary club or get involved virtually (see b).

5 (b). Virtual involvement

For the antisocialites out there: If you can write, have any sort of online tech skills, or know a smidgen about social media you can always get involved virtually. Find an interesting not for profit (Idealist.org, VolunteerMatch.com are good starting points) and give away your time to a cause. You’ll probably be able to make mad amounts of Facebook friends and perhaps a language learning buddy.

6. Read a book

No better way to escape your shitty life than to read interesting stories about others that aren’t as boring as you. Imersing yourself into a good novel once and awhile (or every waking moment) is a good way to expand your mind, knowledge, and litereary street cred for your late night hostel convos in the future.

7. Make Money

If absolutely nothing else, focus on the bottom line and make some money. Improve your cash flow by expanding your top line (get another job, start a project, invest better +Revenue) or cutting your expenses (Netflix > cable TV and is 1/6th the cost). Save, invest wisely, and accumulate a travel fund.

7a. Be clever with your finances

To reiterate, think about cutting your costs and making some sacrifices in order to expedite your travel fund growth. Learn and LIVE personal finance. Get a budget (Mint.com), learn quirky life hacking/budget tricks (Lifehacker, GetRichSlowly, a gagillion other resources), and check out AONC’s Travel Hacking Cartel niche resource when your travel dates get closer. (legit – TravelHacking.org)