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Travel related activity, when travel isn't possible

Smiling Sam

To help pass the time during the pandemic and election season where the political ads make watching TV impossible I've come up with a travel related activity that is fun for me. Perhaps it would be fun for only me, but I thought that I'd throw it out there.

I've created iMovies on my Mac for 16 past tours/vacations.

An iMovie consists of an amalgamation of old photos and video streams captured during my tours/vacations that are inserted into the iMovie stream and then augmented with titles, labels, credits, audio, and Ken Burns effects to name a few. The resultant iMovie stream I export to a .mp4 format so that they can be played by any app capable of playing a .mp4 file.

The resultant iMovie (.mp4) durations range from 30 minutes to 90 minutes in length. The length is a function of how much content I chose to insert into the iMovie stream. The more photos and video snippets that I inserted, the longer the resultant iMovie. The size of these .mp4 files ranges from 1.5GB to 15GB.

This activity has been a fun pastime for me that has allowed me to relive tours/vacations past, until some time in the future that I can start making new travel memories.

I look at them as my personal, rough, amateur version of the flashy webinars that Tauck has made available to us.

Anyway, I thought I'd mention a possible travel related activity for us bored, home-bound (or nearly so) travel fanatics.

Comments

British

That’s a great idea Sam, but way beyond my capabilities. As far as being bored, I can’t say I have wasted one minute of these passed few months, apart from maybe being here on the Tauck forum! Although we miss Travel very much, theatre and our singing friends, we have found plenty of things to do each and every day. We always knew there would come a time when traveling might not be possible for us anymore, so it’s a relief to know there is plenty to keep us occupied which is a great blessing.

AlanS

I'm lazy, I just watch my photos and videos, in a slide show using my iPad's "Ken Burns transitions" which uses sweeps, zooms, pans just like a Ken Burns documentary.

I don't have Apple TV but could watch it on our TV until my lightning to HDMI adapter died. Now my HDMI cable bit the dust also, so I can't even watch my laptop on the TV either- I gotta get a new cable so we can continue watching Midsomer Murders on the TV!

travel maven

Smiling Sam: I agree with you, this is a wonderful way to preserve your travel memories. When I had a Mac computer, I created a video using I Movie and got hooked. It was a very easy program to navigate. I am back to using a PC, however, there are multiple movie software applications available that are either free or pretty inexpensive. I have been creating movies along with a scrapbook each time I take a trip somewhere. The more I use the software, the more creative I become with incorporating images, movie clips or short sections of clips and music. It is a wonderful creative outlet and a great way to enjoy past adventures during this downtime. All of the applications typically include templates with music as an easy option to create your movie with just a few clicks of the mouse if you don't want to spend alot of time or don't enjoy the creative process. Technology is amazing.

Cathy: I always enjoyed creating scrapbooks from my trips. It was almost like an extension of the trip itself. While creating books electronically has many benefits including making it much easier to create a journal and add text and comments to each image, I still find that I enjoy the old fashion process of printing out the images and arranging the pages to include items that I kept during the trip. For example, menus, newsletters, stamps, postcards, currency (coins and paper). This was always a labor of love , just for me. On the few occasions when I create a book on line, I always leave blank pages, so that I can still paste in items I collected, plus the books do tend to save on space. In my opinion though, I don't think there is anything better than looking thru an "old fashion" scrapbook.

MCD

I always do the photo albums the old fashioned way -- printing out photos and putting them in albums with odds and ends, such as tickets to attractions and currency. I use the big Pioneer albums that can be expanded with extra "magnetic" pages. I label each photo on the back, and then label each, and add lots of commentary in the album, so people can just look at the album without me and know what I saw and did. I've told my daughter that when I'm in the nursing home with dementia, her job will be to bring the albums when she comes to visit on Sunday afternoons, which will give us something to talk about. The downside is that those albums are really, really heavy!

gladysorlando984

MCD and Cathy, I share your view of photo albums, I also print my photos and pretty much follow the same steps, the only thing is that sometimes it takes me a few months to put the album together, my big incentive is to do it before the next trip LOL, I really don't want to know what my kids will do with them once I'm gone.

Smiling Sam

I have created a photo book, through Shutterfly, Apple, Kodak, etc, for each of our tours and probably would have continued with that being the only documentation of our tours beyond the raw photos and videos, but then the pandemic hit and travel was curtailed. My 14 photo books sit about 4 feet from me as I am on the Tauck forum.

Alan - I have used the iPad slide show capabilities as well. I believe iMovie is just one step up allowing you to easily add labels, titles, credits, and audio. Again, without the pandemic and travel curtailment I probably wouldn't have ventured very far along this avenue.

With respect to technology fright, I find that iMovie is pretty basic and easy to use. It pales in the capabilities needed when compared to the work that Doug Quirky Eyes does using Adobe's Photoshop. In addition, I'm fairly frugal (aka cheap) and since iMovie comes free with my Mac vs Adobe's Photoshop (the version I'm sure that Doug uses) requires a fee. With Doug's abilities the fee is no big deal and worth it. With my iMovie abilities, I'm glad it is free. That said, I have totally enjoyed the process, even if I am the only one that ever views the final products. They are there if/when any guest asks about a tour that we have taken, just like our photo books are here if a quest would like to see them.

Different strokes for different folks.

As opposed to British who has great gardening, theater, and singing skills (not to mention modeling for Tauck videos). My skills would fall more in a technical or athletic area (of course, with age the athletic skills are close to zero vs what they once were).

Now Alan, I'm sure has the skills to do an iMovie, he just chooses other activities like woodworking, extensive research for future travels, and being the pseudo 'God'/Web guru with respect to the Tauck forum.

Each of the rest of you (travel maven, MCD, Cathy, gladysorlando984, and kfnknfzk) that have contributed to this discussion all have unique skills as well. Once again, highlighting 'Different strokes for different folks'.

I'm always interested hearing how people are spending their time during the pandemic and how they stay at all connected to the travel community.

AlanS

I got a new HDMI cable today- fixed both my iPad and PC laptop issues- can watch both on my TV! More slide shows and Midsomer Murders!

Smiling Sam

Midsomer Murders, followed by Murdoch Mysteries, Doc Martin, and Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries. 😀 Enjoy!

British

TV shows...I’m enjoying watching the PBS Show Flesh and Blood that is currently on Sunday nights, starring the still gorgeous Francesca Annis....I remembered her as a child actress and she had a long long term relationship with Ralph Fiennes. And the ever wonderful Stephen Rea, remember him in The Crying Game?

Claudia Sails

Great cast on that one British. Sadly I'm missing PBS at the moment since our satdish is down as we are in the process of having our deck rebuilt. Missed the last couple of episodes of Last Tango in Halifax. On the plus side missing all political ads! I need to sign up for pbs passport.

We also love Death in Paradise. Often wonder if British actors try to get a guest spot on the show for vacation on a Caribbean island.

Ken from Vegas

Regarding photos -

I used to do slideshow DVDs complete with local music, but I found that when I showed them to friends , people were constantly asking questions, so I had to pause frequently. Now I just upload my photos to Shutterfly (no cost and they keep them forever) and have created a webpage (again free) with my pictures organized by trip. I can view the webpage on my tablet, phone or computer. I can also view it on my TV using the Shutterfly app on my Roku or using Chromecast.

I still put together a photo album of each trip, but I'm beginning to question the need for that.

I also print pictures to hang on the wall.

I don't shoot video. I've seen so much bad amateur video, that I have an aversion to it. I don't have the time or desire to develop that skill to the point I would be happy with it.

British

Claudia, we just had Our deck renovated, it took the guys six days, a team of three, led by a great Amish man. Only one glitch....they had to knock off the corner of the concrete block that supports our swim spa that made the finished deck much better it required a lot of hard hammering.....a couple of days later, we noticed a large sledge hammer had been left behind under the deck behind the trellis... so my hubby crawled under to retrieve it. We called the office. The next day, we were woken up at 6-38am by a phone call....I hate calls out of normal times as more than once it’s been tragic news....turns out they were sitting outside our house on the way to a nearby job and thought it would be OK to collect it. Well that’s when I’m glad to have a nice husband to pull on his pants and answer the door!

Kathy M

We enjoy all the PBS shows that have been mentioned. Our PBS station has now added a show called Martin Clunes' Islands of America. Martin Clunes is Doc Martin and the approach to the islands is much different than a standard travel show. He goes to smaller islands in places such as Hawaii, Alaska, California and Washington and explores aspects that you usually don't see (Channel Islands, San Juan Islands...). Next week he's going to see the ponies at Chincoteague on the Delmarva peninsula.

Claudia Sails

Sadly our deck rebuild is taking longer. The old one was at least 40 yrs old and falling apart. A small crew of two. They arrive at 7 am and if we don't get my car out of the driveway by then we can't go anywhere that day.

A week to demo and then rebuild the underneath. A week waiting on decking to arrive. Next week that should get down. Not sure when railings will arrive. Best case end of the month but not betting. Total price somewhere in the neighborhood of what our Switzerland tour plus business class airfare would have cost. Oh well, was threatening to fall into the valley below so not much choice.

I'm happily finding lots of free tv on my Roku. There's a whole section of travel channels - locations in U.S. A and around the world plus many other topics. A bit like watching youtube.

travel maven

kfnknfzk: I remember Stretch and Sew back in the 70's. I wasn't the most adept sewer, however, I learned how to make my own patterns and constructed a Blazer that turned out quite well. I remember one of my friends, who was very skilled at sewing, wanting to know how I made the well constructed buttonholes on the blazer, she was quite impressed. That was a great course, thanks for the memory.

British

I haven’t made clothing for years, but at the beginning of the Pandemic I enjoyed making cushions, some drapes, chair covers etc. some of the fabric was from my trips to Africa. Our study has an African theme, including one of our office chair backs in a leopard theme....some of you might think, yuck, but we love being in there with the photos etc

MCD

To help pass the time this year, I subscribed to BritBox. I've watched all 10 seasons of MI-5, all of the Miss Marple shows, and many others. I also follow the British shows on PBS, and just watched the first "Flesh and Blood." I do love Stephen Rea! Just within the past month, I re-watched "The Crying Game." I had read "Say Nothing," a nonfiction account of some aspects of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, and learned that Stephen was married to Dolours Price, one of the IRA militants.

Choc

My time has been consumed with playing duplicate online bridge. The games are held thru BBO and our club offers a game 3 times a day.