Ah, wanderlust. Mild symptoms include obsessive airfare tracking and uncontrollable daydreaming about tropical beaches during conference calls. Severe cases can cause reasonable people to cash out their 401(k) to buy a camper van and hit the open road.
These 9 TED Talks are guaranteed to ignite your need for travel. As a precautionary measure, we’ve included detailed warnings about the possible side effects of each video, but have your passport handy before you press play. Just in case.
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[ted id=2251]
Elora Hardy: Magical houses, made of bamboo
This video may lead to: Moving to Bali to build a gorgeous, curvaceous, sustainable six-story bamboo mansion in the jungle.
How to prepare for your trip: Use bamboo skewers to construct an elaborate play structure for your cat.
Postcard quote: “The floor that you walk on, can it affect the way that you walk? Can it change the footprint that you’ll ultimately leave on the world?”
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[ted id=2255]
Chris Burkard: The joy of surfing in ice cold water
This video may lead to: Packing a wetsuit and surfboard for a beach weekend in … Iceland.
How to prepare for your trip: Take a really cold bath. Outside. During a snowstorm.
Postcard quote: “In life, there are no shortcuts to joy.”
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[ted id=215]
David Macaulay: An illustrated journey through Rome
This video may lead to: Boarding a plane for Italy with nothing but a sketchbook and a pencil.
How to prepare for your trip: Make detailed architectural sketches of the Olive Garden while sitting in the parking lot, waiting for your to-go order of manicotti.
Postcard quote: “Rome is a city full of surprises. We’re talking about narrow little winding streets that suddenly open into vast, sun-drenched piazzas. That amazing juxtaposition of old and new.”
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[ted id=1442]
Karen Bass, Unseen footage, untamed nature
This video may lead to: Stargazing from the highest peak in the Altiplano.
How to prepare for your trip: Take daily walks up the steepest hill in your neighborhood.
Postcard quote: “People often ask me, ‘Where’s your favorite place on the planet?’ and the truth is, I just don’t have one. There are so many wonderful places.”
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[ted id=1789]
Pico Iyer: Where is home?
This video may lead to: Putting your house on the market.
How to prepare for your trip: Duolingo.
Postcard quote: “For more and more of us, home has really less to do with a piece of soil than, you could say, with a piece of soul.”
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[ted id=1631]
Ben Saunders: Why bother leaving the house?
This video may lead to: Chartering a helicopter to drop you off in Siberia for a brisk ten-week stroll across Antarctica.
How to prepare for your trip: Walk to work. Walk to the grocery store. Walk to Maine. Walk back.
Postcard quote: “To try, to experience, to engage, to endeavor — rather than to watch and to wonder — that’s where the real meat of life is to be found.”
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[ted id=948]
Rachel Sussman: The world’s oldest living things
This video may lead to: Flying to South Africa to sit under a 2,000-year-old Baobab tree and ponder.
How to prepare for your trip: Try to determine the age of things around you, from the trees on your block to the leftover meatloaf in the back of the fridge.
Postcard quote: “The oldest living things in the world are a record and celebration of our past, a call to action in the present and a barometer of our future.”
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[ted id=2131]
Vincent Moon: Hidden music rituals around the world
This video may lead to: Cashing out your retirement fund to tour the world in search of live music.
How to prepare for your trip: Open Spotify, search on “world music,” and play all of it.
Postcard quote: “I wanted to go somewhere else. I felt the need to travel and to discover some other music, to explore the world.”
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[ted id=2009]
Kitra Cahana, A glimpse of life on the road
This video may lead to: Renouncing traditional society, selling everything you own that won’t fit in a knapsack, and hopping a freight train bound for anywhere.
How to prepare for your trip: Attempt to barter for your next vanilla latte.
Postcard quote: “This is a different kind of American dream.”