We can’t travel with ease anywhere, anymore. First it was Spain, now Luxembourg is the latest holiday spot to require a two-week quarantine on return. But there is one destination that is guaranteed to be hassle as well as quarantine free: your home.
If you’re wondering how you can make your 15-foot square lounge the border of your annual vacation, there’s a guidebook to help. It was written in 1790 by young Frenchman and amateur hot-air balloonist Xavier de Maistre. Maistre had been condemned to 42 days confinement in his Turin studio flat for taking part in an illegal duel. Rather than sit on his sofa and mope, he took up his pen and wrote A Journey around My Room, a manifesto on how to travel while going nowhere. It became a cult classic, influenced many writers including Victor Hugo and Marcel Proust, and is still in print over two centuries later. […]
First published in The Spectator on 2 August 2020. Read online here.