Reading has always been a form of travel for me. I can be sitting in my favorite chair, wearing socks that absolutely do not match, and suddenly I am walking cobblestone streets, crossing windswept fields, or standing at the edge of some ancient cliff with my imagination doing all the heavy lifting. Books do that. They slip a passport into your soul and say, “Come on, we’re leaving.”

Movies do it too. So do old television shows, the kind that came into our living rooms and quietly rearranged our dreams. They give us a glimpse of places we have never been, places we imagine, places we swear we will visit one day—even if “one day” keeps getting rescheduled by laundry, bills, and the shocking price of airline snacks.

Once upon a time, Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color opened the door to special places and made them feel possible. It was more than entertainment; it was a weekly invitation to look beyond the ordinary and believe there was a bigger, brighter world waiting somewhere past the end of the driveway. Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom did the same thing, only with more lions, dust, and the strong suspicion that safari hats might be necessary for a meaningful life. Watching those wild places made me want to go to Africa, to see the animals, the landscapes, the beauty, and the untamed wonder of faraway places.

Then there is Ireland. Oh, Ireland. The Irish novels of Nora Roberts, with their green hills, old secrets, family ties, and villages that always seem to have one cozy pub and at least three people who know your business before you do, have given me a deep desire to see it for myself. Add Scarlett and The Quiet Man, and suddenly I am convinced I need to wander through the Irish countryside, stand near a stone wall, gaze dramatically into the mist, and pretend I have always belonged there.

Eat, Pray, Love stirred up another kind of longing… the desire to follow my heart and wonder where it might lead. It made me think about the questions my own soul carries: the ones that need healing, the ones that need answers, and the ones that simply need a good bowl of pasta and a little quiet. Travel, at its best, is not just about seeing how other people live. It is about discovering what wakes up inside us when we step outside our familiar world.

Even Yellowstone has worked its magic on me. I have never been to Montana, but that show makes me want to see the wide-open beauty of it, the mountains, the sky, the rough edges, the kind of scenery that looks like it could make a person both humble and slightly underdressed. And Sleepless in Seattle? Well, that one gave me a romantic notion about the West Coast, houseboats, misty mornings, and the possibility that destiny might be waiting somewhere with a cup of coffee and a great view.

The reality is that books, movies, and television give us an inside look at the world from wherever we are. They offer us a peek through the window. For some people, that is enough. They travel in their minds, happily and beautifully, and there is nothing wrong with that. Imagination is a perfectly respectable mode of transportation, and the baggage fees are excellent.

But for others, those stories poke at us. They whisper. They nudge. They say, “Get in the car. Buy the ticket. Make the plan.” They remind us that the places we dream about are not only scenes on a screen or chapters in a book. They are real enough to call to us through our imagination and our heart.

And honestly, I think that is exactly as it should be. The best stories do not keep us still. They send us somewhere… across a page, across a screen, across an ocean, or maybe just across town with new eyes. They inspire us to explore, to wonder, to heal, to laugh, and to remember that the world is still full of places waiting to be discovered..,