5 Recommended TED Talks on Travel

What do you do when wanderlust strikes, but you’re not in a position to indulge it? That’s a dilemma I often face this time of year, when work is busy with end-of-the-year deadlines and most of my budget and vacation time are allotted to family-focused holiday travel. The more restricted I am from traveling somewhere exotic, the more I want to go away.

One way I’ve found to cure an untimely travel itch is to watch TED Talks. TED is a nonprofit that aims to share ideas about all sorts of topics in the form of videos of 18 minutes or less. Topics range from business to science to self-help, and quite a few speakers have presented travel-themed talks too. I turn to them to satisfy my wanderlust.

Below are five of my favorite TED Talks to help you indulge your own escapist travel fantasies.

Photographer Chris Burkard is absolutely crazy — and I love it. He travels to the frigid ends of the Earth to take pictures, surf and, as he describes in this 10-minute video, go on a “personal crusade against the mundane.”

Tony Wheeler is the founder of the travel guidebook series Lonely Planet. His 17-minute presentation focuses on the unusual and seemingly dangerous places he likes to travel.

Kitra Cahana is a modern-day and self-proclaimed vagabond. As a child she traveled the world with her parents. When she became an adult, she found she couldn’t stop. She has spent her days documenting the lives of other nomads in the United States, which she discusses in this five-minute video.

Whenever I feel guilty about the amount of money I spend on travel, I watch videos like this one, in which Turkish presenter Gulhan Sen details how travel changes you for the better. Money well spent!

Modern-day explorer Ben Saunders was the youngest person ever to ski solo to the North Pole when he successfully completed his goal in 2004. He did a talk in 2006 about it, but I like the following talk even better — a general, 10-minute presentation on why we should all spend more time outdoors.