Armchair Travel: A Sensory Experience for Seniors
Armchair Travel takes people to faraway places without leaving home.
It provides a sensory experience and the opportunity to learn about exotic lands and important past events in a meaningful manner.
Related: 30+ Sensory Activities for People Living with Dementia
Start an Armchair Travel tradition at your facility! Make it a monthly event and build up expectations to this most interesting and engaging activity.
How to Plan an Armchair Travel Activity
- Use the scheduled ‘Residents meeting’ to reveal the proposal to residents.
- Have residents choose a country or event/documentary they would like to see.
- Make decorations according to the country chosen.
- Serve some food or snacks from the chosen country.
- Get hold of some relevant music or trivia to enhance the activity.
- Send personal invitations, especially to more introverted residents.
- If showing YouTube videos, make sure that you can hook them up to a large TV screen.
- Alternatively borrow videos from your local library.
Related: Armchair Travel with Google Maps
How to Conduct an Armchair Travel Activity
Choose your theme by asking your clients for topics of interest or choose from generic themes such as: national parks, islands, rain-forests and even biographies of famous actors or singers.
Choose a short DVD or play YouTube videos for a maximum of one hour; preferably less if your clients have attention deficit. There are excellent short videos to be found on YouTube that are less than 20 minutes long, you may show two short videos if the response is positive.
Here are a few ideas:
- The Taj Mahal and its history
- The Champs Élysées
- Castles and Palaces
- Cities: New York, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Madrid
- The Royal Wedding of Danish Prince Frederic and Princess Mary from Tasmania, Australia
Where to Find Suitable Films and Videos
- Look for videos freely available online. YouTube is a great resource! f you know someone who is computer-savvy, they may also be able to download suitable videos for you.
- Purchase online (Amazon, E-Bay).
- Borrow from Library.
- Borrow from friends or residents’ relatives.
- If you know someone going overseas ask them to take a 10 minute video of the place visited.
Samples of Themes & Videos to get started with:
Here are a few videos I found online. Show the videos in full screen mode hooked up to a large TV for an enjoyable morning or evening.
1. Visit the beautiful Iberian Peninsula, then Morocco!
A narrated video by Raymond Kresha, featuring a group of people visiting historic sites of Portugal, Spain and then Morocco. The video runs for roughly 30 minutes. There are some pictures of the tour participants but mostly it shows stunning landscapes from the Iberian Peninsula and Morocco.
Watch: Portugal, Spain & Morocco (YouTube) - 25 minutes
Craft: Color-in the Flags of Portugal & Spain provided
Serve: Look online for recipes of Pasteis de nata (Portuguese tarts) or Tapas (Spanish entrees such as small meat balls or Spanish omelet cut into bite sized pieces) or Moroccan bread cut into chunks and served with Hummus.
Trivia: Portuguese Quiz
2. The Queen’s Palaces Documentary
The Queen of England, Elizabeth II has three residences: Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse. Here is a short video on the most romantic of the three, Holyroodhouse. Besides romance, there is also deceit, betrayal, and murder.
Watch: Palace of Holyroodhouse (YouTube) - 8 minutes
Serve: Cucumber sandwishes
Trivia: Royal Quiz
3. Seychelles Islands
A popular tourist destination, the Republic of the Seychelles is an island-country in the Indian Ocean.
Sechelles Islands (YouTube) - 15 minutes
Serve: Fried bananas (plantain)
Trivia: Island of the World Quiz
We'd love to hear your feedback. What Armchair Travel Themes have worked well for you?
How often do you do the armchair travel at your facility? Love this idea!
every month
Hi Linda
Thank you for sharing this information
If anyone wants to travel to places you’ve been I will send them your way
Hi Linda
Thank you for sharing this information
If anyone wants to travel to places you’ve been I will send them your way
I was a rec coordinator for 15 yrs. and we travelled to 8 countries. I wore the costume of the country, food and music matched. They had airplane “ tickets” handed out at breakfast - flight was at 2pm . Alaska, France, England, China, Mexico , Hawaii, Africa , Ukraine . We later travelled Canada province by province. Staff came too!
Hi Everyone
Can anyone help ,l need thing on Pakistan for our travel day.one of our resident got her nose out of joint .we have been to India on our travel day.
Regards
Marion
Hi Marion I will put forward your request for Pakistan so that it can be added in a future segment.
Hi Marilyn
Besides what is recommended here try Google maps
https://www.goldencarers.com/armchair-travel-with-google-maps/3810/
Have the resident in question help you design the activity
Perhaps she has some things that she d like to share
I am sure you can find an outline for a flag from Pakistan
Great idea but where can I find a template to make a passport!
For those looking for a printable passport, Activity Connection has one with "stamps".
Try Oriental Trading Company ,they sell passports for cheap. We used snap chat for the passports. It was really funny.
For one of our multicultural theme days we had a belly dancer come in and do a dancing show then a talk on Egypt. We also had some Middle eastern sweets and afternoon tea. They loved it
I have also borrowed at times dvds from the local library as well as books for resources. If you go to the travel agents they sometimes have brochures that they are giving away, these can be used for collages etc on the country you are 'visiting'.
Yes libraries can be a wonderful resource. Great tip with travel agencies, they have such beautiful brochures! Thanks Joanne.
We are lucky enough to have Apple TV through out our facility so we have armchair travel with our volunteers becoming involved and assisting to make it a great experience for our residents. We have traveled through Peru, Malta, Italy, Mexico and Holland this year. These days always spark lots of conversation between the residents about the travels they have taken in their lives. We have had residents point out the places they lived, one resident saw the street she lived in as a child. There are lots of great travel documentaries on YouTube.
Ah your residents are certainly lucky, this sounds great! Yes there are so many wonderful travel documentaries to be found on YouTube aren't there! Thanks for your feedback Jacqueline.
Thank you Albert for the callofroad.com site. This one will be used in our facility.
Nice work on the English history from you tube and ideas of sandwiches and Royal Trivia for Queen Victoria Birthday at the end of May.
Great ideas! Love this Activity site.
Darla
Thank you Darla! Your feedback is much appreciated.
thank you for this.
Nowadays armchair travel web-sources are better than books.
Try for example www.callofroad.com
A lot of travel videos from all over the world.
We have enhanced dining once a month ..decorate, music, and menu??? Any ideas for September????
Donna, we have also been able to use aspects of the Armchair Travel on a much smaller scale. For example, when a resident comes into a lodge from another culture, it can be a useful way of introducing them into their new environment, by sharing something of their cultural heritage through Armchair Travel sessions. This also serves to transition the resident into their new home.
Sounds amazing. Will definately look into this.
Thanks Wendy will look forward to obtaining these DVD.
sorry it took so long to get back to you Patricia as i had to borrow them again its discovery ATLAS DVD collection volumes 1-10 discovery channel Australia, Italy, China, France, Brazil, India, Egypt, Japan, South Africa,& Russia narrated by famous people ...wendy
I started up Armchair Travel at a facility, we also had passports for participants & they loved them
Hi Wendy do you know what the name of the DVDs were that you borrowed?
my daughter is a primary teacher and we borrowed there set of travel DvD'S for our nursing home; they were easy and more informative for the residents to follow then ones we got from the library
Thank you so much Susan. It sounded like an amazing month of getting ready.
Having that many Lifestyle staff must have a huge impact on the activities you can offer.
Hello Patricia; the lead up to the actual travel week was about 4 weeks; most of the activities were developed during work hours, and indeed many of the residents helped during craft sessions to decorate their lodges, make leis etc. Things like word-search etc were available on google image under word hawaii. New music sessions are developed regularly anyway, and the Volcano was the first experiment in our Science for Seniors program. It does help having the equivalent of 10 full-time Leisure & Lifestyle Coordinators in addition to myself; so the ideas really flow.
I am very interested in this activity. I would like to know how much time Susan and the other lifestyle team spent in the preparation of this activity. Was it all done in work hours?
Sounds wonderful. I am looking forward to discussing it at work tomorrow .
instead we can use a trip to & not armchair
I saw this add in a magazine and tried to use for the facility I'm working for and the DDON who lifestyle reports to didn't agreed.
I liked and I'm all for who can used.
Maria
We have completed Armchair Travel to Hawaii, and what a wonderful trip we had. We are a large aged care facility so were able to divide activities between Leisure & Lifestyle Coordinators, each responsible for a different aspect: music expression; cooking; Hawaiin pamper session (coconut & pineapple taste); even a working volcano, built, tested and demonstrated before doing the rounds (mentos and coke version) and hula hands to My Little Grass Shack. Craft activities centred around making hula skirts and leis. I still have the music of My Little Grass Shack running through my head every day. What a trip it was. Susan Rolfe, Lifestyle Manager
Has anyone any ideas for activities to do with india
hi carol,we had an indian boy doing his placement with us at the time and he made and indian rice pudding that was not spicy and tasted really good. we had taste testing samples of indian finger food,,also he shown us a turban that the men wear in India and unravelled it. we were so suprised how long a turban is. the fabric went for many metres long , the turbans were wrapped on a few willing residents heads and we took lots of pictures ,,we all asked lots of questions while he was dressing us up in turbans,,,Very interesting
armchair travel with an Indian themed lunch, also if you have Indian staff they could wear their saris to work, we have done this for Indian and Sri Lankan themed days
You can have a cultural day where everyone can were an out fit from India. Play Indian music, show some bollywood dancing video , have pictures of the various famous places in India e.g Taj mahal posted and share some history.
On an activity to do with India, I have done an Indian cooking class. I am Indian, so that's an advantage... Or you can buy packets of frozen samosas and buy bottled chutney and serve. I made vegetable fritters in chickpea batter and also fried potato and eggplant in the same batter. The entire facility was spiced up! I discovered one resident had lived in Pakistan as a missionary for four years and she knew all the spices I was using. I brought in my spice container and passed around the spices in small bowls for everyone to touch and smell. It was a cold afternoon so the spicy food drew in a crowd. If you have Indian staff members, ask them to help or to source Indian snacks.
You could show the movie The Best Ever Marigold Hotel. It's long but very good and very authentic. Cooking some indian cakes or food or making lassi drinks. Perhaps some dance routines from Bollywood movies, they are always fun to watch.