With travel on hold, take a masterclass or free online course – in astronomy, first aid, photo editing, and a lot more – to have a better holiday after lockdown

The more you know before you go, the better your travel experience will be. Learn a language, how to read a map, survival skills, and more while in lockdown
Many online courses have been made available free of charge as billions of people hunker down at home to stop the spread of Covid-19 coronavirus

Travel news and advice

Jamie Carter

Published: 8:30pm, 23 Apr 2020

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Were you really getting the absolute maximum out of your travels before Covid-19 stopped us all in our tracks?

A common failing among travellers is a lack of language skills, which can make cultural understanding and connecting with locals tricky in many places.

There are many other shortcomings that we travellers display all too obviously; we take too many (terrible) photos, we cannot read maps properly and we lack enough knowledge of world history to truly appreciate the significance of ancient sites.

Now is the time to take advantage of online courses, masterclasses, webinars and live streams designed to help make you an expert while you are stuck being an armchair traveller.

Online courses, masterclasses, webinars and live streams can help you get even more out of your holidays. Photo: Getty Images

1. Language learning

Almost as soon as Covid-19 went global – and schoolchildren began being sent home – the best intensive language-learning programmes in the world became free, including Rosetta Stone (free three-month subscriptions for students, for 22 languages), course hub Babbel (three months of free classes in 14 languages) and online language portal Mango Languages (free during the Covid-19 crisis in 70 languages). They are a gift for anyone who feels rudely ignorant of local languages when they travel.

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2. ‘Deep travel' and travel hacks

Is it possible to have adventures that do not feature in guidebooks? How to go beyond the limits of mainstream tourism is what the Udemy course in “Deep Travel” is all about, with a professional travel writer and ex-tour guide explaining how to do everything from making authentic connections with locals to reading people and situations that may arise.

Another useful course on the same platform is “Travel Hacking: How To Travel The World For Cheap”, which teaches you how to find the cheapest possible flights and accommodation.

Learning platforms like Udemy and Creative Live are great ways to improve your travel photography. Photo: Getty Images

3. Travel photography

Learning platforms like Udemy and Creative Live (try “Travel Photography: The Complete Guide”) are great for travel photography, but just as virtual language learning has been made affordable and free during the pandemic, there are even more options to try now.

Another great resource is Nikon School, whose classes, such as “Fundamentals of Photography” and “Exploring Dynamic Landscape Photography”, can all be streamed for free during April 2020.

Even if you do not want to practise photography while at home, you can learn how to edit, process and touch up your archive. A great resource for that is the website Expert Photography, which includes free tutorials on organising, editing and processing photos in Adobe Lightroom, and how to shoot time-lapse photography; it even hosts an iPhone photo academy.

4. First aid, survival and navigation

You are hiking in the Himalayas with a friend, who trips and sprains an ankle – or worse. What do you do? The American Red Cross offers a free online course, Udemy offers “First Aid: Learn How to Save a Life”, and First Aid For Free, from the author of The Complete First Aid Pocket Guide, hosts both basic and advanced courses for no fee.

It is also possible to do lengthy Udemy courses in “Basic Survival Concepts” and “Essential guide to survival in the wilderness with nothing”. Udemy claims that viewing its “survival priorities” lecture gives students a 50 per cent greater chance of survival if stranded in the great outdoors.

Websites can improve your knowledge of historical events. Photo: Getty Images

5. World history and ancient monuments

If you dutifully turn up at Unesco World Heritage Sites and learn enough to nod a bit, but soon forget what the significance of everything was, you need to learn some history. Global history. Even a little knowledge can come in really handy if you travel a lot.

A good place to bone up is a massive open online course (MOOC), such as the University of Virginia’s excellent “The Modern World: Global History since 1910”, which starts this month.

The platform also hosts courses such as “Introduction to Ancient Egypt and Its Civilization”. This is essential for anyone planning one day to see the pyramids and the Valley of the Kings.

6. Stargazing and astronomy

How many times have you been stargazing in a remote location and been slightly embarrassed that you cannot even name a single star?

Well, the night sky can be navigated and known. Among the many thousands of online instructional videos is “Fundamentals of Stargazing” by Cosmic Pursuits.

This highly practical online course, aimed at total beginners, comes in 12 monthly instalments (and 72 sections) and comprises downloadable MP3 sky guides and high-quality PDFs and sky charts.

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