In the comfort of an armchair

PERIPATETIC

"How many times do you want to go to Bali in one year?" asked a friend when I declared I was planning a trip to the Isle. "But I've never been," I replied. "Oh, of course, it was Thailand you went to," she offered up. "Nope, never been there either," I shook my head.

Yes, I do a lot of armchair travelling. So much so that my friends are thrown off by the authenticity with which I describe every last detail. If I may let you into a secret, I also constantly make dummy reservations, only to let them lapse.

But not before I've become best friends with the reservations desk, a relationship I intend to hoist at a later date. And thanks to my exhaustive reconnaissance I'm full of country-specific practical advice that actually serves friends well on their travels. Some I dream up.

Admittedly, this trait that I will call a condition, sure comes in handy when the Editor summons this monthly ramble. No travelling might have been had but monthly travel column I must write.

But armchair travel isn't half bad. In the good old days there was nothing quite like a great travel book to make you jump up after putting it down and rush off to pack to go somewhere... anywhere.

Ruskin Bond's Mussourie vignettes did it for me. Did you know travel books always sell better in summer? Thanks to all those of us whose diaries don't fill up even as the days grew longer. Everybody needs a little escapist summer fare, I say.

Today the Internet is the armchair traveller's antidote to self-pity. Making complete use of the sophistications of a digital age "" Met link maps, Viewfinders and Quick time software that allows you to span across vistas, most also provide you with that undeniable pleasure of travel "" chatting with other (virtual) tourists at the same viewpoint.

Aroundtheworldin80clicks.com takes you on a modern-day Jules Verne tour to street corners, monuments and cafe action with live web cams stationed in eighty different sites. The tour begins and ends in New York travelling through Peru, Malta, Jerusalem... There is another award-winning website that actually calls itself the Armchair Travel Company.

Even a regular travel website can sometimes do the trick with sumptuous photography, well-researched contents and personal travel diaries. www.i-escape.com is a great example.

Thanks to my frequent navigation through its wares, I feel like I've stayed at the Imam's home-turned-guest house in Fez and can tell you why you should trek in the High Atlas or cool off on the Atlantic coast over traipsing through the markets of Marrakech.

But the most ingenious armchair travel idea, by far, belongs to Post-crossing, a website that invites people to send and receive postcards from all across the world for free.

Besides the fact that it revives the romance of snail mail, it's the surprise factor of receiving postcards from randomly assigned places in the world that you probably never heard about.

This works like a chain allowing people to usually receive two postcards when sending one: one from the person you sent the postcard to "" if the person decides to send you a thank-you postcard, and another from a random user of the system.

People usually send images of and write about their city, so it's like bite-sized glimpses of the world. I have just signed up to post my first postcard. Can't wait to get one back.

Oh, and did you say you wanted to go to Istanbul? Feel free to call. I just made a couple of visits there, in the comfort of my PJs and socks.