Running a blog about travel during a pandemic has been strange. What should I post about when I am not supposed to go anywhere or do much of anything? If you look back through my posts in 2020, you’ll see mostly memories of past trips and some local activities. That is an accurate reflection of our year, with one big exception.

My husband and I love to travel in part because it exposes us to the beauty of different parts of the world and the rich diversity in human culture. Even before the pandemic, though, most of our time is not spent traveling. We have found a way to get to sample some of the world’s diverse beauty and culture from our own living room, though. We watch music videos from around the world. Sometimes, we have a specific artist that has come to our attention. Sometimes, we just pick a country and search for the “top pop music” or “top hits” for that country. We’ve found some great music, watched some interesting videos, and had a lot of fun from this practice.

Since most of us are stuck at home these days, I thought I’d start sharing some of the videos we like here. I’ll start with the one that started our habit: Lover Boy, by Thai artist Phum Viphurit. A few years ago, my husband read an article in a magazine about popular songs around the world and this was one of the songs mentioned. We searched it up on YouTube and our habit of international music video watching was born. This video is set in Pattaya, Thailand.