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Travel writing can be a lonely profession, entailing long flights, airline gruel, and a lot of solo dinners. But also, much to the envy of a large sector of the general public, there are the sometimes-lavish meals, meetings with Michelin-starred chefs, VIP city officials, charming hotel PR people, local drunkards, and other interesting characters. Then we get back on the plane, go home, write up the story and (eventually) do it all over again in another locale. The places become a mental palimpsest of historic buildings, empty wine bottles, ancient temples, plane delays, and countless interviews with interesting people.

But what happens when a travel writer can’t travel? We yearn. We get wanderlust. We are afflicted with Fernweh. And we dream about where we’ll go next.

So I asked a handful of the planet’s top travel writers—full disclosure: they’re friends and some my favorite travel writers—one simple question: when this pandemic pandemonium is behind us—god willing—where do you really want to travel?

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Jim Benning, travel writer and editor.

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Where do I want to go when this is all over? So many places come to mind: Mexico City, Dublin, Kyoto. But what I really want is to go somewhere—anywhere—and feel the way we did before the world turned upside down. I want to meet a stranger on a train. I want to go to a concert. I want to have a pint in a crowded pub. I'll never take such simple pleasures for granted again.

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Jessica Colley Clarke, freelance writer for The Daily Beast, Saveur, Conde Nast Traveler, Bon Appetit, and The New York Times, among other publications.

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I normally spend most of July in Ireland, so lately I've been nostalgic for oysters straight from the sea in Connemara and a traditional music session in a pub, but the place I want to go more than any other is Japan. When the pandemic recedes, the first thing I'm going to do is book a ticket to Tokyo. I'm dreaming of a trip that combines the pulse of Tokyo with the peace of a ryokan in the mountains. First, I'll slurp soba noodles in noisy restaurants. Later, I'll soak in the onsen (hot springs) in the countryside. Just thinking about it immediately lifts my mood. (For a Tokyo fix on screen, check out the series " Giri / Haji" on Netflix.)

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Elisabeth Eaves, author of Wanderlust: A Love Affair with Five Continents and Bare: The Naked Truth About Stripping. Her writing appears in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, among others.

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I’m eager to travel, but by no means yearning to get back on a plane, even when a vaccine makes that possible, so I’ve been thinking about how to travel by land and sea. I’ve also realized that many nearby places are as strange and exotic to me as anything far away. I want to visit the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia, to kayak, hike, and if I’m lucky, see a rare white Kermode bear. Once the US-Canada border reopens, I can get there via a series of ferries or a 14-plus-hour drive. Slow travel. I’m ready.

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Andrew Evans, author of The Black Penguin, as well as the Bradt guidebooks to Ukraine and Iceland. He also writes for National Geographic, Outside, and BBC Travel, among others.

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Where am I chomping at the bit to travel to?

- Korea: Long before Americans woke to the boyish charms of K-pop, or finally recognized the high-art of Korean filmmakers, I've been fascinated with the land and culture of this Asian nation. While I've counted several layovers at Seoul Incheon, I am keen to explore the natural landscapes and embrace their wellness tradition.

- Newfoundland: Another province that inspires my travel fantasies, but despite all my trips to Canada, somehow I've missed it. After all this time in lockdown, I think we're all dreaming of big nature, and from what I gather, Newfoundland offers some very big nature.

- Principality of Asturias (Spain): The grey, sea-swept northwest coast of Spain is a place I am eager to visit. Framed by wild mountains, thick forest and a rocky coastline, Asturias seems to be so different than other parts of Spain--far more rural, wild and less-visited than elsewhere. So, it's a corner of Europe I'd like to go spend some time in. Maybe rent a country house and make day trips.

But until things change here in the US of A, I will be traveling from one end of my yard to the other, and back again.

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Paula Froelich, writer-at-large for The New York Post whose work has appeared in Travel + Leisure, Newsweek, and The Daily Beast, among others.

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Honestly, I just want the mental (and obviously physical) freedom to travel...I want the ability to hop on a plane and see my family in Cincinnati, Sacramento and Los Angeles without being terrified I will kill my relatives. Who knew those three places would be on the top of my list. Ever. But let's say I've had my fill of them (for the time being) the next place I would really like to travel to is back to Mexico. I want to do an immersive language course in Oaxaca, take long hikes in the mountains, sip some small-batch craft Mezcal and eat the very best food I've ever had in my life. After that: the Faroe Islands and hike the Petra trail in Jordan. After that, who knows? Until then I'm re re re-reading Freya Stark and rustling through old National Geographics.

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Pauline Frommer, Editorial Director of Frommer’s

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I’m being pretty pragmatic about where I want to travel when this is all over. I want to go to a place that has good medical care (just in case), and I really want to go somewhere I’ve never been before. I worry that if I go to a place I know well (like Paris or San Francisco) I might be upset finding favorite museums, restaurants, and shops gone, victims of the economic downturn. As well, I’ve REALLY missed meandering in museums, so I want a city that has an overabundance of those.

Sooooo: I think my choice will be Berlin. I know: crazy that I’ve lived to this ripe age without ever setting foot there. But that may be a blessing. And we have some wonderful authors who live there (all of the Frommer guidebooks are written by local experts) who I’d really love to meet in person.

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Elaine Glusac, freelance writer for The New York Times, Outside, Bon Appetit, and Food & Wine, among others.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about where I want to go when it’s safe to do so. Part of me is distracted by the possibilities – the places I haven’t been (Namibia), the places I want to show the family (Egypt) and the places we want to revisit (Japan, in winter). But I feel the pull most strongly to those places that handled the pandemic well, took care of their residents, and have a profound respect for nature and the fragility of the planet. For one, that’s Kauai. As soon as islanders began clamoring to close the islands and before the governor of Hawaii acted, the mayor of Kauai shut it down. Of course, the virus is everywhere in this country, but there have been no fatalities on the island to date and friends there, though they are suffering financially from a lack of tourism, feel safe and supported. I’d like to support that kind of community, when I can. Plus, I’d really like a mai tai pronto.

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Sarah Khan, freelance writer for The New York Times, The Atlantic, Conde Nast Traveler, and The Wall Street Journal, among others.

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Can you even call yourself a travel writer if you haven't been to London? Technically I've been a few times, but not since elementary school, which is to say it's been a minute. I think part of why I've kept putting it off is because I feel like I already know and love it, and I figure it'll always be there. But right when I was finally about to make it there in April, you-know-what happened—so when travel is viable again, I want to pick up where I left off.

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Abbie Kozolchyk, freelance writer for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Geographic Traveler, and Travel + Leisure, among others. Author of the book The World’s Most Romantic Destinations.

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Though I don't have one big revenge trip in mind for when international borders reopen to us, I do have the desperate urge to visit my favorite people around the globe. A good starting point would be Fiumelatte, on the eastern shore of Lake Como, where a friend who's like a sister (we grew up across the street from each other) has a house. Our lakeside chats there felt like therapy pre-apocalypse—I can only imagine how they'd feel now. There are even swans that turn up on cue.

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Kimberley Lovato, author of Walnut Wine and Truffle Groves: Culinary Adventures in the Dordogne, Unique Eats & Eateries in San Francisco, and co-author of 100 Things to Do in San Francisco Before You Die. She also writes for National Geographic Traveler, Delta Sky, Virtuoso Life, and Sunset, among other publications.

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As much as I crave traveling to new destinations (and my list is still long), right now I just want to return to my house in the south of France; to open my shutters; sit in the Mediterranean sunshine; walk to the boulangerie and order my almond croissants; and sip rosé on an outdoor terrace and watch the old guys play pétanque under the plane trees. I just want to travel back to ’normal’ again.

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Andrew McCarthy, actor, director, freelance-writer for The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and National Geographic Traveler, among other publications. Author of The Longest Way Home: One Man’s Quest for the Courage to Settle Down and the novel Just Fly Away.

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I’ve been supposed to go to Easter Island for a story for a few years. I better get there ASAP or I never will.

But the place I want to go to more than any other is northern Spain to walk the 500-mile Camino de Santiago again. I walked it 25 years ago this summer and I’d planned to go this year to mark the quarter century. When I went the first time it was a liberating, life-changing trip during which I discovered how much fear had ruled my life, and I began to let it go. Now, with all the fear surrounding us all, it seems like a good time to do it again.

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Mary Morris, author of many novels and travel books, including Gateway to the Moon, The Jazz Palace, The River Queen, and, most recently, All the Way to the Tigers: A Memoir.

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The list is long and getting longer. There's a lot of safe places I love to go to (Puglia, Paris) and places where my work takes me (Jamaica). I've never been to Central or Southern Africa. Or Tasmania for that matter. And Greece because my husband has never been. An embarrassment of riches, really. But if I have to decide, here and now, I think I'd like my first trip to be to Vietnam. I've been all over Asia but never Vietnam. But what draws me to Vietnam is the promise of great, cheap food, gorgeous scenery, a complex culture and history, an interesting spiritual practice, and a deep yearning I have to bicycle for days on end through its farmlands. I'm sure the reality is different from this idealized version, but that's what makes travel interesting, isn't it?

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Tony Perrottet, author of Cuba Libre: Che, Fidel, and the Improbable Revolution that Changed World History and The Sinner’s Grand Tour: A Journey Through the Historical Underbelly of Europe, and several other books. Tony’s a Contributing Writer at Smithsonian Magazine, travel writing’s chief bon vivant, and founder and host of the podcast History Unzipped.

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Well, let me see… To be honest, I haven’t been dreaming about going anywhere wildly exotic. I’ve been thinking more about making a trip back to Australia (where I grew up), as a sort of mental reboot — although I guess that’s a pretty out-there nature trip compared to being on Tenth St in downtown Manhattan. Going for a swim in Bondi Beach, getting out to the bush in Tasmania, maybe camping on a Barrier Reef island and diving… It’s all been so extreme with the shut-down of travel, I think I need a trip back into that landscape (which I love) to clear the cobwebs and kick-start my imagination before I can decide where else in the world I really want to go. (Although if the virus vanished tomorrow, I would probably plan a trip to Laos and Vietnam, two countries I’ve never visited and always wanted to, and a return to Nepal…)

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Jill Robinson, co-author of 100 Things to Do in San Francisco Before You Die. She also pens pieces for National Geographic Traveler, The San Francisco Chronicle, Travel + Leisure, and Outside, among many other publications.

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The pandemic interrupted so much of my planned travel this year. I'd been looking forward to one particular trip to South Africa, and it's still on my list of adventures for the near future. But closer to home, I've been missing out on some important 'ohana time and ocean training in Hawaii, so that's my top priority when it's safe to get out and go again.

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Paola Singer, freelance writer for The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, and The Wall Street Journal. Author of AB Concept: A Cultural Journey Through Light, Form and Space.

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My mother turned 75 this year, and we had talked about celebrating her birthday in Paris. Obviously, it didn't happen. Given everything that we've been through, and that this pandemic has been especially hard for older people, who I suspect have been gripped by deeper fears than they allow themselves to express, I want to take my mother and aunt to Paris, a place that feels both familiar and magical. A place that's about art and beauty and savoir vivre. I think Paris- and togetherness- could do wonders for the three of us.

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Eric Weiner, author of The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World, Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine, The Geography of Genius: A Search for the World’s Most Creative Places from Ancient Athens to Silicon Valley, and, most recently, The Socrates Express: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers.

Even before the pandemic, I found myself less interested in traveling to new destinations than in returning to old, familiar ones, and seeing them anew. And that is exactly what I plan on doing once I can travel again. I will go to Kathmandu, as I do most autumns, plant myself by an old Buddhist stupa called Boudhanath and watch the collage of people and commerce circling it. No doubt, the place will have changed, as places always do. On my last visit, I noticed a posh new café and a sign warning that “the use of drones is strictly prohibited.” But plenty about Boudhanath has not changed, I’m sure: the Buddhist pilgrims twirling metal prayer wheels, the shop advertising “Happy Buddhist Things,” the young Tibetan woman selling oil lamps. They, and more, wait patiently for my return.

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Ernest White II, host of PBS travel show FlyBrother with Ernest White II

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Once we're able to visit again, I'd like to go back to India for a few weeks. Not only am I blessed with a wonderful community of friends there, but I miss the food, the architecture, the music, and the vitality of the place. I miss packing into a rickshaw and hurtling through traffic toward some adventure or another. I'd like to get back to South Africa, too. I miss it very much.