The Teeny-Weeny Guide To Travelling Internationally From Your Art Studio

Travelling is a phenomenal thing to pursue, especially if you enjoy learning about different cultures, trying out new cuisines, seeing new faces, discovering hidden gems, making fond memories, and broadening your horizons. Although most people are able to travel, some people are unable to due to various circumstances like the lack of funding, fear of airplanes, etc. Even though some people are unable to travel for whatever reasons they have, there are many ways you can travel across the globe from home! One thing has nothing to do with the other, ever!

One thing that satisfies my craving for travel is making art pieces of possible countries I’d like to visit in the future. Not only do I enjoy making art pieces of various countries across the globe, but also landmarks such as The Pyramids of Giza. I’m still travelling across the globe, but I’m doing it from my art studio! For the time being, this is what satisfies me. I’ve been to six countries in my lifetime, but there’s still more for me to visit. One day, it’ll happen!

If you’re looking for any travel drawing prompts, I welcome you to read this listicle of five drawing prompts I created. Remember, these prompts are based on my own dream travel destinations, but please use these prompts as inspiration for your own travel and tourism art pieces.

1. Thailand

It's never been my destiny to travel to trendy tourist sites such as Thailand, until I developed a fascination with Thai cuisine, culture, and Buddhism in my early adulthood. Thailand is home to a heap of Buddhists, and it's home to tons of Buddhist temples and monasteries. It would be such an exciting experience to visit some Buddhist temples and pray with real monks in Thailand.

Not to generalize any group of people, but Thai people are known to be likeable people who are open to mingling with other people. As a natural extravert, mingling with strangers in Thailand will be easy as learning ABC 123 for me.

For a nature enthusiast like myself, I'll really enjoy hanging out in local Thai beaches, appreciating the smallest pleasures such as the waves of the turquoise oceans, alluring palm trees, the lush greenery, and the golden sunshine shining on my beach body. Seeing, photographing, and staying overnight in overwater bungalows and villas will also be a unique, memorable experience, because there are none to be noticed in Canada.

This drawing I did on an overwater bungalow in Thailand was done in my 11 x 14" sketchbook with pencils, markers, and pencil crayons. This drawing is a depiction of my strong desire to stay in an overwater bungalow or villa when I travel to Thailand in the near future. You can use my drawing as inspiration to create your own drawing of an overwater bungalow or villa, or you can turn this drawing into a painting in any style you want. If you'd love to visit Thailand at one point in your life, this art piece will be a good source of art inspiration for you!

2. Mongolia

My wildest dream is to sojourn to the remote areas of Mongolia, stay with a host family in a yurt, and do a cultural exchange with the locals, but I doubt that will ever happen. My other option is to travel to the capital city of Ulaanbaatar and visit some popular tourist sites such as the Bogd Khaan Palace Museum, Sukhbaatar Square, Galleria Ulaanbaatar, Dashchoilin Monastery, and the Narantuul Bazaar. I'd also want to visit some local Mongolian bookstores, attend some cultural festivals, relax and commune with nature at some local city parks, and muck on some Mongolian delicacies such as gambir (fried flour cakes), huurshuur (deep fried meat pies), and bansh (small dumplings). I try not to eat too much gluten, mainly for lifestyle reasons. While I'm visiting Mongolia, I'll have to go wild on gluten, because it'll be challenging to limit your gluten intake with all the high gluten dishes served in Mongolia.

This surrealist drawing of a Mongolian yurt was done in my 9 x 12" sketchbook with pencils and markers. The bowl of ice cream symbolizes ths sweetest of my dreams to visit Mongolia one day, and the yurt on top of the ice cream represents the one place I'll want to visit during my dream trip to Mongolia. Although yurts are great things to draw if you want to draw or paint a picture of your dream trip to Mongolia, you can also draw other things like temples, Genghis Khan, the Mongolian flag, and monasteries.

This Mongolian yurt drawing is completely customizable and can be transformed into any style of drawing or painting. If you’re dying to visit Mongolia in the future, use this drawing as inspiration and create your own version of this drawing I did!

3. Ethiopia

This tropical destination is not marked on many peoples travel bucket list, but it’s been on my travel bucket list for the last four years.

This abstract, surrealist drawing of the momentous Obelisk of Axum depicts my strong desire to visit Ethiopia one day. I don't want to forget that this is another one of my dream destinations, so I drew a crepe with an Obelisk of Axum-shaped sausage to remind myself that I will go when the time is right. The colours of the crepe are the colours of the flag of Ethiopia. I did this drawing in my 9 x 12" sketchbook, and was inspired by authentic Ethiopian dishes like Awaze Tibs. Awaze Tibs is spicy, stewed lamb cubes.

I picked the Obelisk of Axum for this drawing, because it was the first one that came to mind. You don't have to use the Obelisk of Axum to do this drawing. If you'd love to visit Ethiopia one day, use this drawing as inspiration and create your own version of this drawing,

You can also pick any type of building or tourist attraction in Ethiopia and transform it into any style of drawing or painting of your choice.

4. India

My interest in Indian culture and cuisine began at the young age of nine years old. It all started when I discovered a commerical for spicy Doritos that was set in India. I got hooked on it, and I watched it several times on YouTube. Besides the unexpected discovery of the Doritos commerical, my dad recommended he and I pay a visit to Udupi Palace, a local Indian vegetarian restaurant in Little India, an ethnic enclave in downtown Toronto. I was nine years old when my father, his good friend, and I had our first Indian vegetarian meal at Udupi Palace, and I was continuing to overcome my challenge with fussy eating. Spicy food wasn't my cup of tea, and I couldn't handle eating some of the extremely spicy dishes my dad and his friend ordered, but I tried it out!

My memorable trip to Udupi Palace was only the beginning of my Indian culture journey. It continued into my adolescence and adulthood. I've continued to make friends and maintain connections with people from many parts of South Asia: Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India!

This drawing called Dreaming of Agra is inspired by one of the most iconic places I want to see when I visit India one day: Agra. This drawing was done in my 11 x 14" sketch pad with pencils, markers, and pencil crayons. You can recreate this drawing using a new Indian landmark you like, or you can recreate this exact drawing I did, but transform it into a different art style such as cubism, abstract, anime, etc. Anyway you decide to transform or recreate this drawing is entirely up to you, and it'll look flawless either way!

If you wish to visit India at one point in your life, this drawing will inspire you.

5. Egypt

Egypt has been a destination I’ve bookmarked since I was in my senior years of high school. When I was in the 11th grade, I took an interesting course called Ancient History, which was one of my favourite courses of all time. In that course, I’ve learned about everything from ancient Mesopotamia to Ancient Rome. Ancient Egypt was one of my top three ancient civilizations to explore, because I was able to discover a heap of cool things such as hieroglyphics, Egyptian gods and goddesses, and rulers. Studying and exploring ancient Egypt was like taking a trip to another part of the Middle East. The ancient history course I took in high school got me hooked on ancient myths and legends, especially Egyptian myths and legends.

There are heaps of places to visit in Egypt, but I’d most likely want to see are The Pyramids of Giza, The Nile River and Luxor Temple. I’d want to visit anywhere that gives me the opportunity to delve deeper into the ancient history, culture, language, and spirituality of Egypt. It’ll bring back fond memories from high school, and it’ll help me retain what I’ve been studying on my spare time.

This abstract drawing of The Pyramids of Giza was inspired by the pineapple house in SpongeBob SquarePants. Instead of drawing the pineapple house, I drew The Pyramids of Giza, pretending it was located underwater. I did this drawing in my 9 x 12” sketchbook with pencils, markers, and pencil crayons.

If Egypt has been on your travel bucket list for a long time, but you can’t cross it off yet, you can draw or paint a SpongeBob SquarePants-style picture of one of the popular tourist sites you’d want to visit during your dream trip to Egypt. The Pyramids of Giza was the one I chose for this drawing, but you can draw any place you wish!

Thank you for taking the time to read another one of my listicles! If you enjoyed reading this listicle, please give it a ❤️, share it with others, comment, and feel free to send me a tip/pledge to show your appreciation and support.

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IG: @tdwrites24 (my writing IG) and @taliascreations331(my visual arts and photography IG)

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PS: I have a gigantic list of dream destinations to visit in the near future. This is only a miniature list of some of the dream destinations I have in mind. To know more about my other dream destinations, please feel free to read My Dream Destination: The Republic of Tatarstan, Russia, My Dream Destination: China, My Dream Destination: Japan, and one of my travel inspired poems called Dear Vietnam.