Monet Izabeth’s Tips on How to Teleport During Quarantine
For those who know me, it wasn’t too much of a shock that I was stranded in Greenland during a pandemic. I’ve eked a living out of traveling to hard-to-reach places, my parents resigned to the fact that their youngest daughter prefers staggering uncertainty in favor of a stable paycheck.
In early March, I arrived in Sisimiut, Greenland to film a dog sledding adventure along one of the oldest trails in human history. For five days, sixteen dogs hauled four humans through jaw-dropping scenery in toe-freezing temperatures.
When we re-entered cell reception, we crash landed back to reality. While I had been running alongside a sled to keep circulation in my legs, the epidemic had become a pandemic, borders were closing and Trump had announced a European travel ban.
The first 36 hours after getting off the dog sled was a maelstrom of what-ifs and what-nows. Regulations and restrictions were changing daily. An hour before my flight was to leave Greenland, I decided not to get on it. It seemed safer to stay put for the moment, even if that meant staying indefinitely.
As I watched my plane take off without me, I had one sinking regret: why had I not packed more books?!
My friends tease me that I’m either traveling or reading. I like to say I’m a hermit with international tendencies. While traveling, I’ll try anything once––even if it’s raw seal liver straight from the kill. At home, I’m a creature of well-practiced habits, who reads while walking her lumbering basset hound. Before I made a career out of getting lost in foreign countries, I was traveling to Lands Beyond from the warmth of my bed. It makes perfect sense to me that the kid who chose reading over playdates went on to become a solo travel fanatic.
Both books and solo travel are able to give you that outsider-on-the-inside feeling. Solitary acts that bring you into a community while also keeping you at a distance. Both time-stamped moments with an expiration date. Even the greatest books need to end at some point, just as a traveler by definition will eventually move on. And when revisiting both books and countries, you’ll often find the experience will never be the same twice.
Turns out English language books are hard to come by in Greenland. After four months of rationing out my limited literary supplies, I returned home to the U.S. at the end of June. Since landing on American soil, my reading habits can only be described as gluttonous. I picked up Queenie, aptly, in Heathrow and spent the seven hour plane ride to Boston devouring Candice Carty-Williams’s raw humor. Over the next five days, I binged novel after beach read after Sasquatch murder mystery. Eventually, I felt sated enough to crack into the historical deep dive I didn’t know I’d been waiting for, finding pace and nourishment in Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns.
With travel in limbo at the moment, I am––more than ever before––pulled to books with a strong sense of place, ones that make you feel like you’re anywhere but on your couch in the middle of a pandemic. Whether you’re looking for a vicarious adventure or to fall in love with trees, I’ve got all bases covered on my list of 10 books to teleport you away during quarantine! Head over to Books Are Magic’s Instagram stories today (also saved in a highlight at the top of their page) or click here to see the full list.
Monet is a feminist adventurer with 50+ countries in her passport and pretty much no shame. When she's not hosting Matador Network's Original Series, Who Knows Where, you can find her reading-while-walking her slobbery basset hound in New England. Join Monet’s Patreon to get a 15% discount at Books Are Magic.
