If you are contemplating the idea of being Global from Home, here are a few ways to get started!

1. Volunteer with the local refugee community
2. Read a book that takes place in your favorite global destination
3. Try a new ethnic restaurant and ask the waiter for the most authentic dish
4. Send postcards from home
5. Donate to a scholarship fund to help students study abroad
6. Get a pen pal
7. Make a plan to practice your foreign language and keep it up!
8. Go see a foreign film with a good friend
9. Become a local guide for your city
10. Find a language partner
11. Host an international potluck
12. Make a reading list that transverses the globe
13. Live vicariously through other bloggers who are abroad
14. Shop at an Asian market
15. Take a walk down memory lane looking at old travel photos
16. Pin past and future travel spots on Pinterest
17. Buy internationally-themed holiday gifts
18. Talk to strangers
19. Try different coffees from around the world
20. Go to the opera
21. Join Postcrossing
22. See a Shakespeare play
23. Take a sushi class
24. Buy a molcajete and make some real Mexican dishes
25. Include your global experiences on your resume
26. Practice how you could answer interview questions with what you learned abroad
27. Consider a career in international education
28. Find a place of worship with an international focus
29. Eat with your hands at an Ethiopian restaurant
30. Have a cup of coffee with international visitors in your city
31. Visit cultural districts in your town like Little Italy, China Town, or the Asian District
32. Live out of a suitcase for a week…from home
33. Explore your own city like it was a foreign destination
34. Make origami
35. Check out Meet Up for internationally themed events
36. Watch international sporting events
37. Buy country-specific children’s books for your kids or for gifts
38. Decorate your home with pictures and art from your travels
39. Make a recipe each week from a different country
40. Learn a card game played abroad
41. Do a little international house hunting for fun
42. Make your own hometown cards
43. Turn your pictures into jewelry
44. Take a siesta
45. Celebrate your birthday with traditions from around the world
46. Research and make your travel bucket list
47. Nominate an Abroad Blog of the Week
48. Borrow an ethnic cookbook from the local library
49. Join internationally-themed groups on Facebook
50. Do a little pottering
51. Share your favorite spots and itineraries with friends planning travel
52. Get a subscription to National Geographic
53. Start an international book club
54. Go to cultural festivals
55. Shop at online fair trade stores
56. Start planning your next trip whether it will happen or not
57. Collect international stamps or coins
58. Host a 20×20 party
59. Search You Tube for videos to help your language skills
60. Watch a documentary about a culture you know nothing about
61. Go to a flea market
62. Swap travel books with a friend
63. Do a presentation on your travels for a local elementary school
64. Listen to a lecture on TED from scholars around the globe
65. Reread old travel journals
66. Learn to make Belgian crepes
67. Donate to an international organization that is doing a project you really believe in
68. Make a list of what you learned abroad
69. Get certified to teach English as a second language
70. Celebrate a new holiday popular in your favorite abroad location
71. Invite international friends over to your house for the holidays
72. Fundraise for a good cause by hosting country-specific dinners
73. Keep a vocabulary journal
74. Read fairy tales from different cultures
75. Be global on vacation, no matter where you are
76. Make a love lock
77. Sponsor a child abroad
78. Host a foreign film night
79. Take afternoon tea
80. Retell a funny story from abroad
81. Learn the names of all 194 countries
82. Follow the elections of your previous host country
83. Laugh at your travel blunders
84. Share your own culture
85. Take a course with a global focus at your local community college
86. Rate hotels, restaurants, and attractions from your travels on Trip Advisor
87. Download popular songs from your previous host country and sing along
88. Laugh at all the things you said your first time abroad
89. Play bocce ball
90. Host an exchange student
91. Download music sang in a language you don’t know
92. Follow international fashion trends
93. Empower kids to see the world
94. Visit your local zoo and find out where all the animals are from
95. Hang a map with all your past and future travels
96. Use an online language tool
97. Skype with friends who are still abroad
98. Find your favorite adinkra symbol
99. Read online newspapers from your previous host country
100. Follow Global from Home

Note to my Non-American Readers: If any of these are from your local culture, replace it with some American Southern cooking, play a game of American football, or read one of my favorite American novels: Wench, The Secret Life of Bees, or Rules of Civility.