WEBCAMALOT

Go ahead -- tell me with a straight face this is
worth visiting family.

I may have said this before, but it's worth repeating (mainly because it's all I have to say
right now): I strongly dislike traveling. 

I mean, I've enjoyed the places my wife and I have visited -- Switzerland, the South of France, the British countryside, the Caribbean, Iceland -- but the actual traveling to get there often puts me off the whole idea of vacationing in the first place.

Getting to the airport either by cab or public transportation. Then spending hours at the ant farms known as airports. Then spending several more hours in a stuffy plane crammed with hundreds of others like jarred pimento olives. Then disembarking the plane, getting the luggage (if it arrived with you, that is). Then getting a cab to the hotel, while hoping the driver doesn't take you for the rube that you are... Unless you own a private jet, the physical act of traveling is right up there with dental work performed by a nitrous oxide addict.

The Virgin Islands haven't changed much since we
honeymooned there 30 years ago.

So thank the gods of the internet for providing me with the perfect solution to my hodophobia. (Although technically, I have a hatred, not a fear, of traveling.) All I need to do is turn on the TV, click the YouTube app, and search for any number of the live webcams from around the world.

Think of it! Every ten seconds or so, you can see a different part of the world -- live! -- from the comfort of your couch without having to do anything more strenuous than mixing a margarita to pretend you really are lying on a tropical beach. 

Frankly, Japan doesn't look all that interesting.

The tropics not you're thing during this heatwave? Hang tight, my friend! In a few seconds, you'll be swept to a cool drizzly ski lodge in Finland. Or a foggy view of Chile. 

Prefer some excitement? Well, there's plenty of action in downtown Seoul. Pretty much any major (or minor) city in the world will show up if you wait long enough. Too, these sites provide the perfect out for the 37% of Americans who don't (and likely never will) own a passport. 

Now, these sites are all well and good, but I'd like to see webcams pointed at the places that will give you an idea of what the world is really like:

• Nancy Pelosi's house when her husband is trading on inside information.
• The gym where Sen. Josh Hawley practices his running skills.
• Bruce Springsteen's den as he writes another song about the working man as his concert tickets are going for $5,000 each.
• The Senate lounge as Mitch McConnell toasts himself with a glass of Old Crow for convincing his voters that cutting taxes for the rich is good as his state remains #47 in poverty.
• A dinner hosted by Bill de Blasio while his friends assure him that he has a future in politics while they help themselves to his best liquor.
• Kanye West's house as his assistants gently wrap him in his straitjacket for the night.
• Boris Johnson's bathroom he spends three hours trying to get his hair to look like he just got out of bed.
• The DNC headquarters as their officials pray that their voters don't realize Democrats did nothing about guns or abortion when they had the chance.
• The RNC headquarters as their officials pray their voters don't find out most married Republican Congressmen have paid for their sidepiece's abortions.

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