Earlier this month, someone tweeted out a picture of the New York Times’ Sunday travel section. What, they asked, was the point of having a travel section over the next two months?
An understandable reaction. Yet the point of travel journalism right now may be what the point of travel journalism always was: fantasizing about places you may one day get to see yourself—or never visit at all, but still marvel at, from a distance.
Most of us can’t travel now. We are staying at home, or as close to home as possible, to help protect others and ourselves. We are rediscovering—or noticing for the first time—things about our immediate surroundings: the shape of a tree on the corner, the way the light cuts through a room around 3.
And we are doing a lot of gazing out windows.
Which made us think of “The View From Your Window,” an old feature from Andrew Sullivan’s blog the Dish. And of Matteo Pericoli’s book The City out My Window. There seemed to be new comfort in the possibility of seeing more of the world through others’ eyes. With that in mind, we want you, Slate readers and listeners, from around the world, to send us pictures taken from your home. Show us what you’re looking at outside while you’re working or what you see when you open your bedroom shades each morning. Slate staff have kicked it off with their own views, from New York to Wisconsin to California. Contribute a photograph or, if you’re so inspired, a drawing of the view.
Let us do a little traveling.
Update, March 27: Thanks to the many of you who sent photos! We’re overwhelmed by the response—and your beautiful views. We’ll publish our favorites in a post early next week.
