Tell me about the cooking. Learning any good recipes?

Oh, I'm not doing anything fancy. It's just like in Italy, it's all about the ingredients. I've got a box coming from the farm every Tuesday, and we see what's in the box and we cook that up. But I literally had never cut an onion in my life. I'd never made pasta. I've never turned on my oven. Now I'm very comfortable with all that, because it's kind of like traveling without leaving home.

I loved that profile of you in The New York Times Magazine last year, and one quote that struck me was when you said: "I get energy from traveling. It's like I'm breathing straight oxygen. What would I do if I stayed home? Nothing I would remember." Now that you have to stay home, how are you staying energized?

That’s funny, because when I go to Europe, I can remember every meal for the last month. When I'm in my normal routine at home, it's not that remarkable, but during this crisis it is kind of fun to think, What are the big adventures? Yesterday we had two people come over, and we sat on the porch and we felt the warmth of the sun, and we had a little bit of a social connection keeping our sanity. That was a big deal.

There's a sort of an intimacy that you wouldn't have otherwise, and the big question for a lot of us is “Will anything good come out of this when we're done?” Will we realize that "Hey, we just gave the Earth a little breath of fresh air. We just all got off the rat race and we enjoyed the sunset." I mean, I've enjoyed the sunset every time it's clear when the sun goes down. It's a performance. You might not be so mindful of that otherwise.

Which trips did you have to cancel this year?

Every year I spend April and May in the Mediterranean. I go home in June and then [spend] July and August north of the Alps. For the last 30 or 40 years, and it's three parts of my work: A third of the time I'm alone, working with local guide companies on my guide books, a third of the time I'm making TV shows, and then a third of the time I'm working with my tour program.

I'm not comfortable with it. You do kind of play the cards you're dealt and remember this is tough times for us, but for a lot of people this is the norm. They don't have the option to cancel a trip. We've got to be mindful that this crisis is inconveniencing those of us who are well-employed and have the money to travel, but it's a serious crisis for people south of the border. I think that's easy to not be mindful of. So I'm remembering that as we deal with our challenges.

What are your predictions for how the travel industry will weather this? Do you suspect that people will be so eager to get out that they'll be traveling more, or will they be more cautious?

I think it's going to be tempered a little bit. I think we're going to be a less affluent world. There will always be travel. People are always going to want to travel. Will they be going on cruise ships? Probably not so much. Maybe not at all.

A friend of mine runs a museum, and he thinks that a third of all the museums in the United States will not reopen after this crisis. That's a very sad prospect, and I just hope and pray that people recognize the value of these things that are higher up on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. First, we have to have affordable housing and food banks for people who are hungry, and thoughtful, compassionate government policies. But we also have to have the arts and we have to have education and we have to have a lot of things that add quality and luster to our lives. Travel is one of those, and I'll do what I can to help nurture that along, but I don't expect we're going to snap out of this quickly.