MOVIES ARE MY COMFORT FOOD, and have been since I was 8 and my parents gave me my first memorable Christmas gift: a VHS tape of “Singin’ in the Rain,” which I watched on repeat for the next five years. As an isolated teenager in New Mexico, all I had to do was drive half an hour to the abundance of movie theaters around Santa Fe to visit other countries and lives. And as an adult, pop culture wasn’t something I consumed casually. I breathed it, partly because my job required it and partly because I loved being in the know. TV shows I’d missed the night before, I’d stream on Hulu over breakfast. Podcasts got me through my morning subway commute. Daytimes, I’d be reporting on something I’d seen. Evening brought more movie-viewing and conversations with friends about the entertainment-industry tissue that connected us all.

Had weight and size not been an issue, I would’ve packed a small screening room in my luggage.

In lieu of that, I had an iPad, iPod and iPhone prepped with enough downloads to get me through 2020. What if I found myself on consecutive five-hour flights with nothing to entertain me? How else would I make my way through a hundred dinners alone in unfamiliar cities?

I was armoring myself with the familiar, in my native language — movies, music, TV shows, books — to ward off my fears of everything new and scary. After an exhausting day of speaking Spanish in Costa Rica, I could unwind with an episode of “Orange Is the New Black.” Stuck in the limbo of a logistical snag? That was just the right amount of time to indulge in a rom-com on Netflix, or text with my friends back home about that rom-com on Netflix.

Then, on the first plane ride of my trip, from New York to New Orleans, I was too nervous and excited to look at my iPad. More plane and train and bus and car rides went by, and the iPad stayed in the bag, as I slept, or worked, or watched incredible scenery. Soon it became dead weight, an annoyance that only left my bag at airport security checks. I barely noticed when I forgot it in a Denver hotel room; then, five months in, I left it at a friend’s house in Los Angeles and never missed it.

That worry of being bored never came up again. Culture was all around me. I went to more museums that I had in five years. (Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo and the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver were highlights). I never heard Ariana Grande’s song thanking her exes, but I can say definitively that “Despacito” was the most popular song on the planet in 2018. There are talented street musicians everywhere from Belgrade, Serbia, to La Paz, Bolivia, who can play it ably on everything from accordions to trumpets.