If you are a person who loves to travel?

[Lelophants]

What are your thoughts about the future of travel? Feels a bit depressing to me! What do you think you will do?

I knew I'd be out of it for a bit with a new baby but now starting to feel the pangs of never going away, no abroad experience to plan for. Especially with brexit, it makes me feel really sad.

I know this is mainly about holidays, but I like to travel for cultural reasons.
I think a lot of people wanting to travel the UK are in for a shock with the new back door laws from Pritti racist Patel, Boris, Gove and Moggy.
Don't think you can stop and sleep in a caravan anywhere, you have to use the gypsy camps now.
Thia along with no holidays abroad will be the last straw for many.

I used to love travel, but I’ve accepted that I need to cut down on flying, so haven’t flown since 2016. I was hoping to take DD to France this year, by train. I don’t know if that will happen.

During the first lockdown, I read a guidebook to Switzerland and planned a future trip. It was good escapism.

And yes, travelling to the EU won’t feel quite the same after Brexit. I miss the old feeling of freedom and opportunity.

I used to travel for pleasure monthly (plus business trips in between).

I had 7 trips booked and cancelled between March and September last year.

It will get back to some semblance of normal, however I believe it will end up being like the yellow fever vaccine - some countries will only let you in with proof of vaccination.

If tourism doesn’t begin again, huge numbers of people in third world countries who depend on it will fall deeper into poverty and whole communities won’t survive. I usually do a few trips a year staying at home stays in small villages, who get significant income from the few tourists they get. There’s already a lot of ‘boutique’ hotels not reopening. The economy especially in south east Asia needs a way of tourism reopening

I’m booking a trip for this September, preemptive and risky I know but mentally I need something to look forward to!

Am I mad?

No you're not mad. I've rearranged my long haul trip from last July to this July as I can cancel it up to 24 hours before. If it goes ahead, it's something nice to look forward to. If it doesn't, I've lost nothing.

If you can’t buy a non electric car after 2030, can’t have a gas boiler etc, this government aren’t going to be allowing you to travel on airlines.

We go away about 3 times a year, we are budget travellers and mostly do city breaks. I used to Google flights every day to see if we could go places on the cheap, 3 holidays have been cancelled since the restrictions. I've lost total I terest now, if countries are going to insist on PRC testing it will bump up the price too much, also budget airlines will have to recover their losses somehow, Easyjet have already reduced their baggage limit. Its all going to get much more expensive when things do recover I fear.

If the vaccine doesn’t stop you spreading COVID, why would you be allowed to travel abroad anywhere quarantine free?

Like someone else said above, I had a baby this year, so wasn't planning many trips in my babys first year. I'm kind of selfishly glad I'm not sitting at home looking at everyone's travel pics etc so it's been a good time to have a baby in that sense.

Travel will come back, and I'll be ready to go when it does, I can't wait to share my love of seeing the world with my child. But this is why I'm so glad I've done a lot of travelling already...Just incase suddenly that option is taken away!

As the world opens up again, surely COVID will just spread again?

I LOVE to travel.

A lot of my family & friends are in NZ

I'm not thinking too far ahead.

First stop - February half term (hoping they'll keep the schools closed to non KW/V children & I hope they do it for the full next half term as that stops me stressing so much).

Next stop hoping to get my vaccination (L6 - hoping for End of Feb)

...at which point I'll TRY to appreciate the spring/summer this year (didn't last year) but just at home. Not thinking past that point. Not expecting to feel safe enough to stay away from home. Especially out of the UK

Friends/family in NZ - FaceTime/whatsapp until god knows when, but best not to think about it.

Happy to continue with masks, social
distancing etc.

I'm 51, so not young & not old - the world will still be there when this is all much kess if a risk & there's more treatment/less stressed NHS.

@Funkypolar

If you can’t buy a non electric car after 2030, can’t have a gas boiler etc, this government aren’t going to be allowing you to travel on airlines.

Nonsense

@LH1987

I’m booking a trip for this September, preemptive and risky I know but mentally I need something to look forward to!

Am I mad?

Will you have been vaccinated?

What country?

WitchesBritchesPumpkinPants - there is a new Green Agenda in case you hadn’t noticed. Plus with climate change, we should all be limiting our carbon footprint.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/science-environment-54981425

Hopefully, the vaccines will stop people spreading Covid. But they haven’t been around long enough for us to know if they do or not. Time will tell.

I’d be happy for other countries to insist on proof of vaccination before travel. As long as those who can’t be vaccinated for medical reasons are exempt.

Similar to you OP. DH and I love holidays, we went abroad 4 or 5 times a year before Covid. Travel was going to be reduced anyway as DD was born 10 months ago but we were still planning trips abroad twice a year. Had to cancel a holiday to Greece due to the pandemic which we were gutted about and another trip didn't get booked as there's no way we'd have been able to go this month. No idea how things will look in the next couple of years but I'll be upset if we can't go away in the next 12 months. We haven't been abroad now since I was 16-18 weeks pregnant which was 16 months ago and I'm desperate to get away again.

I feel the same. We last went abroad in December 2019, and missed a dream holiday this year.

I've been worrying about the proposed travel passport, and as DH and I will be some of the last to be vaccinated, I worry it'll be impossible to go anywhere again this year.

I’ve got a holiday booked for May. I still browse holiday destinations (dreaming) I’ve even booked 2 holidays for 2022! It makes me feel happier about the situation.

@Funkypolar

If the vaccine doesn’t stop you spreading COVID, why would you be allowed to travel abroad anywhere quarantine free?

You wouldn't be able to leave your house if the aim was for no one to ever catch Covid. The vaccine reduces symptoms. Along with vaccines and negative tests, foreign travel will open up again.

@Funkypolar

If you can’t buy a non electric car after 2030, can’t have a gas boiler etc, this government aren’t going to be allowing you to travel on airlines.

Hahaha.

I love to travel and before corona I easily averaged 50-60 flights a year. Most of it was for work and I miss it so much. I'm in performing arts so going to different countries and experiencing different venues and meeting other people in my industry was such a big part of our professional and artistic development.

It's simply not the same experience when we're only allowed to perform in-house. We had a short tour within the country in autumn and that felt so good, being able to share what we do with people who can't see us live in our venue normally.

I hope with the vaccine roll-out more and more countries will start to open their borders again (I'd be happy if they asked for proof of vaccination as they do nowadays with negative Covid tests), I can't wait to be able to travel extensively again. I'm more of a world citizen than I am a European/my country's one.

@GypsyLee I’ve heard this comes in in Portugal next week; where you can’t park vans or anything to sleep in unless you’re in a designated area? And Spain was considering it too. I didn’t know we’d taken the same stance.

I miss travel and it was mostly to see family. It was already expensive for me though due to needing extra travel insurance. May now be prohibitive.

I do think that we'll be able to go away this summer- at least to European countries who rely on tourism. Whether it will be a pleasant experience is a different matter though- if we need to produce negative tests before going anywhere I personally can't be bothered- and if infection rates are still high and social distancing is required there will be no fun in it. I can't see any European countries (Denmark perhaps?) asking for proof of vaccination as early as this summer. I also wouldn't want to risk getting ill away from home/the UK.

In the future I guess people will go away for longer trips - no point paying to get tested just for a weekend break. Perhaps in a few years we'll look back on all the short trips we used to make and think it was ridiculous (from a climate change perspective it is). I feel lucky that I've been able to see quite a few places already.

On a flippant note I'm also not going away until hotel breakfast buffets are reinstated !

Travel and tourism will come back as soon as the companies and governments can feasibly allow it, without incurring any blame themselves for the consequences. That's capitalism. It might mean having a vaccination/test/isolating. But it will be back as soon as it can be-- because it's worth a shed load of money.