It dawned on me yesterday that normally at this point in the year, I would probably have my wheels spinning and would be starting to plan next year’s vacations.
I’ve often booked summer lodging as early as November/ December, and I usually spend big chunks of time in the winter after the holidays researching and planning itineraries for the upcoming year.
We have NO trips on the calendar so far for 2021. This makes me really sad. I’m grateful that we did get to go Upper Michigan + Florida this summer, despite the pandemic!! Those trips were amazing. I’m not complaining, really- under the circumstances, I feel lucky that we were able to safely go anywhere at all.
I’m just missing the thrill and emotion of starting to plan a trip to a new, faraway place, with people, activities, crowds(!), hotels, public transport, museums, etc. Even trying to plan a longer, domestic road trip sounds overwhelming right now, with such high levels of uncertainty everywhere and cases back on the rise. It makes it impossible at this point to anticipate if a spring break trip could be feasible, or even next summer. And even if they are…to where? And what would it be like? I want a REAL trip, not some weird Covid altered shell of a trip.
I’m actually longing for a “big city” trip right now. I love the outdoors, and our Michigan trip was beautiful. But I guess after all of these months of limited social interaction, the idea of tootling around in Dublin or Paris (or somewhere similar), feeling the vibe of the city, sitting in cafes, window shopping, touring museums…just sounds incredible to me right now.
(I’m secretly holding out hope that somehow by next August it could be safe for us to re-book our Europe trip, or at LEAST the Ireland part to see my sister and family.)
On the bright side! Trip planning takes up a LOT of time for me. I wouldn’t say I plan every detail and we don’t adhere to a strict itinerary or anything like that when we travel, but I do like to have done my research and just know a lot about the area and what options there are. So, I guess if we’re going to look for positives, I’m currently saving time. 😉
The closest thing to “exploring” I could do this week…checking out a marsh just down the street from Asher’s swim practice last night, about 20 minutes from home. I have been going to this place for years and had NO IDEA this was here. Apparently my research is limited to places outside of my hometown! I took a 40 minute walk here just before sunset and the views were just breathtaking.
Daily Gratitude:
GRATEFUL KAE 
I hear you and I feel you! I'm the one in charge of ALL the planning and booking and I miss it! sometimes I complain about it but most of the time I enjoy having the freedom to choose where to go what to do and have my family just go along. Fortunately we have two beach trips planned already this year, and I hope next year we can do abroad, I want to do a road trip to New Zealand, or simply go to china to spend time with our families. Either way, i'm embracing the change, it will just make our trips more special.
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I love planning travel, too! It's almost as fun as the trip. We cancelled our summer vacation early but then I really regretted it. Now it seems even more risky to travel than it did before, and a lot of places are requiring quarantine to enter. Argh…
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New Zealand would be amazing!! That's totally on my bucket list of places I would love to go.
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Ugh that's such a bummer!!! And I agree- planning the trip definitely feels like "part" of the trip almost to me, too! 🙂
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You also went to Mexico earlier in the year this year. Between those three trips, I'd say you traveled more in a pandemic year than most people do in a regular year! :-)I love planning trips too. It's almost as much fun as going on the trip itself. There's just such a sense of possibility about it all. I love researching all the options, planning the places to stay and the places to eat. It's just marvelous. But you're right that it's time consuming. And to be honest, if I could go anywhere right now, I think it would be somewhere that involves no planning at all. Like a tropical beach – somewhere with great food and perfect weather. And no kids! 🙂 don't think I've even been out of our county since March so a change of scenery – any change of scenery at all – would be welcome. Fingers crossed for next year, I guess, sigh….
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I miss travel, too. I'm glad that we got a trip to FL in back in Feb before things got bad here in the US. I don't see us going anywhere until spring of 2022. We are not 'travel with a baby' kind of people. I know some people do but it's just not fun for us. At this point I am just hoping we can safely visit my parents at their lake home next summer… we won't do that until everyone is vaccinated as there are some in my family who don't think covid is a big deal…
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