COVID-19 and travel plans

I’ve been contemplating whether to post about the Corona situation or not. My initial thought was not to, but in the end, I decided to do so anyway. The situation is new and foreign to all of us, and everyone is experiencing the effects in some way. It may seem frivolous to think and post about traveling in this situation, but this is a travel blog after all. This post is in no way intended to downplay the severity of the situation.

So far, the virus has not affected our plans much. We had tentative plans to go visit friends in Germany at the beginning of May but had nothing booked so we simply let our friends know that we will postpone the visit. Also, my niece who lives Brussels had planned a visit to Finland right after Easter but naturally she will not be able to come. Hopefully we can see her after the virus situation calms down.

Personally, the big disappointment for me will be if we cannot carry out the trip we have planned for late June. My 30-year high school reunion is planned for the last weekend in June in Tahoe City, California. We have plans to fly to San Francisco and drive up to Tahoe for the reunion. After the weekend we plan to drive to Las Vegas and spend 4 nights there before flying home. I’m really looking forward to this trip, particularly since we’ve never been to Vegas before. I’m still hopeful we may be able to travel by then, but hubby is more pessimistic about it. So far, we have booked all accommodations for the trip, but they can all be canceled without extra fees up to a couple of days before the stay. I’m holding off with booking flights and hoping we’ll be wiser by mid-May. I will be truly bummed if we cannot make this trip but am making backup plans if this is the case.

If our trip to the US will not become reality, we will only take two weeks of vacation in summer and save most of the vacation time to later in the year. Then the plan would be to make a longer (maybe two-week) trip to somewhere further away. One possibility could be New Zealand or Australia, but this is all just speculation at this point.

Whatever happens I cannot wait to be able to travel again. This being said, we are and will continue to follow all official guidelines and recommendations regarding the virus. We are both working from home for the time being and minimizing any physical contact with other people. Nothing irks me more than people who are not taking this situation seriously and ignoring the recommendations. This will only result in the special circumstances being prolonged.

Stay safe out there and remember we can dream of new adventures and look back at old ones until we can start traveling again.