Your first vaccinated trip
 

Will your first trip be “like we usually do” or an all-out celebration?
It seems some will opt to make up for lost time/opportunities and others will just resume their customary habits.

I’m on the fence but have plenty of time to decide before our turn for the vaccine 💉

We had to cancel 3-4 trips this year, so we're considering a six week 'make-up' trip to Europe, 2-3 weeks longer than our usual. Otherwise, it will be what we usually do, meaning a few weeks in Switzerland, with Italy and Austria thrown into the mix.

We've saved a bundle by not traveling this year, but will probably resume our customary habits of traveling off season and staying in moderately priced apartments. No big splash outs planned, although I suspect we'll travel more frequently and for longer periods of time.

There's talk of a month long return trip to the SI of NZ as well, although also off season because that's just how we roll.

Our first trip will be a much delayed and longed for trip to Western Australia to see family--the minute WAs opens it borders we're on our way to the airport! After that, I’m not so sure. We’ve spent our travel refunds on a kitchen reno and some less fun but necessary maintenance. Also, I think the pandemic has knocked some of the psychological stuffing out of me. Before the virus hit we were in the ‘do it while we still can’ phase of life. We still can, but don’t seem to have the same desire. Maybe that will change when life feels more predictable again.

Seem there is much hope now - that thanks to the vaccine - we are back to normal soon!

My first trip will be to visit my son, who lives in the same country as me (Australia) but another state so we've been unable to travel there until now. Haven't seen him since February. Don't need a vaccine for that.

I worry about the environmental impact of my travels - particularly flights - and as I live in Australia but love to visit Europe, I go less frequently but for as long as I can manage. I'm hoping to use my full 90 day allowance to visit Greece but not sure whether that will be 2022 or later. I'm not convinced that travel will be sensible or enjoyable next year but who knows?!

Us too - I feel like the universe owes us. So maybe two trips and hotels should be reasonable?

I have one small trip planned for next March vaccine or no vaccine -- three days in Yosemite which is only a 4 hour drive from my house so no flights involved. As long as the park isn't in lock down I'll do that one for sure.

I had a trip to London and Wiltshire planned for July which of course was cancelled (no refunds involved since only a ticket to a special event was paid for and that was rolled over to next year). I had hoped my next big trip would be to South Africa . . . But I think if travel does open up and vaccines prove to be truly effective, my fist 'real trip' will be back to London. It is a place I am totally comfortable and a way to get my toes back in the water so to speak and see how I feel about international travel. I on't need/want 'exotic' for the first venture. Assuming that trip takes place and there are no major hiccups . . . its Katie bar the door and I'm going to use all my travel budget left unspent this year traveling a lot and ticking off several bucket list items in the next couple of years.

We had a 17 night trip planned to Utah for January to visit the National Parks we find too busy during the season, but alas, I'm about to cancel that too. I optimistically booked it about three months ago, but things have gotten worse, not better.

I'm really tired of cancelling trips.

I plan to do as I usually do. I have reservations for Uzès and Paris for late May/early June. I can cancel until 31 March, so that's my deadline for the first jab. As long as restaurants are open and folks can wander, I'll travel.

I live in Germany, so I have good faith in the vaccine & distribution.

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Swandav, Sure hope you manage to get that vaccine by your deadline. You are right to think that you probably have a better chance to make it given your current location. Good luck, and as Rick would say, keep on traveling.

We have booked our lodging in Italy for September but hope to visit family in the US before then.

We also saved quite a bit with three cancelled trips this year and one in early 2021. Currently our first trip will be to Japan in late May though it could be too early. We can cancel if necessary.

We have plans for a PNW trip in August to Seattle, Vancouver and Victoria which we are pretty hopeful about. Then a trip to California in October, a makeup for one we cancelled this year.

Two weeks Ireland and Scotland.

In 2020 we got in one ski trip with our son to Zermatt and Chamonix in late January before we wound up cancelling 5 others that we'd planned and mostly booked for the rest of the year. I recall sitting near a woman wearing a face mask on the flight home from that January trip and thinking her either immuno-compromised or a germ freak. Who knew?!!! There followed a month or several (it all blurs together now) consumed with cancellation activities which, I am please to report, resulted in not so much as a penny lost--even on one hotel reservation that I'd mistakenly booked on nonrefundable terms that I was fully expecting not to be able to get refunded--but did. People have been so nice about all of this. Sort of renews your faith in kindness and decency--at least in the travel industry.

So like all of you we are chomping at the bit to get back to travel as soon as we can safely do so. We plan as soon as we can get the vaccine to return to Paris to take the trip we had planned there for 2020. Next would be to Barcelona as soon as daughter and family can get inoculated--hopefully right around the time their school gets out but we're not banking on that. Two of the planned 2020 trips were cruises that aren't even offered in 2021 so we hope to swap those out for a much expanded Normandy driving trip with our son shortly after he gets the vaccine. I also have a plan for a trip to the Czech Republic to include Ceske Krumlov and Karlovy Vary (which suddenly appear to have become more accessible by train since the last time I looked), so I'm keeping that ready to plug into any time slot that opens given the vagaries of vaccine availabilities in general and with our fellow travels in some cases.

Planning trips has been my salvation during this long period of travel starvation. Now I hope to move those plans from the wish list to reality asap.

Just realized, my post doesn't really answer the original question. Though we, too, saved a bundle by doing so little travel in 2020, we have no intention of blowing all the savings on some super-duper trip pulling out all the stops but rather to keep on keeping on and doing as much as we can as often as we can. There are plenty more trips to plan--and hopefully take, the sooner the better.

To have some travel to look forward to, we booked an apartment we have rented twice in northern Italy for ten days. I wrote the landlord months ago and ,since we are former renters, there are no cancelation penalties. If it is a go, we will add more locations in Northern Italy, one of our favorite areas to visit. We’ll see if we can go but it is nice to have it on hold. We have been so careful and will continue to hunker down awaiting our vaccines in an area with very high COVID numbers.

Happytrvlr, when are your ten days?
Sounds great; hope it comes to fruition✈️

Is this your “usual style” trip?

I would love an all out trip. To Italy or Greece or Morocco. At least a month. That would be “normal”, probably a little more luxury than usual.

BUT. Given life’s realities, and my lunatic puppy, It’ll be a week in a city with a great thermal spa and museums, or sleeping on a buddy’s couch in Hawaii. Part of it is simply that I don’t think I’ll emerge from this un-nervous. All the things I usually enjoy—transit, festivals, hostels, camping—involve crowds. Flying somewhere, anywhere, will be “exotic” enough.

also, I haven’t saved 2020 “travel” money. Slush fund went towards things or bills that made my life more tolerable during Covid.

Happy Trvlr, would love to hear more about your Northern Italy plans. Where do you headquarter and which surrounding towns/areas do you visit?