‘Our Travel Aspirations’ is a new version of a unpublished blog that I started in late April. That one was titled ‘Our Travel Plans for 2020 and 2021’. I thought we would spend some time in the Fall at our timeshare at Hilton Head. I thought we would go camping in Prince Edward Island and the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St Lawrence. We had lots of other plans. I was so wrong. Closed borders between Canada and the USA, public health protocols here in Toronto, and the restrictions to enter the Atlantic Bubble, meant we re-vectored onto what to do close to home and respect the COVID protocols.
What we actually did was a couple of short camping trips with our Tear Drop Trailer to the Upper Bruce Peninsula. Otherwise we cocooned at our cottage on Stoney Lake and took on an epic renovation to winterize it. All and all, we are very fortunate to have had these options.
Its a snowy Sunday morning in Toronto, the city is going into its second full lock-down tomorrow for at least 4 weeks, and Cathy & my thoughts have turned to travel plans for 2021 and 2022. Our assumption is that the majority of folks in Canada, the USA and Europe will have had COVID vaccinations by end of 2021 and so 2022 should be OK for travel to these regions. We have limited confidence about other regions until the end of 2022. In the interim, there will be waves of infections and public health responses such as lock-downs here in Canada. And so road trips and camping are the order of the day.
Here is our plan. I hope we are right, or at least more right than our rather optimistic plans back in April.
Spring 2021 – Ontario camping
Fall 2021 – Camping Road Trip to Prince Edward Island and Magdalen Islands that was delayed from 2020.
Winter 2022 – Annual Road Trip with extended stays in Utah, California and Arizona, that we had to cancel in 2020 and 2021.
Spring 2022 – Annual visit to Hilton Head, that we had to cancel for 2020 and 2021.
Fall, 2022 – River Cruise in Europe. We are close to booking Scenic Cruises to get the Early Bird discounts.
Winter, 2023 – Island hopping French Polynesia on Aranui5 freight/passenger ship. Maybe combined with a couple of legs of Crystal’s 2023 round the world trip (Quito to Tahiti including Easter Island and Pitcairn Island, and Columbo to Mombasa including Seychelles)
That’s our plans. What are you planning?
I think my major travels are at an end. I was lucky to get away to Capetown RSA, Robben Island, and safari North of J’berg for 10 days in Feb 2020, then 2 weeks in Varadero/Havana returning 2020-03-16 to YYZ, the most dangerous spot of the trip. After which we self quarantined for 2 weeks at home. My Cuban MD friend is on the Havana Covid response committee; he frequently and proudly sends me the results of their successful actions. My response was triggered by your pic collage of Havana and what appears to be Africa.
Thanks for the note. You got in a couple of good trips. Yes, some of pics were in Kenya and Cuba. I wrote some blogs about those extraordinary trips.