We will be traveling once again, and soon!
The year 2020 has been one of the worst for so many people as a result of the COVID-19 Pandemic and all that it has affected. Our lives have been in full upheaval for so long that we are all ready to just unplug and run away from it all but, as with everything else impacted by this monster, our ability to travel somewhere and get away has been limited if not totally shut down. But there is great news and things are about to change.
We have all been aware that travel has started to return to other places on this planet but we as Americans have been locked out of any of that due to either the decisions of foreign nations to restrict us gaining access or by our own government imposing life crushing restrictions on our everyday lives. There are some places that you could travel within the U.S. but many of these destinations had imposed quarantine requirements of up to 14 days before you could even get out and about to actually travel. Now tell me, who in the world would want to waste their entire vacation accrual (for those who actually accrue multiple weeks) sitting in some hotel room somewhere for 14 days before trying to even get out and visit the areas that you wanted to before going back home? Most people don't have that much time to waste and they darn sure don't have a vacation budget that could justify thousands of dollars just to lock themselves down, not to mention that once you eventually could get out and start vacationing you would not be able to do much anyway because these same areas have the most restricted access to people anyway.
But change is on the horizon now that the CDC has given the cruise industry (the only industry by the way that was put on full lockdown by the agency, how fair is that?) the go ahead to start refining their protocols and testing their procedures so that they can start sailing with passengers again very soon. To start we all know that things are going to be very different than what we have become accustomed to but that is what we have seen with everything else so it is just another adjustment that we have to make in the world of the "new normal" that we are living in today. Although some of these changes may seem a bit restrictive such as, mask requirements, testing, daily evaluations, limited shore activities, and whatever else gets redesigned for the purpose of enhanced health and safety of all passengers and crew, it is still going to be much better than going to a place like, say New York, where you will be expected to stay in a hotel room for 14 days (at a cost that is well into the thousands of dollars) before you can eventually venture out to see the sights (which by the way are closed or highly restricted access) or walk down Broadway to look at the shuttered theaters and show places. What a waste of money that would be but they think that people are willing to spend it there so they have opened for business, sort of.
If cruising isn't your thing (and by that I mean that you have actually done it and just don't like it) then there are many other options that can be arranged and they won't require you to spend thousand of dollars and days upon days sitting in some stupid hotel room waiting to get out and and see all that you can't enjoy anyway. I can arrange a number of land-based vacations, visits to Disney World or Universal Orlando (although some operations are still limited) or I can even put you on an AmTrak vacation program of your choice. There are options out there to truly get out and start enjoying your vacation time again and I have access to them to get you out there. Give me a call or drop me an email and we can get started planning your next true vacation, and it doesn't have to be in the short-term either, there are travel options opening up for as far out as 2023 right now so what are you waiting for?