Here it is, our final post of 2020. Goodbye and good riddance. Let us turn our attention to the days ahead in the new year, when vaccines are widely available and we can travel the globe once more. We’re looking forward to so many things in 2021, so many celebrations large and small. From just meeting up with friends at a restaurant on a whim to journeys we’ve had in mind for a lifetime.
A lot of us had to put off travel plans in place throughout 2020, and at long last we’ll cash in our credits and head out on those adventures, in some ways the same but in so many ways different. That is what the world will be like when we venture back out into it. We’ll — we hope — get a lot of the big events that were put off, such as the Tokyo Olympics and the European soccer championships. We’ll return to our favorite places and notice how they’ve changed over the past year.
We ourselves have changed. Even with a significant percentage of people vaccinated, many of us will seek out wide open spaces or remote reaches far from the crowds. After rediscovering America over the summer and fall, we have a new appreciation for our national parks. Many of us who never thought we’d spend a night in the outdoors have discovered the joys and comforts of glamping. Or we’re finally going to take the trip to Antarctica or the Arctic that we’ve been promising ourselves for years we’d go on one day.
That’s certainly a lasting way the pandemic has impacted our travels. It hit home that the future is not guaranteed. We used to put so many things off for “someday.” Now we know how quickly that potential can be snatched away. No matter where we go, we’re excited just to see smiles on people’s faces, to meet strangers and turn them into friends, to see up-close the wildlife we’ve been keeping up with on live streams this year. After all the pain and hardship of 2020, we can’t wait to see the world we love so much, to strive to make it a better place and let it make us better people. We’re making it our mission to put “someday” on the calendar in 2021.
If you want to do the same, contact your travel advisor or reach us at vicky.malakoff@destinationuncharted.com or 609-933-1763.