5 Destinations I Can't Stop Daydreaming About During Quarantine
While it’s not impossible to travel right now (check out my tips on safely getting back to travel here), we have to be extremely cautious and do things differently until we get COVID-19 under control. And that means a lot of incredible places are off limits for the foreseeable future. While I completely support this, it’s also driving me a little up the wall.
If you, like me, have “itchy feet” and wish you could safely hop on a plane to travel the world then you’ll relate to these 5 little wanderlust stories I have to share today.
Scotland
At a certain point in quarantine I started watching this ridiculous show on Starz called Outlander. It’s based on a series of “historical romance science fiction” books about a British WWII nurse who accidentally travels back in time to Scotland in 1743 and falls in love with this guy she meets, is accused of being a spy and a witch, then decides to try and help the Scots change history. Absolutely ridiculous, right?
All I can say is that my motivation started out noble. I wanted to practice my Italian and it was one of the only shows on Netflix that I could find with Italian audio and English subtitles… But after about a season, I got engrossed and just put it back to English.
Embarrassing binging aside, the show is filmed all over the Scottish countryside and had me itching to get over there.
New Zealand
Can we talk about the fact that New Zealand has basically eradicated the threat of COVID-19? In case it wasn’t amazing enough already, they have sporting events back and dancing and bars and restaurants and hanging out with their friends. They basically have normal life and we’re over here like, “Can I hug my Grandma?”
I always want to go to New Zealand but never any more than I do now. The only downside about New Zealand, right now, is that it’s winter so I will keep telling myself that it’s not as great as we think it is (even though we all know it is!).
Bali
Every time I see a photo of Bali on Instagram, I wish I was there. I think it’s a combination of my 2015 trip having been such an odd experience (who remembers the submerged iphone and missing luggage incidents of 2015?) and wishing for those simpler times in the midst of the pandemic.
Niagra Falls
This one really stings! Four years ago, my friend, Jen, and I took a spontaneous camping trip to Niagara Falls. We were both struggling to get our freelancing businesses off the ground. We sat at the restaurant at the top of the falls with a glass of sangria and declared, “one day when we’ve made it, we will come back and celebrate!”
Over the last four years, we have both struggled (a lot!) but we have also seen success. Two years ago we asked, “How will we know when we’ve made it? It just always feels like a struggle.” We decided to define what each of our “enoughs” would be, detail how we would get there and set up mile markers to help us track our progress. Then we picked a date for our return visit to Niagara (which would be followed by a road trip across Canada) — May 2020. The next 18 months were messy but overall we were on track to having made significant progress since that first trip.
Then COVID-19 happened. Both of our businesses were hit hard by the pandemic, travel shuttered and the Canadian border was shut down. We have both built up a lot of resilience over the years so we know this isn’t the end of the story but, boy, does this one hurt.
Thailand
This photo, or one that looks just like it, keeps popping up on my TV’s Comcast Xfinity screensaver and mocking me.
How many times, over the years, has someone invited me to Thailand? How many times have I randomly Googled flights to Thailand? How many times have I thought, “Maybe next year?”
Now all I can do is stare at this picture and create a getaway in my head.
What imaginary vacations have you been taking in your head?
