The last time I travelled was my trip to Copenhagen at the end of January 2020 – that ended a busy month with 3 ‘long-weekend’ city breaks which included visiting Belgium and Germany. I got back home on the 1st of February and had no idea there would be no travel for such a long time. I had one trip planned for 2020, in June I was to stay at the Pairi Daiza Resort in Belgium. Luckily that was the only one and it was easy for me to get refunds/vouchers and hopefully the trip will be possible in the future. Also luckily, I hadn’t yet planned anymore travel, but since the lockdown, travel is all I’ve been thinking about!
At first it was quite nice to be at home for a while and being settled – despite loving travelling, there is a stressful element to it – but after a while it’s just been very demotivating with the ‘not knowing’ of when travelling can be possible. I used to live for my holidays – whether they were a real break or even just travelling for a conference – they were really what motivated me at work as something to look forward to, and now there’s nothing like that to look to. But obviously, I’d rather sacrifice not travelling at the moment for a year (or two, but I really hope not more) so that it can be possible again in the future. Without any travelling to actually do, I’ve planned so much theoretical travel that I don’t think there will ever be enough time to get it all done, but I can dream!
I think it’s unlikely I’ll get to travel anywhere this year, sure I’d like to make use of my voucher to visit the Pairi Daiza Resort (and stay in the most amazing hotel with a room looking onto the polar bears) but that will still be there in the future. For the meantime, I’m in my final year of laboratory work for my PhD – not being able to travel is the perfect reason to get my head down and get on with my long to-do list, and in 2022 I will then be working on writing my thesis. I’m hoping if I work hard now, then by the end of it all I can enjoy the perfect trip away. Japan in the dream! Luckily without travel or socialising in the past year-ish, I’ve been able to make some great savings and really work towards making my ‘I finished my PhD trip’ a reality.
I’m glad my last travels before the pandemic were great ones, and I saw pandas, what more could I ask for? But it’s been a year and I’m having some panda (especially panda cub) withdrawals. I still have quite a few posts to share about my travels in the past few years, I hope those will see me through until I can have a new trip to share about.
Do I wish we could have all been out and enjoying the world, of course, but it’s important to think of the bigger picture at the moment still. Keep safe!
