Travel hopes for 2022

We have not had any real travel since 2019.

I just looked at my notes. We returned from Europe on May 19, 2019, after one month of wandering through Spain, Andorra, southern France, and Portugal.

In October 2019, I paid for a family trip to Oahu and Maui with our daughter, son, and son-in-law.

In Feb 2020, as Covid started to spread in the US we made a short 2-night trip to Prescott, AZ to celebrate our 40th anniversary. Then, that's it!

Since then, our stash has grown by a 7-figure gain. Plenty of money, but no place to go. Reading about posters having hassle with testing, flight cancellation, cruise getting derailed, I don't know if I want to tackle these issues.

Just told my wife, when we get to travel freely again, I would go to Europe and rent a car for 1 to 2 months, and just drive the country roads with no plan ahead, stop at random hotels/inns for the night, eat out of whatever restaurants/eateries we came across.

In the past, I always planned the itinerary, knew where to stay for the night, and what sightseeing to do. The next time, I will go freely as we do the same with RV'ing in the US and Canada.
 
Our last trip abroad was 2019 and we cancelled 2 2020 trips to Europe that we had already paid. Fortunately the money was returned. I don't even bother thinking seriously about making future plans to travel/fly overseas right now. So any travel will be driving in the US to places we can enjoy outdoors with minimal contact with other people. The beaches, mountains, and forests in the US are just as beautiful as anywhere in the world so we have access to the types of vacations we enjoy and can control our contact with others. We quit trusting people we don't know to be vaccinated, wear masks when around others, and to social distance. Millions of people everyday exhibit a lack of concern for the health of others so we have no desire to have any contact with them. Our location allows us to be on a beach any time of the day within a 5 minute walk or to hike in the woods within a 20 minute drive. Mountains, however, would require an 8 hour drive. When/If the conditions become much more safe to our satisfaction then travel overseas will start back up if we are still able to travel by then.



Cheers!
 
explanade said:
Yes the next variant is always hanging over us. I saw one speculation about a variant having the infectiousness and antibody-evasion of Omicron along with the severity of Delta, which attacks the lungs and other organs more than Omicron.
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That combination would probably cause a lot of human beings who don't take the virus too seriously to change their minds. IMHO, corona virus's most dangerous feature is the fact that many infected people are asymptomatic or only very slightly sick. If 20% of the infected people came down violently ill for a few weeks, and the death rate was 5%+, I bet the most dangerous place in the world would be between the remaining anti-vaxxers and an open covid vaccine clinic. You'd be run over in a New York minute. :D
 
brett said:
We had hoped to spend 6-8 weeks in Panama and Costa Rica this winter. Not so sure now. Will wait for a few weeks to see what happens with 'O'.

Still want to get to Greece and Cyprus in the sping. Not certain about that either.

Nothing booked. No plans to do so until a week or less prior to our planned departure. The closer the better.
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We will start 3 weeks in Costa Rica on the 18th. Everything is refundable or covered by insurance but the only thing that will keep us off that plane will be CR closing the border. AA runs several flights a day to SJO and as far as I can see they haven't canceled any despite the Omicron scheduling difficulties.

We have contingency plans if we test positive for the trip home but it looks like our chances of infection there are lower than here. Our travel style is minimal contact, really just at grocery stores. Not planning any restaurant meals or indoor activities.
 
Badger said:
Our last trip abroad was 2019 and we cancelled 2 2020 trips to Europe that we had already paid. Fortunately the money was returned. I don't even bother thinking seriously about making future plans to travel/fly overseas right now. So any travel will be driving in the US to places we can enjoy outdoors with minimal contact with other people. The beaches, mountains, and forests in the US are just as beautiful as anywhere in the world so we have access to the types of vacations we enjoy and can control our contact with others. We quit trusting people we don't know to be vaccinated, wear masks when around others, and to social distance. Millions of people everyday exhibit a lack of concern for the health of others so we have no desire to have any contact with them. Our location allows us to be on a beach any time of the day within a 5 minute walk or to hike in the woods within a 20 minute drive. Mountains, however, would require an 8 hour drive. When/If the conditions become much more safe to our satisfaction then travel overseas will start back up if we are still able to travel by then.



Cheers!
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Thing with domestic travel is that everyone was doing it in 2021. Load factors for domestic flights in the summer were high, sometimes higher than 2019.

I had thought about Hawaii back in early June, the fall and February.

Prices are crazy. At least $300 a night after taxes and resort fees for what appeared to be very basic accommodations and around $1000 for car rental for 4 days on Kauai and Maui.

I was looking at least at $7-8k for a 1-2 week trip.

Now there are anecdotes that car rental prices go down if you re-book at the last minute. But the accommodations pricing is insane.
 
Our transatlantic cruise was just cancelled.
 
rodi said:
Our transatlantic cruise was just cancelled.
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Sorry to hear but at least you will get your money back. Friends of ours were to leave on a cruise out of Florida this week on Oceania and the cruise still went. They decided they didn't want to take the chance and they cancelled their trip and lost the entire cost.

Not sure why they were planning another cruise anyway. They were stuck on a cruise ship off the South American coast when Covid hit in March of 2020 and finally got back to Florida 4 weeks later than planned!

I'm not sure cruises are the best travel option yet.
 
rodi said:
Our transatlantic cruise was just cancelled.
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Bummer. Hope you’re able to reschedule.

My brother and his wife had a cruise booked for January and it too was cancelled. We had one scheduled for March, originally scheduled for 04/20, rescheduled 4 times. I’ve wasted more time on the phone with those folks than it’s worth and have given up.

On Monday I cancelled our Chase Sapphire Reserve card.
 
We have a few domestic trips, but the big "iffy" one right now is Galapagos in May - we were supposed to go in May 2020. Everything is booked except for the flights, and as long as they are opened, we are going - taking whatever tests/filling out forms/etc. as needed.

We are also thinking about Italy in September/Oct.
 
explanade said:
Cruise was in April?



Surprising that the cruise company would bail 3 months out.
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That's what I thought.

Nothing on their website indicates it is cancelled. But the email references my name and booking number. The message is less than informative
January 6, 2022
Dear Valued Guest,
As the COVID-19 global public health emergency continues to evolve, we are constantly monitoring the situation, and prioritizing the health and safety of our guests, crew and the communities we visit. As the result of necessary deployment changes, we have made the difficult decision to cancel your cruise booking.
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It then goes on to say money already paid will be a future credit that must be used to book by June 2022 (only 2 months later than this cancelled cruise)

If you have not paid for your cruise in full, MSC*Cruises USA will automatically provide a 100% Future Cruise Credit of the amount paid to MSC Cruises. No additional shipboard credit applies.

You will have until June*30,*2022 to make a new booking with your Future Cruise Credit and will be able to*use it on any future sailing – including any ship and any itinerary – that is open for sale at time of booking.
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A friend of mine just came back from a 2 week Regent cruise and out of 9 ports were only able to get off in 3 and 2 of the 3 were in California. All the other countries weren’t allowing people to get off because of Covid.
 
We were planning a 3 week cruise to SA on 28 Jan.Yesterday they canceled. Kind of relieved due to all the Covid obstacles. Face Masks, 30 day mobile registration for Chile and port entry problems.Oceania threw in the towel.
 
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Rodi, sorry to hear your cruise was canceled. Doesn’t sound like your cruise line is doing much for you if they are only offering future cruise credit that must be booked by June! We have taken two transatlantic cruises and greatly enjoyed them. I that you will be able to arrange that at some point.
 
explanade said:
Thing with domestic travel is that everyone was doing it in 2021. Load factors for domestic flights in the summer were high, sometimes higher than 2019.
...
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Yeah, after Puerto Rico and Alaska in January/February, we tapped out of any further non-family domestic travel last year. Once the vaccines came out, we could see that it was going to get very busy.

International was much easier, as long as you investigated the hoops and jumped through them. Jordan & Egypt were basically empty, and Iceland and Spain/Portugal had plenty of space (apart from apparent locals flocking to Madrid and Barcelona).

So too, Cozumel is relatively uncrowded in the evenings, and we are having no problem booking airBnBs and restaurants in Colombia for 5 weeks beginning later this month.

Big question remains the lengthy trip to be built around our planned first cruise--Antarctica, etc., Which was supposed to be in late 2020, then 2021, now "2022." We'll see.
 
So I'm shifting gears for my previous April plans. We're mapping out a road trip in the van with the dog... Up to see my bff in WA, then over to Glacier, Yellowstone, and points south of there. It will be a fun/tricky itinerary to plan since I insist on showers every other day, and not all campgrounds have that... Plus it's late to be booking some of the national parks. But it's also early for some of the snowier locales like Yellowstone... This should be a fun 'project' to arrange... and keep my mind off how annoyed I am at the cruise company.
 
rodi, I feel for you. Our tour company held back about 30% of our full payment for a tour canceled summer of 2020. Not everyone is getting refunds, and applying credits doesn't always work.

My whole impression of the travel industry is completely soured by this pandemic. DW and I don't mention certain things anymore (the company name) in order to keep our blood pressure from spiking.
 
We have our late winter road trip mapped out.
 

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Ronstar.........I'm also interested in that roadtrip map. Is there a special program or app to create it? Looks like a great trip too.
 
PaunchyPirate said:
Nice trip! The cartographer in me wants to know how you made your nice map?
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Momcpa said:
Ronstar.........I'm also interested in that roadtrip map. Is there a special program or app to create it? Looks like a great trip too.
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I used Google my maps to make the base map with the route. Made a print screen of that. Then opened it for a base layer in Mapdiva Ortelius. Ortelius is a Mac based mapping software that is no longer in business, but their website has a link to the program.

I used Ortelius to add symbols and text

Table is a Mac numbers spreadsheet screenshot brought into Ortelius as a layer.

I've been going crazy making maps lately. I was a surveyor in my working days and somewhat of a cartographer back in the 70's.
 
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In lieu of international travel at the moment, I am taking Amtrak from Chicago to San Francisco, then flying back next month. Just something I've always wanted to do... And yes, getting a bedroom!
 
Marita40 said:
In lieu of international travel at the moment, I am taking Amtrak from Chicago to San Francisco, then flying back next month. Just something I've always wanted to do... And yes, getting a bedroom!
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I would do this trip! Please do post a trip summary upon your return. I’d love to hear details on how it went.
 
Ronstar said:
I used Google my maps to make the base map with the route. Made a print screen of that. Then opened it for a base layer in Mapdiva Ortelius. Ortelius is a Mac based mapping software that is no longer in business, but their website has a link to the program.

I used Ortelius to add symbols and text

Table is a Mac numbers spreadsheet screenshot brought into Ortelius as a layer.

I've been going crazy making maps lately. I was a surveyor in my working days and somewhat of a cartographer back in the 70's.
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Thanks for the info. My undergraduate degree was in geography and my first couple jobs were with computer mapping companies. I have a Mac on order for February delivery. I will try to get that software. I guess I could manually do the same using my picture editing software, but you way looks great and sounds more fun.
 
JoeWras said:
rodi, I feel for you. Our tour company held back about 30% of our full payment for a tour canceled summer of 2020. Not everyone is getting refunds, and applying credits doesn't always work.

My whole impression of the travel industry is completely soured by this pandemic. DW and I don't mention certain things anymore (the company name) in order to keep our blood pressure from spiking.
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I am surprised some of these tour companies are still around selling tours. Googling *company name* and refund problems will produce a host of companies that never delivered the product and kept the money. Not so good. I was lucky. I had two tours booked with Rick Steves and he refunded every cent to every customer when he cancelled all his 2020 tours. I hope to use him again in 2022, but I also thought I might use him in late 2020 or in 2021. But, I did manage some great road trips in the USA. :dance:

FWIW, consumer guru, Clark Howard, suggests that people buy Cancel for Any Reason insurance if you want to be able to cancel on your terms. I've looked at it, and between the premium and the 50-75% refund limit, I don't think it's a good deal. But, if it's really going to eat at you and ruin your health, it might be worth getting.
 
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