Covid Travel

 

Covid has changed just about everything, including the travel that Helen and I like to do.

We were actually on a trip when Covid hit, and returned from it about a week or so early. That was back in March of 2020.

We already had a very cool trip in the planning stage already for the following fall. We were to go off to Europe for at least a month, including two cruises. The only part that was actually booked was the ship travel. That all got cancelled.

We would also have spent at least a month visiting friends and family in our own province in the summer, and probably an Alaska cruise, and a couple of weeks off visiting at Christmas. None of that happened.

For early in 2021, we had a month booked in Palm Springs at a mobile home resort, and would have spent a couple of weeks in Los Angeles for me to train Jiu-Jitsu. All was cancelled.

There is a good chance we would have also gone overseas for another month. I suspect it could have been to Singapore, and just possibly Japan.

Summer would have been similar to the year before, and also didn’t happen. There likely would have been something big for the fall.

Even if you only count the big stuff Covid has cost us a month in Palm Springs, two weeks in LA, a month in Europe with two cruises, two summer cruises to Alaska, and some other big month-long trip. That adds up to about 4 months of jolly fun missed out in the last year-and-a-half.

We’ve been surprisingly content with this, but would certainly like to be able to resume travel. I pay attention to what is available, and then eliminate destinations due to their Covid situation.

An example would be Singapore. For a long time they had about the safest Covid statistics on the planet, but travel there for Canadians was almost impossible. Now they are starting to open up to certain countries, and setting up direct flights for those fortunate few. Canada is on that list. The problem is that Singapore’s Covid numbers have gone crazy.

Canada’s current rate of new infection is at 78 cases daily per million. A month ago, that’s about where Singapore’s rate was, but it has steadily climbed to 516. For comparison, the rate in the USA is an unacceptable 255 and the UK sits at an insane 590.

We won’t be booking any Singapore travel at this time, but I will be watching the numbers closely but am not very hopeful.