[andycairns]

As much as I’ve complained in the past about time away from home, eating the same hotel room service, delays and airport inconvenience, for the past few weeks I’ve started to really get the itch to travel again.

At the moment, I have no trips planned and it’s starting to look like there won’t be any trips until the middle of 2021!

Is anyone else feeling this?

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alainboy56

[cwoodward]

No, I am expecting to be able travel around Asia to a limited extent in a few weeks. Europe I think not as many countries have ‘gone too early’ with flights and will need to backtrack on availability. The USA is a disaster area that I believe is best avoided for many months but Canada looks promising. Africa is,at least to mea very unknown quantity.

[GivingupBA]

[postquote quote=1006778][/postquote]

I need to go to Hong Kong (which I can enter, even now) and South Korea this winter, but am very constrained because of (current rules) having to spend 2 weeks quarantined on arrival in both places. Meaning a whole 4 weeks of my trip would be gone. Not very practicable, to say the least, until entry restrictions are eased. So right now I just don’t know.

I miss travelling a lot.

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alainboy56

[MartynSinclair]

[quote quote=1006778]Is anyone else feeling this?[/quote]

Yes

[quote quote=1006802]I miss travelling a lot.[/quote]

Yes, me too

..and I don’t need an algorithm based on previous travel history to confirm the above two answers and results….

[quote quote=1006802]I need to go to Hong Kong (which I can enter, even now) and South Korea this winter, but am very constrained because of (current rules) having to spend 2 weeks quarantined on arrival in both places.[/quote]

I had considered accepting 2 weeks quarantine HKG, had it been UK style – but the UK style, self isolation, appears to be in a league of its own….

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Polly, alainboy56

[Swissdiver]

I miss air travel as well! That little smell of kerosene when boarding… So I truly hope to be able to go to Dublin in October and this looks like great fun. How low our expectations became! Long haul will probably have to wait… Sad world.

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Polly, alainboy56

[canucklad]

[quote quote=1006802]I need to go to Hong Kong[/quote]

Woke up this morning to find an email from BA in my inbox …..

We’re very sorry to let you know that your BA27 flight to Hong Kong on Sunday, 18 October 2020 has been cancelled. We apologise for the inconvenience this has caused.

The big question is when do I re-book for ?
Fed up, fed up and just fed up , especially after my first attempted night out into town at the weekend — Simply depressing seeing Edinburgh doing its best to impersonate a rundown shackled up northern town !

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Polly

[DavidSmith2]

My last flight was Cape Town-Jo’burg-Accra in mid-January. Since then, I would normally have completed around 15 trips – including 3 for pleasure. As it stands, I have a trip to London in December and a trip to nearby Sao Tome at New Year in the diary. But I am not at all confident it will be possible to do either, not least because it requires airports to open up and scheduled flights to recommence. And even then it will depend on the respective protocols at each end and whether they make it worth the hassle.

Trying to guess what might happen in 2021 is already proving to be an art rather than a science, particularly for long-haul flights, because different parts of the world appear to be going through differing phases of dealing with the pandemic. Who knows where Africa will be in 3 months time? Or indeed Europe, once winter sets in?

Am I missing the travel? Absolutely. Both at a professional and at a personal level. Work is suffering because of the inability to meet people face to face and validate information with my own eyes. Sanity is suffering because of a lack of holidays. And my kitchen is suffering from a lack of duck breasts, goose fat, parsnips, Marmite and Stilton.

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alainboy56, cwoodward, LuganoPirate

[LuganoPirate]

[quote quote=1006811]And my kitchen is suffering from a lack of duck breasts, goose fat, parsnips, Marmite and Stilton.[/quote]

That made me laugh 😉 😉

We’ve ventured about 100kms into Italy on two occasions, though we regularly pop over the border for shopping. Tomorrow will be our fist visit into Germany, though again just over the border at Schaffhausen where we are visiting the Rhine Falls. Wednesday in Zurich will be mt first hotel stay since Cape Town in March.

I’m hearing some rumours S. Africa will open the border end September, but I’ve been hearing these rumours so often and it still hasn’t happened yet. If and when it does I’ll be one one of the first flight down!

So to answer your question andycairns, yes, very twitchy feet and like you can’t wait to travel properly again.

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Polly

[andycairns]

Glad it’s not just me.

My biggest fear is that companies (especially my clients) will have a knee-jerk reaction and stop (or vastly reduce) business travel even into 2021/22. I can technically do my job remotely but everyone gets far more out of the in-person meetings.

[SimonS1]

Going back to Dubai Saturday for a bit. Some admin required (Covid test) but GDRFA return permits are easily obtained now and no quarantine on arrival.

However I have postponed the Kenya legs – not because of logistics (there are regular flights now, and no need to quarantine on arrival) but because of getting the Covid test necessary to leave and return to Dubai. Probably September instead.

There seems to be a slow but steady movement – I believe Tanzania, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda are all open now and some domestic travel in South Africa as a first step.

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alainboy56

[Sanran]

The only “positive” thing of lately is that, since we saved so much money with regular flights and we only do the very essential ones, we now fly with private jets.
By the way I witnessed how easier are measures when you arrive with such an arrangement, at least in Italy, Spain, England and Brazil.

[DavidSmith2]

[quote quote=1006821]There seems to be a slow but steady movement – I believe Tanzania, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda are all open now and some domestic travel in South Africa as a first step.[/quote]

The President has announced that Ghana is working on a plan to recommence international flights from 1 September, if possible. No idea, at this stage, what conditions would be put in place in terms of testing, quarantine etc. though.

[Tramor01]

Both feet are extremely itchy to travel again.
I can’t honestly remember when was the last time I’ve been this long without getting on a plane. I got back from Tokyo on March 12th and at that time little did I think that was to be my last flight for what is going to be quite a while.
By now I would normally have been out in Vietnam & Thailand at least once, with my usual end of the year/pre-Christmas trip already booked.
Talking to friends and colleagues in Asia, it seems like it’s anyone’s guess when the region will open up again to foreigners, so I’m all but writing off 2020, and not seriously looking at getting anywhere near the region before Spring 2021
The USA is also off the cards until well into next year, and travelling to Europe is now becoming a gamble.
I had hoped to visit friends in Stockholm, but that means quarantine for 14 days when I get home, and getting to Copenhagen means a minimum stay of 6 days, unless there are extenuating circumstances.
I’m planning on visiting both Riga and Berlin next month, but again who knows what will happen between now and then.

[AJDC]

I will not be travelling any time soon, perhaps not until 2022 and I do not miss it.

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Bullfrog

[J_Pathmore]

I’d like to hope and have read via scientific journals, optimistically, that if the rest of the US follows NY’s tragic trajectory, within the next 4-6 weeks most of the country will be at NY’s transmission levels. Provided Europe doesn’t spin out of control transatlantic travel will be restored ASAP thereafter (my bet is October unless they come up with a testing protocol sooner).

I live in NY and am from Cape Town, so have a strong bias to go home and test the “work from home” concept for the full month of December… Now that SA allows one to quarantine at home instead of in a government facility I would do it even if I had to get on a “repatriation” flight from Europe, and then likewise in January to go back to NY. SA has seen the virus peak and numbers are way down despite a continued re-opening, and has moved to the second lowest level of restrictions. In theory, the next level see’s the return of international air travel. I hope and believe that even in a conservative case of SA staying at the current level for 2 months, by the end of October there will be a shift towards opening. Also worth noting that many other African countries have opened with testing requirements: this + 1m or more jobs lost in SA will put a lot of pressure on the government to open in some capacity for the spring/summer season.

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