When the world shut down we had plans to travel full-time, all the time. All three girls were moving away, so we’d reduced our stuff to fit into storage so we could travel freely for a while. We had 4 big trips on the docket. But the Corona said no. No to all of it. The pandemic pivot became the new thing, making new plans over and over until something worked.
- Return of the hard core Road Trip
Summer 2020 was when we were planning our last big family trip to Africa and Europe. Those borders closed. I’m still sad about it. So we shifted our plans to driving to Canada to see family and friends there. Then that border closed. In June we ended up driving our oldest to Seattle to her into her new home. We were planning on visiting a lot of sites and National Parks along there way, but very few were open. When we drove back across the country in August many more parks were open. Great part is that we love a good road trip. When I was growing up it’s all we did, so this felt rather nostalgic. We saw lots of country for the first time that we otherwise may not have. And anyone who has been to our National Parks know they kick ass. So glad we got to explore more of our own country with the girls.
- Have popular sites to yourself.
We were the only people on the Cliffs if Moer, walking down Bourbon Street in New Orleans, at the Grand Canyon. Everywhere we went was deserted, creating these extremely rare experiences.
3. With few exceptions we had entire B&B’s to ourselves and sometimes even the large hotels like the Drury Inn. We were frequently let into a B&B to choose any room we wanted. Many of our flights had a handful of people on them. These experiences were definitely unique to us.
4. People who work in tourism were very happy to see us. Many people make their living from the visitors to their country and were hurting. We were thanked for coming which was unexpected. We got all kinds of over the top special treatment every where we went.
5. We didn’t see other tourists. Not in Ireland, Tahiti, or in Ecuador. Only when we went to Costa Rica were there other tourists. Kinda liked it.
