Making Roots And Planning Routes
It’s fair to say that we’re getting a bit restless. Here in Side it’s a little bit like becoming becalmed at sea, eager to press on with this voyage and even more eager to make more voyages in the future.
Settling into a single place for an extended stay was always on our agenda, but probably not for several years yet. It’s an experience we’ve added to our repertoire rather earlier than intended, but then our travel in 2020 has been a very different shape from the original picture.
Until COVID intervened and blew our plans apart, our intention after retiring last Christmas was to travel for around four months at a time, returning to the UK in between each trip for a quick catch up with friends and family. It didn’t quite work out that way of course, although we do think we’ve been resourceful enough to make the most of this unique year, even though it felt like losing a long held dream to begin with.
Our original outline plan for 2020/1 looked something like this.
January to May: South East Asia.
June to October: Around the Med (France, Spain, Gibraltar, Tunisia, Morocco, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan)
Next trips, in no particular order:
South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique.
Argentina, Brazil.
Follow the route of the original Orient Express.
But due to this odd year, it ended up being:
January to March: South East Asia – THAILAND was fabulous (our time in the tribal village of NONGTAO utterly memorable), LAOS was amazing (NONG KHIAW among our most beautiful places visited so far), but VIETNAM was where COVID struck and we had the dramatic escape home as the borders closed – read about that HERE.
March to June – Lockdown in the UK.
July, August – 5 weeks touring CROATIA.
September 22nd until now – TURKEY.
So despite the first year of our travels turning out to be the year of major restrictions on movement, we have made the most of it and, by the time we return to the UK, will have spent around 160 days of the year out of the country. Destinations have been unplanned, and governed by the UK’s “travel corridors” and nations’ own restrictions rather than our own freedom of choice, the plus side being that we’ve visited some terrific places which we would not otherwise have seen.
There remains dozens of unfulfilled ambitions on our travel wish list. Living in one place for several weeks (months, even) was one of them – one we’ve done a bit earlier than intended.
And our conclusion is: we know we will want to have an extended stay again one day, but, for now, the wanderlust is creeping in and we’re feeling restless!
12 Comments
normareadtalktalknet
🙄Settle down .. better there than here at the moment 😆
Phil & Michaela
😆 We are not looking forward to coming back to England in December 😘
normareadtalktalknet
There you are then … enjoy the sunshine while you can ☀️😎
admin
No don’t get us wrong; we’re not saying we want to come home. On the contrary, we saying we’re ready to move on & travel more!
normareadtalktalknet
👍😍
Andrew Petcher
I enjoyed this travelogue.
Gilda Baxter
Considering how this year has turned out to be a bit of a travel write off for most people I think you guys have done quite well. Side is not a bad place to stay for a while, but I can certainly understand your frustrations of having true freedom of choice taken away. We finish our two weeks of quarantine tomorrow, although lockdown continues here in England, but at least we will be able to go for a walk.
Alison
Wow ..you’re very brave travelling around during Covid ..where are you now?
Phil & Michaela
Well of course we’re stuck at home at the minute longing to be getting going again. We had to escape Vietnam as COVID struck, but then managed to grab the “travel corridor” opportunity and did 5 weeks in Croatia then 9 weeks in Turkey, so all in all 148 dats travelling in 2020. Not bad in the circumstances but nothing like our original retirement plan!
Alison
Enjoy your escape this weekend then for an outing with a few others!
Phil & Michaela
Well actually, it will involve meeting my 3-month old granddaughter for the very first time!
Alison
Aww that’s so nice..how exciting ..we’re so lucky I see my daughter and her two children a few times a week