By Land and SeaAround our city and state, people are starting to emerge from the Coronavirus orders. As such, it seems only fitting that we emerge from our blogging break too! June 1st seemed like a nice, even day to start getting fresh content out there again.
For the time being, we will start with posts that are practical and informative, as well as share travel stories. When the time is right, we will start rolling out destination guides and itinerary type posts again.
Time In “Lockdown”
During our pandemic lockdown period we were busy working behind the scenes on various aspects of our blog. We are excited to roll out our fresh new theme and home page! You will also notice the following updates continuing to appear on By Land and Sea:
- Updated posts
- Updated pages, headings, and page mapping
- Refreshed links and content
- New feature images
- A dedicated travel resources page
No doubt this is a huge undertaking. We wish this could have all been completed during the lockdown. But, we have been fortunate to still be working the entire time, so these updates and changes are still coming in stages. We also hope to get an actual newsletter going before the end of 2020 too.
We decided to emerge from our 3 year Instagram hiatus. We also joined the travel community on Travello (available on the App Store and Google Play)! Please be sure to follow us on these two platforms for more travel pictures and stories!
So how did the pandemic impact our travels?
Let me tell you – it hasn’t exactly been rainbows and butterflies. Still, we remind ourselves that we are very fortunate and that our complete inability to travel pales in comparison to the experience of many.
We had a long-awaited trip to Croatia and Slovenia via Venice planned for April that was cancelled. We literally watched the travel advisories for Italy go from a level 3 to a level 4 in less than one hour and knew our trip wasn’t going to work out at that time. Luckily, we have ample time to rebook a new trip with the same tour company and are anxious to do so when the time is right.
My hubby had plans to visit family and go fishing in North Dakota in mid-May, which was also cancelled. Unfortunately, more than half the flights out of our small local airport have been cancelled indefinitely. They have also slashed half the air traffic controller jobs. We don’t know if these will ever come back post-pandemic.
Early in 2020 we booked one of many “trips of a lifetime” to Australia. Even though it is scheduled for the end of the year, it too is now teetering on the edge of destruction. Because of United’s current policies, we elected to cancel the flights while penalty-free. We figure we can always rebook them later if the situation presents itself. However, the likelihood of this trip working out as planned is slim. So, we will deal with the hotel as the date draws nearer and we know more of what is going on.
Our final trip of 2020 is also crumbling a few pieces at a time. We planned to visit Philadelphia and Atlantic City in September. So far, the concert we hoped to go to has been postponed, the baseball season is still up in the air, and everything else is looking rather bleak for the city of brotherly love and it’s Jersey Shore neighbor. We are about to pull the plug on this trip too.
The travels we have been able to do this year
We were able to visit friends in Las Vegas as well as make a quick overnight trip to Denver pre-pandemic. After these two things in the beginning of 2020, everything else has fallen apart.
Recently, we went on a drive not far from our town. But, believe it or not, it was the first time in my life I had ever been in the area we traveled to. We spent a few hours out in the colorful country and driving the “back way” up in to the mountains. It was so nice to get out of the house, get out of town, and get into the fresh air and sunlight for a few hours. I foresee many more activities like this in our future.
What We Think The Future Of Travel Will Look Like
At this point, it really is too early to tell. There are plenty of articles out there drumming up worst case scenario situations. In some cases it looks pretty grim. We know travel will not be the same as what it was in the past. Some of this will take years to get straightened out.
But, we also feel there is some room for opportunity. We do hope that those who are able start traveling again as soon as it is safe to do so. It will be a huge help to the economy!
We have always valued the concept of home. That’s one of many reasons why we have never fully packed up and left yet. But, the pandemic has made us question our ability to always get home. Perhaps we have taken this for granted in the past? As a result, we realize that moving forward we must have contingency plans in place. Personally, I see a lot of domestic/North American travel in the foreseeable future.
We look forward to welcoming you back to our blog and sharing our love of travel with you. Until it is safe to get back out there, let the wanderlust live on!
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We too spent a lot of this lockdown time updated our blog. And writing a lot of new content. Some we slowly published. And many posts are sitting online waiting to be published. A good use of time for sure. We were lucky we finished a 2 month cruise around South America before we made our way home to lockdown. That travel will keep us satisfied for a short time. But we cancelled all the rest of our travel for this year. We are still waiting to get all our money back though! I agree that it is too early to tell what future will look like. But I think we will have to reset our expectations of the experience in the near term. It won’t feel comfortable for awhile. We too have toyed with the idea of being nomadic. But we were certainly glad this year that we had a home to come back to. We just hope we are not here too long!
Jealous of your two month cruise – what a great experience!! I’m sure that will keep you satisficed for a bit of time. It will be interesting to see how travel changes. We all adapted to post-9/11 travel so I know we can adapt to this too. In the meantime, stay safe out there!
Great post! Cheers!
Thank you!
This pandemic has definitely crushed my 2020 travel dreams! The only traveling I got in before everything shut down this year was a quick trip to Kansas City to spend some time with my nieces. Yes, domestic will probably be the way to go this year, but as soon as I’m able to I’m heading out of town!
Same here – most likely a regional road trip. Do you have any place in mind for your first trip?
Firstly, Congratulations on revamping your blog. It looks beautiful. The pandemic has actually changed a lot in our priorities. Well, obviously all our grand travel plans have gone kaput, but this pandemic has made us realised the importance of home and our loved ones. Like you guys, we have always valued the concept of home. Even after making the whole world our home, we simply love our humble abode. Post pandemic, there will be considerable changes in the way we travel.
Thank you!! Do you have any changes in mind yet for how you travel, or is it still too early to tell?
You have been lucky to do some traveling this year! I have not been so lucky. Our plans were for April by which time all the places had lockdown in place. We are still awaiting the promised refund from our cancelled airline tickets.Yes, we are all updating and editing our older posts. But there seems to be a silver lining! Since most of us are at home, traffic in Pinterest and blogs seems to be more! Do you agree?:-)
My traffic tanked for awhile but is starting to pick back up! There is always so much to do in the world of blogging. Thanks for commenting and hopefully your refund will come through soon!
Lockdown has really altered our travel plans for the year as well. Was supposed to be going to Newfoundland but had to cancel. Fortunately, we hadn’t booked the tickets yet and were gonna be van camping, so no lost money! Wait til next year!
I’m glad to hear you haven’t lost any money! Van camping sounds like the way to go these days! Happy future travels!
If there is any silver lining to 2020, it’s that lots of us had time to work on things we’ve been putting off. Our garden is bigger than ever this year! That’s a win we’ll take. Having to cancel a trip to Hawaii really hurt, though. But you’re right – that pain pales in comparison to what so many have been going through. Counting our blessings through this all has become our daily regimen. Here’s to opening up and looking up! 🙂
Absolutely! Hoping you guys can get your travels rescheduled at some point in the future too. Until then, happy gardening!
I feel this deeply! I have a trip to South Africa and surrounding countries planned for late June – we were supposed to leave next Saturday 🙁
We too have done some driving exploring of our area and found some really nice day long road trips we have never done before. We are hoping to do a lot of camping this summer as well. As they say, this too shall pass!
I’m so sorry to hear about your South Africa trip. I hope one day, when this does pass, you’re able to reschedule. In the meantime, enjoy your local travels!
What a year this has been so far for travel. We started off 2020 with a trip to Arches National Park and then were planning a big trip to England/Scotland in June. We had hoped that it would still happen, but as the days went on, we knew it was out of the question and had to cancel what wasn’t automatically cancelled for us. For the most part, we have stayed home, but are planning to do a lot of socially distanced hikes this summer and our late July flight to Glacier National Park is morphing into a mega road trip. Like you, it’s been a great time to work on the blog and develop other habits that hopefully stick around long after corona has hopefully run it’s course. Looking forward to future travel!
Sorry about England/Scotland. We just visited there in August and it’s amazing so we truly hope you can reschedule soon! We too are looking at a mega road trip to include Glacier! National Parks are going to be super popular for awhile I think.
the memes are top! Definitely all of us are struggling with our travel plans this year… I’m thinking in enjoy my country and travel locally when it is allowed again because we as traveler should help local business and what a better way than that! nice post
We are feeling the same way – travel locally for a bit! Happy and safe future travels to you!
Sorry to hear that your plans have been cancelled, but glad you were able to get out of them without added charges. It’s going to be interesting to see the new normal for travel that emerges after all this. I definitely have cabin fever and am ready to travel again.
Yes, we too are very curious as to what the future of travel will look like!
This lockdown is hard on those of us with itchy feet, as I think it will be another several months or more before we can really travel internationally again. I hope to see some change in how people travel, when it does reopen again, it will be interesting to see how that plays out. It must have been heartbreaking to cancel your Croatian, Slovenia and Venice trip, but am sure it will be wonderful when you can finally make it. Fingers crossed for Australia too.
Thank you – it has been a rough year for so, so many people. Safe future travels to you!
Wow, massive changes for you! We definitely are there with you, though. We had a family Beijing trip for March 24 canceled for us too. We were all disappointed, but know that more adventures await us. Currently, we are filling up the calendar with RV trips within a couple hours drive and enjoying see our local state. Cheers to future travels!!!
Interestingly, we have been looking at some RVs too. We definitely have a few road trips in our future. I think that will be the main travel method for the foreseeable future. Stay safe out there!