Good morning all,
I was about to cancel my holiday trips on booking.com to France, Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain, however before I do, is anyone else planning to travel to the continent this year or instead stay in the UK or respective countries?
I have also booked up with booking.com for Italy and France touring. As I have free cancellation I am waiting nearer the time which is July/August. If it looks like Italy/France is still not allowing British citizens in then I will cancel and do a tour of Scotland. I think a lot of people probably would have cancelled but I’m taking a chance for the moment. 
My trips were due from the 1st of May to 19th May however I may cancel all my stays. Not sure if Scotland and Sturgeon would let anyone from England in…so only Dorset, York and Lake Districts. Maybe give us a chance to visit this land in more detail is a good thing.
I am hoping to do the Scenic Car Tours “Highlights Of Austria” tour early September this year. I was booked to go last year but carried over my deposit to this year. I really hope it goes ahead!
I haven’t booked but am hoping to be able to go to Switzerland, cancelled last year but I’d assume it will be the case this year also.
If you do go ahead with what you’ve planned I recommend going to Lake Königgsee in Bavaria, absolutely beautiful place, great roads to it too!
thanks you all for your feedback. think i’ll plan a staycation around devon and up north.
Whatever regulations will say at the time, there will be a moral imperative not travel overseas, in order to not export viral cases, and not to import cases.The UK is unlikely to achieve full vaccination until September, and Europe will be somewhere behind that.
hoping to go to spain in september
Hi, is anyone interested in the Highlights of Austria tour 3rd-11th September 2021. We are thinking about going, depending on the covid situation. Do we book through scenic car tours? As we have not done this sort of thing before not sure how it works. Any information would be great. Thanks.
Hi Nerina,
We have carried over our booking for this tour from last year. You book through Scenic Car Tours and as an MX5 Owners Club member you may get a discount. If the tour is cancelled for any reason Scenic Car Tours will either use your deposit for a different tour or refund you.
Hope this helps.
Cheers.
FirstRiderOff.
I have a sailing holiday in early July and one in September in Greece booked (the July one postponed from last July. I feel we will be going. the world can’t stop revolving forever. I did a sailing course out of Corfu in September. The flight was full, we all wore masks, in the Greek Islands the restaurants were really pleased to see us. Apparently it was like sailing around 30 + years ago it was that quiet. In the summer months you eat outside anyway. I can’t see you being in any more risk than here.
I suspect the Greek and Spanish governments are desperate to get tourists in asap. You could look at sailing down to Santander avoiding the French as they are difficult anyway.
The UK is getting very expensive, and likely to be very crowded this year. I would avoid going anywhere during the school holidays if you don’t have kids.
Many thanks. 
Skip this post if you are not interested in a virus.
I won’t be planning on going anywhere this year, and I’m a microbiologist.
I expect the government will cave in to commercial pressures from travel firms that are mostly not-UK based, and people will go off on holiday. The government really couldn’t care if you became ill on that holiday; you’ll become someone else’s medical burden. What they are concerned about is what people bring back, undoing a lot of good work done.
While vaccination is being rolled out, and this is for any vaccination campaign, the danger is the development of ultra-virulance; a sort of vaccine resistance (its not exactly the same as antibiotic resistance). This is more likely where a vaccine has lower efficacy. With vaccines, we are still flying a bit blind. The manufacturer’s protocols are not based on a carefully optimised approach. They are based on an approach to get the vaccines out as quickly as possible, with some reasonable numbers to back them up. The tweaking of protocols, to maximise innoculation rates, is entirely reasonable. But its all still a bit touch and go. We won’t know for a while (well a year) how long these vaccines confer immunity. The main purpose is to swat down numbers, and stop the pandemic, because we can’t keep innoculating the whole globe every 12 months. We might well break the chain in the UK, but that could be very quickly undone by a single case from overseas.
Its not about being afraid, its about being a little bit patient. So I was disappointed that the tour company’s insert in STHT concerned two tours that, at the moment, you cannot legally attend.
12 months ago, we knew virtually nothing about this virus. In the last 12 months, we have learnt more, but a lot of it has been medical fire fighting, largely repurposing some existing treatments, or resorting to the medically desperate (eg. convalescent plasma, which was originally a last ditch measure against typhus 100+ years ago, and which didn’t work then). There are some new live agent trials starting, and that’s going to get us to better understand infectious dose, which is so important to understand which of the measures we are taking actually work (2 meters, or 6 foot, comes from a paper written in the 1930s, and is used as a response to “how far apart should we stand”), and better understand who is actually at greatest risk (its likely not exactly age and underlying health issues).
So right now, I’d be fairly happy if 2021 UK is a bit like 2020 Australia; more or less normality, except if you want to leave the country. Relatively calm. An overseas holiday can wait to 2022.
I think it’s too early for overseas travel myself. I can understand the desire to get away after all these months of lockdown and restrictions, however it just seems more sensible to holiday at home this year. New variants of the virus seem to be occurring frequently, so cross border travel does not appeal. Touch wood, I shall be enjoying a walking holiday in the English Lakes, staying at a quiet tucked away cottage which we’ve used before. I can’t see a trip overseas being particularly relaxing, more likely stressful and risky.
As a resident of the Lake District I would think that a holiday up here this year will be far from relaxing. It was terrible here last year as the area was overrun with large groups of people who exhibited appalling behaviors. There was no social distancing and the amount of litter left was disgusting. It was never relaxing to go anywhere in the lakes last year and I don’t think it will be any better this year.
Depends when and where you go. Having visited the Lakes for over 40 years I know it pretty well. I totally agree last year was terrible, but not all tourists are the same and I’m expecting an enjoyable, relaxing holiday this year. Nothing in life is guaranteed, but I remain optimistic.
Following up, I would also say that I live in Dorset and we also attracted thousands of undesirable visitors last year. Fortunately they tended to congregate around the known beauty spots, which were no go areas for the rest of us. When we did venture out we favoured the lesser known areas for obvious reasons.