WHERE TO GO IN 2022???

Anne in Tropea

We all know what a miserable couple of years it's been due to COVID-19 and ever-changing travel restrictions.  But we hope 2022 travel is looking more promising as entry requirements change.  It helps that both of us are now triple jabbed, so maybe able to travel again.

While Anne H managed a quick trip to see elderly relatives in Italy (see a previous visit here) last year, Anne C hasn't been away for a couple of years.  And while we had some sunny days in the UK last summer, holidaying at home was incredibly expensive as resorts cashed in on international travel restrictions. 

A view from Tropea town

Planning this year's holidays

So it is with fingers crossed that we try and plan our much-needed and long overdue holidays for the coming year.  

Anne H will hopefully be heading to Italy again - this time to Verona as well as Tropea.  The Verona trip was due last year but was one of the trips which fell foul of Italy's restrictions.

Anne C has a bucket list holiday booked in the USA, which has been cancelled four times due to the pandemic, but also the back-story started in 2016.

If you've been a long-standing reader of our blog, Anne and Anne went off to New York with their respective daughters.  The plan was for Anne C and her daughter to spend five days with Anne H and her blogger daughter Lizzy, before continuing onto Las Vegas for a further five days. (Anne and Lizzy had previously been to Las Vegas and didn't plan to go again). 

That trip went badly wrong. As Anne C was getting out of a taxi, the driver suddenly accelerated away from the kerb.  She was thrown into the road and fractured her spine.  Instead of heading off to Nevada, she spent the night in hospital and was forced to travel back home to the UK laid out flat in business class, and subsequently spent nearly a month in a wheelchair. (Incidentally it was the first time she had ever flown first class and was so sleepy on diazepam that she doesn't remember any of the flight).

A subsequent visit back to New York in 2018 was to claim compensation, which fortunately was ultimately successful.  However, Anne is still often in severe pain, but thankfully can walk relatively normally again.

So it is with fingers crossed that in 2019 Anne and her daughter booked what to her would be the holiday of a lifetime, taking in Las Vegas, Hawaii and Los Angeles. Firstly due to mechanical issues with the ship they were due to cruise, followed by the pandemic, it has now been postponed four times, but hopefully it will go ahead this Spring.

The plan is to spend five days in Las Vegas, taking in the Grand Canyon, the Hoover Dam and all the bright lights - we also did try and get Adele tickets since we couldn't even get the UK ones, but that hasn't been successful either.  Then it's onto Honolulu for a few days, before boarding the Pride of America and setting sail for a tour of the Hawaiian Islands.  Finally, we will stop off in LA for a couple of days to relax.

It may well be the last major holiday Anne has, other than staying in Europe and visiting her favourite Greek island of Santorini (she's even been learning the Greek language!)  For our American readers, Europe is just a short hop for us from the UK, and flights are relatively inexpensive.  I say this because we were once criticised by our US followers who said our blog was unrealistic and that Greece was out of the question for most seniors.  Similarly of course, the same is true for us travelling to the United States.

Whether all of these plans will come to fruition is anyone's guess of course, since Covid is probably here to stay and we will have to learn to live with it for years to come. 

Sadly, the last time we managed to get away on holiday together was in autumn 2019 when we cruised Italy, Malta and Croatia. 

But I do know that we both need a little sunshine in our lives this year.  Fingers crossed.