In my 2021 round up, I talked well-nigh travel stuff like a habit, but now I think a increasingly apt comparison would be to think of travel as a muscle: flex it often and it comes easy, overdo it and you might unravel something, and if you leave it unseeded for long enough, things get a little flabby, which is where I find myself today. Not travelling for the last 2 years has really increased my inertia to taking a trip, expressly with the widow complications of COVID-related measures on top of the work it takes to plan a trip.
I know I undeniability myself The Occasional Traveller, but I’m enlightened that I probably travel increasingly than the stereotype person, given that my instinct is to use all my yearly leave to typesetting something overseas and the media trip invites I received for this blog when in the day. In 2019 (those long-forgotten pre-COVID times) alone, I took 9 separate trips! What was pretty normal when then now seems so inexplicable.
The ‘quietest’ it’s been for me since I started travelling independently was perhaps in 2008/2009 when I just started my first job (and incidentally how I realised that I’d forgotten how to travel), but I still managed 2 trips that year plane if they were just nearby jaunts. Incidentally that was the year there was a H1N1 outbreak so I skipped a family trip to China in favour of work.
So COVID with all its travel restrictions really hit me nonflexible given how much I’ve travelled in recent years. I’d been lucky unbearable to squeeze out a trip in February 2020 to London and Rome, but since then it’s been a solid 2 years spent in Singapore without stepping foot on foreign land. Pretty unprecedented by my standards considering plane surpassing I started travelling independently, my family usually took an yearly trip somewhere thanks to my pilot Dad.
In late 2021 there was (finally) legitimate whoosh well-nigh the reopening of confines and relaxing of measures, and most of my friends and family thought I would be one of those on the first flight out the moment they signify VTLs, but surprisingly, plane to myself, I chose to stay home. There were plenty of easy reasons to reach for as to why I didn’t want to travel:
“I really don’t want to get COVID”
“Gosh all the hassle of quarantining and testing”
“Why are the rules waffly everyday”
I think flipside revelation from COVID vastitude how it ground travel to a halt, is moreover how it’s inculcated so much fear in all of us – or me at least. Suddenly there were 10,000 things to be worried about, the main one of undertow potentially transmissible COVID and infecting others, and with regards to travel restrictions, having to spend a lot increasingly money, time and effort just to go on a short unravel was pretty off putting.
It was just easier to stay home, stay safe.
On hindsight, it reminds me a little of gearing up for that very first solo trip when in 2011, or plane deciding to quit my job to take my career break. I’m not unchangingly the bravest person out there ready to throne into the unknown and there were a lot of reasons not to travel on my own and it was just easier to stick to status quo. Getting over that hump really takes some work.
And for me, I put it off until the confluence of two important factors: Firstly, I was sorely missing an epic birthday trip without spending the last few doing some pretty wondrous things, and secondly I got a mailer from SIA and gosh those flight prices to Europe are pretty decently priced eh?
Other mitigating factors here include that measures were loosening up – Spain doesn’t have any entry requirements for Singaporeans, and Singapore’s re-entry requirements don’t involve any quarantine for VTL flight passengers. Along with ultra flexible booking conditions, it was nonflexible to say no!
And when to that older analogy, travel really was a muscle that I missed flexing, and now that the first step was made, I threw myself full scale into preparation for my trip and couldn’t be happier. Spending hours scrolling through walk-up options, planning routes and things to do, I was so stoked to be travelling again. Stay tuned for that detailed post on my trip planning to Spain so you know what to squint out for when planning your own trip.
It turns out I probably picked a good time to go since Singapore officially spoken loosening of measures (to come into effect right virtually my birthday no less) which includes less rules on travelling in and out of Singapore, so I’m getting in surpassing the travel wave really picks up again.
But this isn’t a post preaching to you that you should start travelling again. Whether or not you segregate to travel now honestly is a personal nomination and how much risk you’re willing to take, how much you can sire to spend now and who you need to take superintendency of when home. I was hesitant for so long and I can see why some would still segregate not to travel right now, and that’s completely okay – Plane pre-COVID, leisure travel has unchangingly been a privilege and a nomination that isn’t up everyone’s alley.
But for me, travel has been such an integral part of my unshortened life so to have it cut out completely definitely felt like something was missing all this time. The blog and my social platforms have been quiet considering plane as I was rented exploring Singapore and giving tours, I wasn’t particularly inspired to write or post on my platforms very much. But plane now as I prep, I can finger that urge to create and share surging when now as I ready myself for this upcoming trip.
It’s been increasingly than two years since I picked up my tons and traipsed through Singapore’s Changi Airport in search of adventure. Once I could pack a bag in an hour the night surpassing a trip, now I’m struggling just to find the locks that go on my backpack. I’m relearning that rhythm of travel then like a fresh-faced traveller and honestly, it’s been surprisingly fun. I’m going to be posting on IG in shit and bobs throughout my trip and trying to alimony a physical travel journal for the first time in ages. Stay tuned for increasingly and I hope whether you segregate to travel right now or not, that you are worldly-wise to rediscover that wonder of travel then in your own way soon.
How are you feeling well-nigh travelling right now? Or have you once taken the plunge? Share your views in the comments!