Boris Johnson: His Role In Our Life Story
Given that we retired at the end of 2019 with the sole aim of travelling the world only to have our lifetime dream snatched away by the pandemic, it’s not so surprising that we’re hanging on to every word of the UK Government just now, looking for our next opportunity to travel.
So currently, every time Boris or one of his cohorts talk to the press – or indeed manipulate one of those infuriating “leaks”- we sit up and take notice, and start to work out how Boris now affects Phil & Michaela. Although there’s going to be a bit of a minefield to work through, the mist is clearing enough for us to have an outline plan.
Of course, in our situation, we benefit hugely from our ability to be flexible. We can go anywhere, for a length of time we choose, we will be vaccinated before we go, and we aren’t worried if we need to quarantine at home on our return to the UK.
So it seems that, once the current ban on international travel from the UK is lifted, currently scheduled for May 17th, the country is likely to adopt a traffic light system for destination countries, geared mostly to how you are treated on your return here. Once we have received our second vaccine at the end of May, we will start watching very closely to see firstly which countries we are allowed to head to, and secondly whether there are restrictions on our arrival in those countries. We definitely wouldn’t want to quarantine on our arrival abroad, but would certainly be willing to demonstrate negative tests, if required.
Nothing in recent announcements has changed our hopes that we will be able to head somewhere in July, even if the choice of destination is limited. So during June, our questions will surround what is open in that country, what restrictions remain in place, whether there are restrictions on travel within that country, and even whether we are able to cross borders. In our admittedly optimistic minds therefore we believe that July is a distinct possibility, and it remains our current target for our next adventure.
Ahead of that we have booked three trips within the UK between now and June, and then we’ll be waiting for Boris to ring our metaphorical door bell and clear that mist a little more.
15 Comments
normareadtalktalknet
Fingers crossed 🤞🏼
Andrew Petcher
I want to travel but do I really want to travel to countries that may be dangerous (vaccinated or not), and may have restrictions and curfews . I don’t want to travel in a face mask. I don’t want lengthy border checks or expensive covid tests so I think I am quite happy to wait a further six months or so.
Phil & Michaela
I think it will probably be a long time before the face mask thing is dropped for travel, possibly never. But we won’t let the covid test bit put us off – we’ve worked too many years to realise our travel dream to not find a way round things!
Andrew Petcher
Not just travel but suspect we will be wearing masks for the rest of our lives.
I was thinking about going to Northern Ireland again but that seems unlikely right now. Never mind a face mask you will need a suit of armour!
Phil & Michaela
Sad but true!
Gilda Baxter
The tittle of this blog post immediately caught my attention. Boris is keeping us all on tenterhooks for sure, but with the vaccination program going so well the future of travelling looks quite good (for the UK at least).
Like yourselves we retired in order to travel, but here we are “travellers interrupted” again. It is a case of wait-and-see for the next couple of months, but I do feel cautiously optimistic for some international travel towards the end of 2021…fingers crossed.
Phil & Michaela
I sort of nicked the title (well, the idea) from Spike Milligan, who entitled his humorous war memoirs “Adolf Hitler: My Part In His Downfall”.
Stefan (Berkeley Square Barbarian)
Fingers crossed for your plans. We really hope we’ll get to leave the country soon too.
Phil & Michaela
Let’s all hope so, we’re all losing valuable travelling time
grandmisadventures
Talk about crazy timing for you- to be all geared up for traveling in retirement only to have the pandemic hit. But I’m really excited to read about your trips around the UK coming up. Here’s hoping that one day soon Boris gives the all clear for traveling again!
Phil & Michaela
Yes indeed – our first UK trip starts next week and after being at home for over four months we’re really looking forward to it.
Steve
This September Annie and I were hoping to continue part of our cancelled trip from last March – starting in Japan. However, the closer we get the less optimistic I am that places will open up so we’ve begun checking out alternatives. Mexico is an easy and close place for us and also if the EU opens up we might head there. Heck, Annie can’t even get home to Canada yet. Definitely not committing to flights yet – except Tahiti to SanFrancisco for $266!!!! Couldn’t pass it up.
Be safe.
Steve
Phil & Michaela
We could take some perverse excitement from not knowing where we’re going next!
Toonsarah
I had to read a post with this title! Like you we are waiting for Boris to ring that metaphorical door bell 😉 Also like you we don’t mind the idea of quaranting on our return, but only if we can do it in our own home, we wouldn’t want to pay for hotel quarantine. We have tentative plans for Paris in September but will be happy to change those if other countries look a better bet. We also have a trip to Sri Lanka pencilled in for early next year but I’m keeping all fingers crossed we can get abroad somewhere before then. We will be watching for that ‘traffic light system’ with baited breath!!
Phil & Michaela
We loved our trip to Sri Lanka, need to do the parts we didn’t do last time! Hopefully the world will start to open up for us travellers soon. And like you we will just head to wherever we can 😊