I love to travel. Anyone who takes even a short glance at my writing can see that. Over the past several months, I have also discovered a love of travel writing. My experiment with my travelogues morphed into something I want to regularly incorporate into my writing. To do that I need to travel, obviously. I knew this year would contain a dry spell so my bank account could recover but had hoped to sprinkle in a few smaller trips to supplement the series until my next big trip.

Around February, I had some small trips planned, two to NYC, once in March and once in May, for the two different Model UN conferences. I looked forward to stretching myself in writing travelogues about these trips since these trips take a much different form than normal tourist trips. I also planned a long holiday weekend in Ottawa for the marathon. Additionally, I contemplated a trip out to Arizona with Dad to cross another baseball stadium and national park off my list. Obviously, none of those plans came to fruition. My only travel this year is a trip to the beach in a week or so, not a travelogue type trip.

So now I have resorted, temporarily, to throwback Thursday with my nascent travelogues from my first international tourist travel. I will run of travelogues before I get to travel again so the series will likely have to take a hiatus.

Even though I know that travel will not happen any time soon, the longing to travel has crept back. Every time I see something about travel restrictions, I either think back on the time I got to go to that location or want to go there. I really want to go to Canada, especially after planning to go for the marathon back in May. That won’t happen for quite a while. I have an obsession with Europe but right now the European Union has banned travelers from the United States, and a few other countries thanks to those countries’ difficulty (in some cases recalcitrance) in getting the pandemic spread under control.

Despite the messiness above I have already started thinking about my next big trip which will happen hopefully next year or the soonest that travel returns to a semblance of a new normal. I have already started saving for a trip but I have no idea where. I would love to go back to the UK even though I have gone twice already, or to Europe even though I went to 12 different countries already. I definitely want to go down under to both Australia and New Zealand. Obviously, I want to go to Armenia. I would also love to go back to Spain to do a Spanish language intensive study for several weeks and jaunt off to other places in Europe for the weekends and perhaps finish up with a trek across the Camino del Santiago, the one I am virtually crossing right now with my running.

So, what should I start planning next? If I had to rank my ideas, I would start with the Spanish language intensive as long as the program allowed for weekend trips. Second to that, I think two options tie for second. If Dad could travel with me, I would arrange a World War tour, both of them, although with emphasis on the first. If Mom could go with me, I think I would arrange a trip to both Australia and New Zealand. In addition to those, I want to plan a road trip. I have come closer to a decision on that one. I would love to travel across Canada. Of course, that would depend on the ability to obtain a relatively cheap rental vehicle. The round trip rental for my 2017 East Coast trip made the whole thing affordable. Driving a round trip across the continent involves just a bit more driving.

At the end of the day I find immense joy in thinking about these trips, planning them in a rough sense even if the trips don’t happen next year. My travel ambitions usually rival my ability to save enough money in time. Additionally, travel restrictions in all these places in the world may not have relaxed enough to adequately plan or even undertake the actual travel. Despite these uncertainties, I will engage my wanderlust, patiently waiting, passport in hand, ready to travel as soon as my bank account and the pandemic allows.