Decision made

I have decided to wait until 2023 to visit Europe but have made the decision to visit Vietnam and Cambodia later this year. 

Starting to feel hopeful again

 It has been ages since I last posted anything on here.  Some states here still have their borders closed to other states, as the numbers of people getting Covid-19 are rising BUT also more and more people are getting vaccinated and hopefully once the country or the state or territory reaches a certain %, we will be allowed out of lockdown.

I'm also starting to look at where I might go next year, once we are allowed to travel outside of Australia.  Hopefully to Spain & Morocco but not as many tours are on offer for 2022, which is understandable, so I might not be able to do the original tours that I had planned.  Still a bit of a wait and see time.

Refunds

 I hadn't been chasing travel companies or airlines, re cancellations by them but my wonderful TA had been doing it on my behalf.  To cut a long story short, apart from the deposits that I paid for the 2 tours that I had booked, all other monies were refunded to my TA's account and she has now refunded that to my bank account.  The 2 deposits have been issued as travel credits. One for travel until the 31 December 2022 and the other one, valid until September 2023.

I'm very pleased with that outcome.

No Overseas Travel This Year

What a mess this year has been. 

COVID-19, has put paid to the travel plans of many people, including myself.  I was due to depart Australia in just under 4 weeks time but my flight was cancelled and the tours postponed until who knows' when.  Certainly not this year and perhaps not next year either.   A wait and see situation for so many people.

2 Tours & 2 Countries

This year I'm re-visiting parts of Spain (I was there in 2005) and visiting Morocco for the first time.

Northern Spain with Insight,

and Morocco & Southern Spain with Bunnik

I have been planning on doing Insights “Northern Spain” tour ever since they started it back in 2015. I also regretted not including Morocco, when I toured Spain & Portugal, in 2005, so decided this year I’d visit Morocco, do the Northern Spain tour and also Insights “Normandy, Brittany & the Loire Valley, which has been on my list for many years.

Bunnik have a 20 day tour of Morocco and I almost booked that, but dates weren’t working with the other 2 tours. I then decided that almost 3 weeks in Morocco might be too long there, so looked at their other tours that included Morocco and decided that Morocco & Southern Spain was the same length but only 10 days in Morocco. That plus the fact that it ended in Madrid & the Insight Spain tour started in Madrid, made me drop the France tour off the agenda and made it easier re flights.

I’m flying with Qatar this year. I haven’t flown with them before.  They currently fly in and out of Canberra, via Sydney.  I’m pretty sure the plane departing Canberra will be almost empty but will fill up while we transit in Sydney.