First Vacation

It's a long way away, but it's our light at the end of the tunnel.

Both DW and I have received our first dose of the vaccine against COVID-19 and I'm hoping that I will soon have my second jab. This is the first step to returning to normalcy, though I imagine that we'll still be maintaining social distancing and wearing face masks around those who have not been fully vaccinated or the vulnerable for some time yet.

But we're hopeful that life will soon return to normal, and that includes travel.

Our 2020 vacation to Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany was cancelled early into the pandemic, but DW and I are determined to make it happen in the autumn of 2022, preferably with the same destinations and accommodations that we had painstakingly arranged for last year's vacation. But we want to travel as soon as it's safe to do so, and that means looking for another place in the interim.

DW's and my last big vacation, together, was to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, in 2019, when we headed south, for a week on the Mayan Riviera. It was the best vacation that we had taken in many years, if not a decade.

And it was just the two of us.

We still talk about it with such fondness and we often find ourselves re-watching the video that we made during that trip. For us, it's 10 minutes that puts us back into that restful state that we felt after a day of exploring, when we relaxed near the pool or on the beach, sipping margaritas.

Ahh...

Ever since we've returned from that vacation, DW has been watching for deals in Mexico, hoping to relive the magic of that trip. Of course, COVID got in the way.

But now that we're on the road to being vaccinated, now that a return to normal is moving closer, DW has started looking for deals again. And she's found a few.

And so, next February, if all continues to look like the pandemic will be under control, we're returning to the Mayan Riviera.

At first, DW was looking at a deal for an all-inclusive resort on the island of Cozumel, but I told her that I wanted to be free to explore on the mainland, and that I didn't want to be confined to an island. We did that, in 2017, in Cuba, and I didn't want to do that again, even though Cuba and Mexico are very different countries.

I loved where we stayed in 2019, at the Bahai Principe Luxury Akumal resort. The staff was fabulous, there was so much to do, and we were also able to rent a car so that we could explore on our own. Watch the video to get an idea of our adventures.

I told DW that while I didn't want to do everything that we did in 2019, I did want to explore the Yucatan Peninsula. I wanted to explore more cenotes and I wanted to do a day trip to Chichén Itzá, where I went in 1989 on my very first trip to Mexico. And we both wanted the opportunity to swim with sea turtles again.

So DW found a deal for a highly rated resort in Akumal, on the very beach where we swam with the sea turtles. After showing me some online information about the resort, I said, "Book it!"

We have free cancellation, in case the pandemic gains ground again. But our trip is far enough that we're hoping it won't come to that.

We're looking forward to travelling again and this first vacation since the March 2020 lockdown. Next up, we start rebooking our trip to Europe. I've even looked into 2023, when we may travel the UK, and 2024, when we may return to Italy.

Oh, there's that travel bug again!