Travelbug Train of Thought

We always feel this way after a vacation: we want to travel again, and soon. But if the pandemic has taught us one thing, we don't enjoy being in crowds.

Travelling to resorts has been good. We're able to keep our social distance and stay outside for most of the time. We were able to enjoy lounging on beaches or swimming in the sea, away from people.

Tuscany, 2009.

But I miss vacations where we explored city streets, wandered the terrain between towns, and explored the countryside from a vehicle.

My big trip of 2022 was supposed to take me to Iceland, to drive the Ring Road and explore the waterfalls, mountains, geothermal ponds, volcanoes, and black beaches. I've wanted to go since my first day of my virtual challenge, last year. I wanted to go, so much so that I was willing to push out our trip to Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands, which was cancelled in 2020 because of the pandemic.

That trip is indefinitely on hold, though we plan to do it as soon as the pandemic is officially over.

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resulting explosion of gas prices, it looks like our trip to Iceland is also on hold. The price of fuel in this remote country is expensive in the best of times, and we expect it to be extortionate come June, when we thought we'd go.

We still want to travel. DW is already monitoring several travel Web sites for sales on our Akumal Bay resort. We plan to return either next January or February. But we're going to need to use our vacation days that we accrue in 2022 or we'll lose them.

On Sunday, we started brainstorming for travel destinations. A couple of months ago, some dear friends of ours travelled through the south of Spain, and we became intrigued with Seville. Spending a couple of weeks in Andalusia didn't seem like a bad way to spend a vacation, and so we started looking for flight deals.

My first search had me looking for direct flights from Ottawa to Madrid, but then DW had me try for flights to Lisbon, Portugal, because she thought the flight might be cheaper and the train to Seville might be faster.

The flight was cheaper but we didn't get as far in our search to see if the train would save us time.

"What's Lisbon itself like?" I asked.

"It's supposed to be beautiful and there's a lot of history to it." We then went onto YouTube and watched a couple of videos about Portugal's capital. "I could spend a week in Lisbon before going to Seville," offered DW.

"I could spend a couple of weeks in Lisbon alone," I said. "Forget Seville."

We watched more videos that included the surrounding area. We began considering a month in Lisbon, where we'd bring our work computers and do our jobs from there.

The travel bug has a firm grip on us. We still want to explore more options and we have plenty of time to plan. Assuming World War III doesn't start.

Where would you go? Would you travel from country to country or would you pick a place from which you could branch out? Would you find a beach and lounge for a few weeks or would you get in a car and drive?

Stay tuned.