Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. We all planned our business trips, summer holidays, city trips, weekends away from home … and then Corona happened. I had finished my 2020 year plan in December and by the second week of March, I could pretty much throw all my plans in the bin.
Trips I had to cancel because of the Corona virus
The last trips I made before the lockdown were a quarterly review in Bali and a quick commute to Amsterdam. After that, I had to cancel a lot of trips:
- Weekly commutes to Amsterdam.
- March Quarterly review St. Julian’s (Malta)
- March: Quarterly review Skopje (North Macedonia)
- March: Nurnberg (Germany)
- April, May: A second attempt on the Jordan Trail – to do a proper Dana to Petra and then finish to Aqaba (and a quick visit to Amman).
- April: Nurnberg (Germany)
- May: The amazing nutchel cabins in Maaseik (Belgium).
- Juni: A week-long hike of the Way of St James (Spain) with my dad.
Making the best of the Corona virus
Many of the things we are looking for when we travel, can be found at home. New memories, meeting new people, breaks from our daily habits, new habits, experiences worth sharing. We often find them because distance creates insight. Because the travel opens out minds. Because we are forced to act differently than we would do at home.
Living with an open mind opens up the possibilities to experience that at home. Everything that can help you live with an open mind. Whether it is closing your eyes after great moments or finding ways to experience more.
I have collected some of the things my family, friends and me have been doing in order to stay sane during a travel-free Corona. Making beautiful memories is not about location, it is about having an open mind. I have created a new category destination “home” and “doings” where I collect some of the things we started doing at home, to make the most out of it.
My 2020 travel plans (Corona update)
So, I was able to finish part of my travel plans for 2020:
- February: Quarterly review in Ljubljana (Slovenia)
- February: Quarterly review in Bali (Indonesia).
- February: The Hague (The Netherlands)
As mentioned above, I had to cancel quite some plans. With government restrictions being slowly lifted, I updated my travel plans for the rest of the year:
- June: Hof van Saksen with our family (again).
- July: Quarterly review in Belgrade (Serbia) – if I get the opportunity to cancel or reschedule for free, I will.
- August: Most likely a new try to finish the Arctic Circle Trail in Greenland.
- October: Weekend in La Marquise in Budel (Netherlands).
- November: Quarterly review in Seoul (South-Korea).
What travel will look like in the near and far future is difficult to say and I’m not going to get into the business of predicting what is unpredictable. The matter of fact is, for whatever reason it is, whether it because there will be less opportunities to travel, because travel will be more expensive, because we have less disposable income … we will travel less. And this has an impact on the present – the challenge becomes – ever more to not only travel with an open mind, but to live with an open mind. I do hope you are able to find piece in this new reality.
Let me know if you have any other ideas or tips!
