2020 - the year that wasn't

 What can I say?  What happened?  What didn't happen? Basically, everything didn't happen.

After a ridiculously blessed 2018 and 2019, I hunkered down prepared to have a somewhat quieter 2020 given that I was spending more money than I'd ever spent on a vacation for my 50th birthday bash in Zambia.  It was a full-on splurge, no holds barred, no expense spared, business class fare on Emirates, elephant hide sleepout.  It was the stuff of dreams.  Until it wasn't.  In March 2020, all of the US went into lockdown due to the damn coronavirus and just like that, my dream milestone bash was snuffed out.

I won't complain because people have lost their lives to this and I've been kept from my Dad and my friends because of this and have spent the last 10 months basically prisoner in my own home.  But it still sucks.

I kept myself busy over the summer contemplating rebooking the whole trip, but with no real idea when this will end I just wanted my money back and to sit quietly in a corner and lick my wounds.  Easier said than done.  While I'd not paid for the entire cost of the trip (they were letting me wait until 30 days out to see what the situation was in Zambia, since Zambia's borders were indeed closed to tourists until early August), I was still out almost $7000 on my deposit.  Yes, you read that right.  The airfare, my business class seat on Emirates, was the easy part.  By flying business class, part of your fare benefit is to get your entire fare back if you cancel.  So that was a no-brainer.  But my trip insurance didn't cover anything related to pandemic-caused cancellations unless I myself caught the virus and couldn't travel.  I had a conversation with the insurance company at one point when the border was still closed and said "surely you don't expect me to fly there knowing the border is closed?" and they said yes, but that they'd "cover the early return home once you arrived and were turned away."  That made absolutely no sense.

Over my birthday while I was still in decision-making mode, my Dad took a turn for the worse and he was placed in hospice care.  I cancelled the trip then and there, obviously, and filed the paperwork that the doctor gave me to get my refund.  It took 4 months but I got it all back, except the $700 that the insurance cost me.  Dad is still with us and still under hospice care, which I'm thankful for, but the long story short is that without that ill turn, I'd be out $7000 in deposits.  No travel insurance policy contemplates anything having to do with this pandemic.  Read your fine print, read it again and then call and talk to an agent with pointed, specific questions before you buy any policy.

At the same time, we had trips planned for two Morrissey shows in NYC in March, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's induction of Depeche Mode in May, Chicago for a Frida Kahlo exhibition in June and Las Vegas for a 5 night residency by Morrissey.  All of those were cancelled.  JetBlue refunded every penny of the airfare and the only thing I was out is one night hotel in Cleveland, which was part of an air-hotel package and not refundable but it is still good this year.  If we get out there again.

All told, I had a very lucky recovery from all this travel that wasn't allowed to happen.

During lockdown, I've started thinking about where I'll go when I can.  We've started to research Israel, Jordan and Turkey.  I also want to support some of the places and people who've been suffering during lockdown that I miss:  my hotels in Paris and Florence, my guides in Kenya.  I also want to tick off more adventures on my bucket list:  chimps in Tanzania.  It's still too early to book now but never too early to dream.

And the countdown continues

Finally, I am under 200 days until Zambia.  I know this is quite literally wishing an entire spring and summer away, but I so want to be back on safari.  #desperate

More of the waiting...

It's kind of hard to believe that I booked my camps for Zambia 8 months ago now and here I am now just about 8 months out from departure.  It's gone by pretty fast but I've been busy and it's been the beautiful, enjoyable spring, summer and fall months here.  Now I have the winter slog to get through.  The January-April months feel like a year some years.  Ugh.

In mid-October my travel dates were finally available on Emirates for the Zambia safari.  I'd spent some time on SeatGuru taking a look at where I might be most comfortable in Economy class for 12 hours from Boston to Dubai and then 8 more hours from Dubai to Lusaka, and back again.  One interesting twist and benefit to this route is that because the layover in Dubai is over 8 hours (it's 14) Emirates will put me up in a hotel at no cost for the overnight, so that does break the flight up some and give me a chance to sleep in a bed, have a shower and spend time on solid ground before the second leg.  But the return flight is not so lucky, it's only 2 hour layover, so a 22 hour continuous trip in essence.

Traveling solo, I can take advantage of sitting anywhere I want without considering a traveling companion.  I did find a seat that didn't have a seat in front of it for the longer flights and I wanted to buy the fare early in order to get that seat.  Then I really started to think about it and thought maybe this might be an opportunity to take advantage of Emirates' Business Class experience, which is widely known to be best  in the business and will let me take two bags on as carry-on (which is a must since I'm a carry-on only flier now). I read that they have a Business Class lite fare which didn't have concierge, seat assignment, lounge or chauffeur as part of the fare.  Wait, what? Chauffeur you say?  Yes, they will pick me up at my home, deliver me to the airport at the appointed hour and return me to my home, included in the fare.  That could save me upwards of $200 for airport long-term parking for that trip.  So then I started looking at the full Business fare.  Picking a seat was a plus too, so I know I'll be on a window by myself.  At that point, the Business class check-in, champagne bar and dining in the lounge won me over.  How could I not do this?  After all, I only have this milestone birthday once.  And one feature unique to this fare which I don't get with my usual Economy fare is that I can cancel for a very small fee, so no need to add the fare to my trip insurance.  So while the various extraneous savings didn't add up anywhere close to the increase in fare, I think it'll be an exciting splurge.  I so enjoyed the lie flat beds going to Kenya last year, but that Business Class wasn't nearly the caliber of this.  Now the deed is done and the waiting continues. 

Turning 49 again should be fairly painless with all this on the horizon!!

Getting my feet back under me in the new year

Just because there have been no posts doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about travel.  In fact, quite the opposite.

After a quick and somewhat unfortunate trip to Mexico City (all was well until we both got sick, spent a day in bed and didn't recover enough to eat more than one real Mexican meal...although we made it to both Morrissey shows which is all that counts, yes?) I decided I really didn't want to travel again for a while.  Doing the Bos-JFK-NBO round trip wasn't fun but then to follow it up with 6 hours to CDMX a week later was kind of crazy.

Well that sort of home-bound mindset lasted maybe a month.  If that.  The week before Christmas I wrote an email to my safari planner and said "I need to go back to Kenya, let's look at October 2019".  Through a series of miscommunications and failure to follow-through, I decided I was getting a message from the travel gods that Kenya wasn't in the future for this year.  It shouldn't be so much work getting an itinerary, I thought.  And indeed, fate had other things in store.

I've had a roundtrip to Europe ticket burning a hole in my pocket for a few years (thank you United MileagePlus credit card) and I've tried to use it at least twice and the trip always falls through.  So I used it to book Krakow and Munich this May, heading off to see some WWII sights as well as some museums.  I've never been to Poland and have been to other parts of Germany but never Munich.  I'll be ticking off some sights I've wanted to see like Neuschwanstein Castle and Auschwitz.

And as you'd expect, Morrissey announced tour dates for his first tour of Canada in 20 years, so the weekend before I leave for Poland, I'll be in Toronto for two shows there.  Because that's how I roll.

For the fall I'd been kicking around Egypt and Jordan but hadn't settled on anything in particular.  I also was eyeing Morocco.  Knowing that we'll likely head to Paris for the Leonardo show over Thanksgiving, I had to keep the schedule somewhat fluid and affordable for the fall.  And then I realized....

Next year is a milestone birthday for me.  I need to plan that trip!

Looking back through this blog, you'll see I spent my last milestone birthday trip in Russia with a private guide and driver.  It was splurgey for certain, but worth it to celebrate an ends-in-zero birthday.  I have my sights set higher on this one.  It has to be safari but it has to be amazing safari, epic safari.  And that's when I turned my sights on Zambia.

Zambia is less visited and more wild.  It has what is considered the best walking safari in the world.  It takes longer to get to and costs more to be there.  Indeed, I could only justify one location there no matter how much my new safari planner told me I just had to try another location.  I wanted to maximize my time on the ground and not in transit.  So I rejected Kafue and Lower Zambezi and focused my efforts just on South Luangwa, one of the best places in the world to see leopards and lions.  Of course!  So a week of back and forth tweaking itineraries and I arrived at one I think will be perfect.  It's in three of the best camps in the area, with a focus on guiding, cats and two days of nothing but walking safari.  And on my second to last night I'll be sleeping out under the full moon at an elephant watering hole.  How on earth am I going to top that?  I'm not...that's the point of these milestone birthday trips!

So the deposit has been paid.  It's so far off that I can't even book airfare for another 8 months.  The camps I wanted are very small and in demand, so booking early is necessary.  I'm locked and loaded.  As I say, it's all over but the waiting.  17 months and counting....