The future of travel
Remember the golden age of travel? You should – it ended only six months ago. That was a time when cruise ships zigzagged oceans, safari parks were full, tour guides on the Inca Trail actually had people to lead – and my husband and I thought nothing of pulling our four small children out of school for a year-long adventure crisscrossing four continents. You can probably guess how that worked out!
In mid-March, just two-and-a-half months into our “trip of a lifetime”, we were forced to beat a hasty retreat to Australia as international borders, from Istanbul to Johannesburg, slammed shut around us.
Locked down in the Margaret River region (I know, I know, poor us), we spent the next two months plotting how we could salvage the rest of our year off once all “This” is over.
An outback adventure somewhere in Australia? A ski season in New Zealand? Or – if things went really, really, exceedingly well – a return to Europe to fulfil our dream of putting the children into French school?
But “This”, we soon came to realise, may never be over. The psychological and financial scars of COVID-19, the stringent measures to contain the virus, the collapse of airlines and hotel chains around the world, and the fear of the next pandemic would all change travel irrevocably. With no home or jobs to return to for a further eight months, and most of Australia sealed into impenetrable state or intrastate zones, my husband and I worked blindly to rustle up a new travel plan.
So, when called to commission a story on the future of travel, it seemed less of an academic
