Pandemic travel: Should we be booking holidays yet?

Well, we’ve gone and done it. We’ve booked a holiday. For 12 April. For those who are unaware, 12 April is the current planned date for various lockdown restrictions being eased in England. Non-essential shops will be allowed to open. Outdoor attractions such as zoos and theme parks will be allowed to open. Hairdressers and beauty salons will be allowed to open. Public buildings such as libraries will be allowed to open. Outdoor hospitality will be allowed, so beer gardens and cafés with outdoor seating areas will be all go. But most importantly, overnight stays in self-contained accommodation will also be allowed.

Like most people, I waited with bated breath for the government’s ‘Covid roadmap’ announcement. Of course, lots of it was relevant to me, but one thing I was really interested in was how the proposed lifting of restrictions was going to affect our holiday plans. We already had four holidays booked for this year, three of them carried over after being postponed last year – and that didn’t even include our main summer holiday. Would we be able to go on any of them? Well, after the announcement, we did at least have some answers. Unless things don’t go as well as they are hoped, and depending on the situation in other countries of course, we should be able to go to Mexico in October as planned. Again, as long as things go according to the government’s plan, we should be able to go on our booked camping holiday in Dorset at the end of May, albeit with a few restrictions still in place. We were (are?) hoping to go to Corfu in the summer, after cancelling last year, but we’re not willing to book anything yet; the roadmap suggests that all restrictions will have been eased by then, but that may not be the case in other countries, even if everything is going well here. Another issue is vaccinations – the government’s aim is to have given every adult in the UK their first vaccine by July, but will we have had our second one? Greece is one country that is talking about vaccination passports to allow entry – will one vaccine be sufficient? (And even if it is, will we still feel safe to travel?) What about children, who won’t have been vaccinated? There are still a lot of questions to be answered before we even consider booking anything abroad – however, because Greece (or abroad in general) isn’t a definite ‘no’, we also don’t want to book something in the UK and then wish that we hadn’t because it turns out we could have gone somewhere further afield (and warmer!).

However, one thing we did find out for certain was that our trips to the Netherlands and Portugal were off. The government announced that the earliest date at which international travel might start again would be 17 May – a week or so after our planned trip to Sintra in Portugal to celebrate my husband’s impending ‘big’ birthday. It also meant that we wouldn’t be able to go to Center Parcs in Holland for Easter, which was pretty much what we had expected to be fair. Cancelling wasn’t entirely a straightforward affair, as the resort is currently open (unlike last year, when the park was closed) and we weren’t quite sure where we stood. However, one email later and they have agreed to cancel the holiday and we are awaiting a voucher for the value of what we paid, to be booked again at a later date. Portugal has been simpler – we booked in October last year, knowing that there was a strong likelihood that we wouldn’t be able to go and would have to cancel. Therefore, the hotel wasn’t actually paid for yet and could be cancelled for free up to 24 hours before arrival. The British Airways flights were booked at a time when it was clearly stated that we could rebook or get a travel voucher if we chose to cancel. Accordingly, I cancelled the flights and was sent a voucher for the value the next day. While BA effectively still has our money, this can at least be used to pay for or be put towards flights in the future, so we’re not really out of pocket.

Still, while we won’t be able to travel abroad until at least 17 May, and won’t be able to stay in a hotel even in the UK until the same date, the important thing is that overnight stays in self-catering accommodation will (hopefully) be allowed from 12 April. This is the Monday of the second week of the school Easter holidays and my husband already had the week booked off work for our ill-fated Center Parcs trip. It would be silly not to take advantage, right?!

For those without children and/or with flexible jobs, this probably sounds a bit mad. Why book a holiday on the very first day that lockdown restrictions are eased? Why not book something for May or at least later in April? Why not at least wait a bit before booking? After all, there’s a very real chance that things won’t go according to the government’s plan and the date will be put back a bit – it certainly wouldn’t be the first time. The trouble is, as parents of school-age children, we are very restricted as to when we can go (at least, we are if we take the children with us!). Monday 12 April is the beginning of the last week of the Easter holidays, so it is the only time when we’d be able to go anywhere before the end of May. Basically, it’s a case of book for then or don’t bother booking at all. Also, although my husband’s work holidays aren’t set in stone, they are restricted to when other people in his (virtual) office aren’t off work, which can make school holidays difficult. Having already booked that week off work, it may well be that cancelling it would be pointless, as he wouldn’t be able to book a convenient time off later in the year to ‘replace’ it. And what’s the point of having the week off work and spending it in your house (where you already spend a hell of a lot of time at the moment) when you could be on holiday?!

Of course, we still wouldn’t have booked it unless it was cancellable, and that is absolutely key with booking any holidays in the foreseeable future. This particular holiday can be cancelled for free up until two weeks beforehand, after which the refund decreases incrementally as you get closer to the date of the holiday. We are crossing fingers that if there are likely to be any changes or delays to the government’s planned relaxing date, we’ll know by that point. I am ASSUMING, but I have to say that it’s not clear from everything I’ve read so far, that if things change and overnight stays are not allowed, the property will have to cancel the booking rather than us, and we will be entitled to a refund, or at the very least the opportunity to change dates. However – and this is important to look out for – we will NOT be covered if we have to cancel due to having to self-isolate (or, to be fair, for any other reason). When we booked accommodation last year, there was clear guidance around refunds for any Covid-related cancellations, including becoming ill yourself or having to self-isolate (at least with the company that we were and are using). This year that has changed: there is a clear note on the website stating that the property’s cancellation rules (which vary across properties) apply even if your reservation is affected by Covid-19. As I said, I’m assuming that when the cancellation is made by the property owners rather than yourself this is a different situation, but I am not certain. Either way, we are aware that we are taking a risk in terms of cancellation at our end, but we are crossing our fingers. This is one reason why it is important not only to have travel insurance but also to check how it is impacted by the current pandemic; some policies may have exclusions on any cancellations, medical treatment, etc. that are due to Covid, so don’t rely on it covering you.

It’s also important to remember that the concept of a refund is subject to different interpretations. Obviously the ideal situation is a straightforward refund, where the money is paid back into your account, which is what happened when Travel Republic cancelled our holiday to Corfu last year. More common is a refund in the form of a voucher or credit note – this is what happened with BA, as was clearly stated when we booked. This is also what happened with Center Parcs both times, including the first time when the holiday was cancelled by them rather than us, as the resort was closed. My gut feeling is that we should have been entitled to a refund in this situation, where they cancelled the holiday rather than us, although I am not sure what the legal requirements are, particularly when the holiday is booked direct with a company/property in another country. It didn’t bother us, however, as we were happy to use the voucher and book again in the future. Our email also states that if you don’t use the voucher before it expires (it has an expiry date of a year), you will be refunded your money a month later – so you do get a refund, but you just have to wait for it! The campsite for the holiday that we booked last May also gave us a credit note for our (admittedly small) deposit, which we used to rebook for this year. Again, I’m not sure of the legality of this, given that they were closed and cancelled the booking themselves but still made it clear that refunds wouldn’t be given but, again, we didn’t mind reusing our deposit for another year. One point to bear in mind here is that the travel industry has taken a massive battering, and everyone involved, from small B&Bs to airlines and large travel agents, has lost a lot of money because of the pandemic. If we are able to help a little by accepting a credit note rather than a refund, then we are happy to do so – after all, we are bound to use them for future holidays. And that’s what it really comes down to when deciding to book – if your only refund option is a credit note/voucher, would you be able to use it? That may be easier for something general like flights but not so much for a specific cottage booked as a pandemic getaway. Do you need the money or are you happy to leave it ‘in the care’ of’ the holiday company? Would that actually be a good way of making sure future holidays are paid for without ‘accidentally’ spending the money? Or would you rather have the money in your pocket, perhaps because your situation has changed and things are tighter or because you would rather book somewhere/something else? These are all things to consider if you are thinking about booking a holiday at the moment. But if you are able to cancel close to your departure date and/or you would be happy to accept a credit note – or even better, like our hotel in Portugal, you don’t even have to pay until the last minute so won’t lose anything by cancelling – then there’s no real reason why it isn’t worth crossing your fingers and booking things right now, according to the government’s roadmap.

Of course, there is also a whole other issue around whether we should be booking holidays that has nothing to do with refunds: is it safe? This is a question I clearly can’t answer and one that people will have their own ideas about. I could argue that if something is ‘allowed’ then it should be at least relatively safe, but just because you are allowed to do something doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea – something that could be argued in many contexts! I think the second surge in Coronavirus cases in the UK as restrictions eased is a clear indication of this. We may have been allowed to go to restaurants – ‘eat out to help out’, anyone? – but was it safe? Was it a good idea to get on a plane and fly to Spain just because we were allowed to? Were our children safe going back to school because the government had deemed it okay? We will, of course, all have our own valid opinions on such questions. There will be plenty of people who had a whale of a time going out last summer while sticking to the guidelines and, as far as they know, didn’t catch the virus. A large part of me wishes I’d just bitten the bullet, crossed my fingers and left the country for a break last summer, especially when I see other people who did so and don’t regret it. All of that said, the rise in cases as restrictions were eased demonstrate that we can’t be complacent. Hopefully we will be in a different situation this time around, as more and more of us are vaccinated. But booking holidays simply because we’re allowed to may not necessarily be a good idea!

And yes, I know I’ve just done exactly that. But the other issue when it comes to safety is the type of holiday we’re talking about. If we were legally allowed to fly to the Caribbean right now, I wouldn’t do it (much as I’d like to!). If we were allowed to stay in a hotel, I don’t think I would either. The key with the self-contained accommodation that we’ll be allowed to book as from 12 April (hopefully!) is that it is SELF-CONTAINED. This means that you will not be sharing facilities with anyone else. There is no need to even come into contact with anyone else. And this, as far as I’m concerned, is a pretty safe way to holiday. There will be a very minimal contact risk with the surfaces in the cottage, apartment or anywhere else you might be staying, but as long as the property has been cleaned thoroughly, this risk is very low. Other than that, your risks are potentially no lower than if you stayed at home. Self-catering accommodation means that you don’t have to go out to eat – not that you’d be allowed to in April anyway! Yes, you might get a takeaway, but then you might do so if you stayed at home. Your daily activities can be as ‘safe’ as you want them to be. You may simply want to stay inside, in surroundings that are different from your own four walls. You may fancy going to a theme park or a wildlife park or having a game of crazy golf, but there is no obligation to do so – plus they may be the sort of things that you’d do if you stayed at home too. You may simply go for walks, just as you’d do at home but with some different views to look at. Many arguments could potentially be made about staying in a hotel (Where do you eat? What about all the shared areas?) but staying on your own in self-catering accommodation is about as safe as you can get right now.

Our three holidays last year (not including pre-Covid times!) were self-catering. The first, in a yurt on the Norfolks Broads (Pandemic travel: A yurt in Norfolk), wouldn’t be allowed this April, as it involved using shared washing and toilet facilities, but the cottages we hired in Yorkshire in August and Devon in October provided pretty much the same sort of holiday that we’ll be having in April, in a cottage in a different part of Devon. A key change this time is the closure of indoor hospitality; although it should be possible to have a meal or a drink in a pub garden, the pub itself will be out of bounds (except, perhaps, for the toilets? Not sure where we stand on that!). This isn’t an issue for us – much as we love going out to eat, and much as this is one of the main focuses of our holidays during non-Covid times, it’s not something that we’d feel comfortable with at the moment anyway. Unlike many people, we didn’t feel comfortable with it last summer either. We ate inside a couple of times – once during the day when it was raining and we didn’t really have much option, and once in the evening when we were desperate to treat ourselves and researched our restaurant carefully, ensuring that it had lots of space and was taking sensible precautions. The rest of the time we ate at ‘home’, had picnics, ate outside at cafés and pubs or had a takeaway – all of which also should be an option in April. However, if eating in restaurants or going to the pub is a vital part of your vacation and it wouldn’t feel like a proper holiday without it, you may want to hold off on booking anything too soon. In fact, you may not even want to book for too soon after 17 May (the next planned date for easing restrictions), just in case things change. One reason why we cancelled last year’s holiday to Mexico early (although it turns out that we wouldn’t have been able to go in the end anyway!) was that we knew it wouldn’t be the same. It was a long way to go and a lot of money to spend, and we wanted to enjoy everything that Mexico and the resort had to offer. We didn’t want to get there and find out that the attractions were closed, only one restaurant was open and you had to wear masks on the beach – that wouldn’t have been the sort of holiday we wanted or had paid for! So, if you are thinking of booking something now, it’s important to consider whether you’d still want to go if certain things weren’t open or available, or whether you’d rather save your money and annual leave for a time when everything is on the metaphorical menu!

One of many outdoor meals, shortly before the umbrella was put up to keep us dry!

So, should we be booking holidays yet? There are plenty of people out there (particularly those in the travel industry!) encouraging us to do so, while plenty of others are urging caution. At the end of the day it is obviously a personal decision, but there are a few things to bear in mind. Would you be able to cancel if the situation changed? Would you be happy to accept a credit note rather than a refund? Would your insurance cover you for Covid-related changes? Would you feel safe in the type of accommodation that you are considering? Would you still be willing to go if restrictions meant that certain things weren’t available? If it’s a ‘yes’ to all those questions, then it’s a no-brainer – what have you got to lose?! I can’t answer ‘yes’ to all those questions for some of the holidays that we’re considering this year, so I’m hanging fire on those. When it comes to holidays abroad, the possible need for vaccinations is still one unanswered question, for a start. But when it comes to a cancellable cottage in Devon, where we barely need to see another person if we don’t want to, it’s a resounding yes. April holiday, here we come!

Pandemic travel: A yurt in Norfolk

By July 2020, like most of the world, I was ready for a holiday. I needed a change – I was tired of sleeping in the same bed, sitting on the same sofa, eating at the same table and seeing the same sights on my walks. I also needed a break; because there seemed to be no good reason not to, I had worked through the Easter and May half-term holidays, when I’d normally go away. Weekdays and weekends were blurring into one. I needed some time away from work, chores and the daily grind – which had obviously been proving difficult during lockdown.

Some of our usual walks – beautiful views but I’d seen them too many times!

Things had already started to change in the wider world: shops had been open for a couple of weeks, pubs and restaurants had just opened and we were finally allowed to spend the night away from home. But although we were yet to hear of the official cancellation of our holiday to Corfu, we knew that it wasn’t going to happen as our apartments had decided not to open. And although holidays abroad were now happening generally speaking, we just didn’t feel comfortable about it. No judgement on those who decided to go for it – in hindsight, with cases as relatively low as they actually were at the time (in comparison to now, at least), perhaps we should have taken the plunge. But we didn’t like the idea of being on a plane for hours with people who could have had the virus, nor did we want to be in an airport. We were very concerned about what would happen if any of us were to catch the virus while we were away, and we were worried about the possible need to quarantine on return – things were constantly changing (as they tend to do in a pandemic), with different rules for different countries, and it was just one unnecessary risk too many.

So that left us looking at the UK. We booked a cottage in the Yorkshire Dales for August, when we should have been in Corfu, but my husband had a few days more to book off work and we wanted to go somewhere sooner – it had been a long time, after all! Only staying for a few days, however, is a little limiting. A lot of the cottages that we looked at were booked up or wanted us to stay for a week minimum during the summer holidays. Normally for a short break we’d head to a Premier Inn or similar. However, because of the virus, we weren’t massively comfortable with the idea of staying in a hotel. We weren’t so much worried about the room but we were a little concerned about communal areas. More importantly, it left us a bit stuck for food – where normally we’d go out for dinner (happily – great excuse!), we weren’t comfortable with eating indoors in public spaces. We’d spent the last few months being told not to go near anyone, and while we had graduated to a place of being okay eating in pub gardens, we hadn’t got to the indoors bit yet. This, of course, left us with self-catering – which was the plan for our cottage later in the summer. We thought about camping, which is a big self-catering favourite of ours but is less appealing for a short break. Our tent is big and takes a long time to put up – not so bad for a week, but time-consuming when you’re only going for a few days, especially when we couldn’t leave until the afternoon, as my husband was working a half-day.

We eventually settled on a yurt in Norfolk as a compromise: all the self-contained benefits of camping but without the hassle of putting up a tent or inflating airbeds! We booked a four-person yurt at the Waveney River Centre in Burgh St Peter on the Norfolk Broads, which also offers ‘escape pods’, standard camping/caravanning and a variety of other holiday accommodation. We’d always shunned such things as yurts and pre-erected tents before, not really seeing the point. If you’ve got your own tent and camping equipment, why pay so much more to sleep in one that someone else has prepared for you, even if it is a bit more comfortable?! But actually, this worked out perfectly for us. It had a double bed and a sofa bed for the children, and although we had to bring our own linen/sleeping bags, it was a lot more comfy than our usual air bed! It had a couple of chests of drawers – just a little thing but when you’re basic campers like we are, it was quite exciting to have something into which to unpack our clothes, plus a few surfaces to put things on! It had electricity and lights – no more torches and charging everything up in the car. It had a couple of chairs and a picnic table on decking outside, so we had our own area where we could cook and eat. And, most importantly, it had not just an electric heater but also a wood burning stove! Now you might think that, in July, we wouldn’t need one – but you’d be wrong. The nights were chilly and having a heater (a luxury we’ve never had when camping) was an absolute godsend. We used the stove too on the first night, but never again – my goodness, it kicked out a lot of heat! I ended up sitting on the floor to avoid the rising heat, but it would be lovely and cosy if you were camping in colder weather.

Inside the yurt, including the stove. Look – it even had a coat and shoe rack!

So what did we still need to bring? Well, sleeping bags and pillows for a start, as mentioned earlier (or sheets and duvets – whatever floats your boat!). A camping stove. Pots and pans, kettle, plates, cutlery and all the usual cooking equipment – plus food, of course! I honestly think that was pretty much it, as far as camping stuff goes – although I mustn’t forget to mention my camping toilet! Now over the years this has become an essential. As a woman of a certain age, it’s a foregone conclusion that I’ll need the loo in the night at least once (usually more!) during the holiday – and it’s not nice leaving the tent in the middle of the night to walk across the campsite (sometimes a long way!) to the toilet block in your PJs. So eventually we invested in a camping toilet – basically a bucket with a toilet seat and a lid. In our tent, this is fine – we put it in the (enclosed!) porch and I have somewhere to go out of the way in private. But how was this going to work in a yurt with all four of us sleeping in the same room? I didn’t really fancy one of the boys waking in the night and getting an eyeful (hopefully not literally) at the wrong moment! So I bought a toilet tent – one of those pop-up things that you basically use to go to the toilet in private. It was honestly the funniest thing setting it up in the yurt – it was huge and had to come down during the day – but it worked a treat for night-time toilet visits, with space for toilet roll and anti-bac and even somewhere to hang a torch. Honestly – best buy ever.

The main question at that time, of course, was how Covid-safe our holiday was. We were obviously able to do our own cooking with our own equipment, so that wasn’t a worry. There were very few items in the yurt for potential touch-contamination. The site’s Covid policy stated that everything had been cleaned extra thoroughly but we went over it all with Dettol just to be extra safe – after which, unlike a hotel, we knew that we were the only people touching anything inside our accommodation. However, the yurt didn’t come with a shower or toilet (apart from my bucket!), which meant that we did have to use some communal facilities – as well as the washing-up area. This was unavoidable in the yurt, although I know people who have gone camping and even brought their own shower facilities! I wasn’t too worried though. My reasoning was that you’d be touching very little in the toilet anyway and the last thing that you’ll do is wash your hands – and washing is the whole point of a shower! Of course, being near other people is also a risk – probably more of a risk than touching contaminated surfaces. However, this risk was minimised by every other toilet and sink being cordoned off in the toilet area to avoid you being too close together, as well as leaving the door open for ventilation. The risk in the showers was even further reduced by basically having your own room, rather than a cubicle in a shared bathroom. There were also plenty of hand gel dispensers dotted around, particularly next to doors, so it was always easy to disinfect after opening or closing one (if it wasn’t open already). We also brought a big bottle of anti-bac gel for the yurt so that we could still ‘wash our hands’ as soon as we got home from anywhere! All in all, although nowhere could be deemed 100 per cent safe, we certainly felt that our chances of catching Covid while at Waveney were pretty low.

Our yurt and boats at Waveney River Centre

The biggest risks came not from the yurt or the holiday site but from days out – the more you get out and about, the more you come into contact with other people, the more things that you touch and the more virus you’re potentially exposed to. We stayed safe (as far as we could) and avoided indoors, choosing to go for walks, hire a boat and eat outside. Of course, we ended up in some places that were busy and took risks every time we used a public toilet or ate in a pub garden, but we did our best to mitigate the risks by hand-washing frequently, wearing a mask if we ever did have to go inside and trying to keep as far away from people as possible. I figured that we were taking no more risk than we would have done if we’d stayed at home rather than go on holiday, as we would still have ended up going out out and about – in fact, if anything, we were probably more careful on holiday, as we were more aware of the risks. There were plenty of Covid-safe activities to do in the area – and there are no doubt many more less Covid-friendly options too, for when life finally gets back to normal. If I can get organised, I’ll write about these in another blog post! In the meantime, if you are looking for somewhere to stay in the UK this summer when things hopefully start opening up again, and especially if you are still being cautious – or perhaps if we are still very restricted – then ‘camping’ in a yurt is a great option, and I’d highly recommend Waveney River Centre as a brilliant Covid-safe option!