Why Now is The Perfect Time to Think About Traveling by Estee Gubbay

The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has changed many ideas about travel...but we all still have the need and desire to explore. As a travel expert, self-development workshop planner, retreat planner, and mastermind group facilitator, I am uniquely qualified to work with people to develop their dream travel plans. Everyone wants to discover new travel ideas and brainstorm trips that match desires and interests to locations away from home.

On October 24, 2020, I published a book titled, Your Travel Bucket List: The Ultimate Guide to Enriching Your Life with Great Adventures and Unforgettable Memories that rose to bestseller status. I was inspired to make the book unique by looking at the books on travel I already own and asking, “What is each one of them missing? How can I just put them all together in one very simple, digestible book?” Your Travel Bucket List is a lesson on how to travel, contains secret tips, travel reflections, and lists topics on how to discern what you want most for your adventures. It also lists top places in the world to do bucket list activities with worksheets and travel journal pages, so you remember where you’ve been, plan where you want to go, and then remember all your interesting and wonderful experiences.

Right now, many of my clients are planning their first post-pandemic vacation. I’m encouraging them to take the time to do a deep dive and write out their whole travel bucket list. It’s a very important preliminary step to have a solid travel plan for your future. Prioritizing your leisure time is one of the things we’ve all learned during the era of shelter-in-place. What type of experiences do you want to have as a traveler, how do you want to expand on your interests through travel? Ask these questions so you can map out your trips and be proactive about spending your leisure time through travel.

Think about your travel goals now, while you still have some time to dream about them and plan ahead. Decide what times in your life are the best for you to travel. If you have children, you have a limited number of summer vacations to enjoy during their school years, so make the most of them. It makes sense to consider their ages and your holiday time a few years in advance, and maybe even six to ten trips in advance.

Consider a few easy beach or mountain vacations that you can plan last minute. Planning a family safari in Africa may take up to two years to plan. If you’re not as hardy as you used to be after the pandemic, I suggest you adjust plans for vacations that could include sports, hikes, and other rigorous activities so that you can still enjoy them—skiing the red or blue runs, hiking at lower elevations, body surfing in gentle waves near the shore, and glass-bottom boat rides instead of snorkel or scuba.

Another vacation consideration is for the celebration of milestones: birthdays, weddings, retirements, promotions, graduations, babymoons, or a reward for reaching a personal goal. These trips may be planned for a group, where you’ll rent a villa somewhere and plan group activities like cooking classes or golf tournaments. Or, maybe you’ve always traveled with others and want to treat yourself to the adventure of a solo adventure after a birthday with a zero in its number.

Travel across borders will start again, and when it does, all the people who received credit for trips booked during the pandemic will re-book. So if you like to cruise, you’ll compete with cruisers who’ve missed a few seasons of cruising. It’s a good time to plan even if you have to reschedule; because of the pandemic, deposit and cancellation policies have been relaxed. However, I always recommend travel insurance, and it can be purchased for a very low price right now. The industry wants you to travel soon!

The perfect time to anticipate travel is right now. It feels good to look forward to and can be just as exciting as the trip itself!

Estee Gubbay is a luxury travel advisor; one of a few select VirtuosoⓇ Wanderlist Certified Advisors and owner of Luxurist Travel Agency. She published the bestseller Your Travel Bucket List: The Ultimate Guide to Enriching Your Life with Great Adventures and Unforgettable Memories during the COVID-19 pandemic and travel bans.