While we are all practicing #StaySafeStayHome, it can be hard to stay positive or be optimistic that things we love and used to take for granted will return. 

 

We can’t wait to be able to gather again with family and friends, celebrate holidays, go to concerts and festivals and markets and games… and travel.

 

Right now, travel may seem distant on the horizon, but this is why we know travel will be part of our lives again.

 

By: Lynn Elmhirst, Producer/Host, BestTrip TV

 

Travel providers are betting on a return to travel. Rather than throwing in the towel and closing, they are working hard and investing all their available resources into keeping themselves poised to resume providing travel services to travelers when we are ready to pack our bags again.

 

But even more important than knowledge of the resilience and projections of the travel industry… is an awareness of the human spirit.

 

From our earliest times in all the world’s civilizations, people have had an instinct to explore the unknown and have new experiences. That inner flame still burns in all of us who love travel. A pandemic does not quench our longing to:

 

·     See with our own eyes a wonder of nature or human design that strikes us with awe;

 

·     Taste a dish where it originated; no matter how many times we’ve sushi or pasta or pad thai at a restaurant at home, eating a dish in its home country always gives us that ‘aha’ moment of finally knowing that this is what it was really meant to taste like;

 

·     Share a slice of untouched land or sea with its wild inhabitants and be touched by an awareness of our own place in the natural world;

 

·     Stare into the endless, mesmerizing view of a ship’s wake as we sail into new waters;

 

·     Meet people whose lives have been devoted to developing and sharing an art or craft or food product or wine or experience that enriches our senses; and

 

·     Learn firsthand the stories of personal journeys of people we meet in other places that increase our understanding of the world beyond ourselves.

 

When travel returns – and it will return – we hope these difficult days will have given us time to reflect and refocus on what’s truly important.

 

Hopefully, our biggest lesson will be to be kinder. Kinder at home, and kinder when we travel.

 

·     Kinder to ourselves and, while we must do our best, not to self-judge for things we can’t change;

 

·     Kinder to our loved ones, including making time to spend with them and celebrate our lives together;

 

·     Kinder to the people we meet, the people who show us their hospitality and welcome us into their communities;

 

·     Kinder to the planet, to wildlife, to the environment we all need to survive;

 

So our primal craving to explore can benefit the people and planet and natural world around us – not destroy it.

Please...

 

Stay safe.

 

Stay at home.

 

Be kind.