This post contains affiliate links. We may earn compensation when you click on the links at no additional cost to you.
First, doesn’t it look strange to see people in the picture above? I can’t wait until that looks normal again!
So much has happened this past year, and also practically nothing has happened.
What a strange thing to write. Since I’ve started blogging, I’ve seen a lot of good times, and many not so great times. This year is definitely not one I will look back on kindly, but I also know it could have been so much worse.
When I think back over these past two decades, I keep thinking about all of these ups and downs.
There were some pretty fantastic highs and some lows that I never could have imagined. And yet through it all, the only thing I really know, is that we survived it all.
Now as we have faced unimaginable challenges over the past year, I hold strong in knowing that we will survive and thrive as we recover into 2021.
There has been deep pain and loss and we will continue to experience this in the coming days, but I can already see the light at the end of the tunnel. The vaccine authorization brings so much hope for better health for everyone and travel starting back up again!
I can see better days ahead and I can see a new normal that for many of us, will be brighter than we can imagine.
We will continue to mourn all those that have been lost, of course too.
Aside from never being more appreciative of our blogging business which has enabled us to still be able to support our family in these trying times, I have started to plan more of what our travels will look like in the future and what we will be sharing to help you plan your future trips (and grow your blogs.)
I always take the wait and see approach and in 2020 this was practically my motto for the year.
I let things play out and I look for signs of recovery. I’ve learned that making impulsive decisions rarely works out for the best.
I feel that we are finally at that point where we as travel bloggers can start to make some loose plans and the same is true for blogging in general.
When we added travel blogging to our blog in 2012, I didn’t even call it travel blogging.
I just wanted to share with other families affordable ways to take vacations. Over the past 8 years, a lot has changed. But the one thing that hasn’t changed is that I love sharing our travels to inspire other families with their precious vacation time. I can’t wait to jump back in.
I have so much to share from our late 2019 travels that I had planned to share in early 2020, but we made the decision that sharing about traveling while a pandemic raged was not the responsible thing to do.
I know that there are many more families that are just waiting to jump back into traveling like we are. And I also know that we are all wanting to do so responsibly, safely and with our health, our community’s health, and that of the places we are visiting.
With this in mind, we actually booked a transatlantic cruise for September.
I know, cruising might be the last thing on many people’s minds after what happened earlier this year, but as long as the pandemic has winded down, we are able to get vaccinated, and also that we won’t be a burden on the starting point (UK) and any ports, we plan to go. I even booked a hotel for the night before.
Having said that, we are also very realistic that there is a good chance this won’t happen.
With the current cruising limitations, this cruise would actually not be allowed to sail since it is over 7 days in length. But we also know that things are changing rather quickly. We also made sure that it is 100% refundable.
Whether we actually cruise or not in 2021, we still plan to travel one way or another.
I can’t imagine a scenario where we are still needing to isolate as we have been since March. For a family that travels more than half the year, it has been odd to be home. I’m not going to say hard, because we haven’t lost any loved ones and we have had a safe place to be. That is the big takeaway from 2020. We are all okay and that is what really matters.
Now that we can finally say that we have the first of hopefully many vaccines, tools like masks, and physical distancing to help end this nightmare, it is time to settle back down for the next few months. We are using this time to keep adding more valuable tools for those starting and growing their blogging business. I am once again working on new travel blog posts that will help you plan some truly memorable family vacations (Europe and the Caribbean, anyone?) and then, hopefully, the world will start to open again.
I can’t wait!
INTERESTED IN STARTING YOUR OWN TRAVEL BLOG?
Our Start A Travel Blog FREE Crash Course includes:
- Everything we wish we knew before we started travel blogging.
- Everything we have learned over the past 7 years of successful travel blogging.
- Step-by-step, simple, and easy to follow instructions.
- Where the correct place to write your blog posts is.
- How to pick the best name for your blog.
- What to write about and what not to write about.
- Direct access to ask all your questions.
- and so much more!
