Travel

Travel: A year of dreams and plans

It’s been a difficult year for everyone who enjoy travelling, with Covid tests and quarantine as much a part of a trip abroad as packing a suitcase. Those who work in the industry have been hit particularly hard by the restrictions and the red lists brought about by the pandemic.

But throughout 2021, St Ives Local columnists Jo and Paul Mooney, who own Cornish company Stunning Escapes, have remained enthusiastic and optimistic, despite the disappointment of having to postpone many of their customers’ holidays – and their own. Jo and Paul are currently on a long-awaited holiday with their 10-year-old twins in the United States. We look forward to hearing all about it when they return – but in the meantime, we thought we’d look back at some of their articles, which, over the last 12 months, have given us a window on the world at a time when we’ve travelled not much further than our own backyards.

In January, Paul and Jo observed: “Many of our customers are looking forward to trips this year, while others are more cautious and waiting to see how things unravel over the coming weeks, especially now we are faced with a new variant of the virus.” A year on, little has changed – but that doesn’t stop us dreaming of exotic locations, and at the beginning of 2021, Paul and Jo were keen to tell us all about one of their favourites – Mauritius. They described the pristine

beaches and coral seas, the watersports and waterfalls, the lovely and friendly people – and a giant tortoise nursery!

At the height of lockdown, Paul and Jo noticed that many of their customers were booking ‘bucket list’ trips, due to a pent-up desire for adventure Their May/June article focussed on one of these holidays – a luxury rail journey across the Canadian Rockies, during which “there is every chance you will see grizzly bears, and eagles soaring above you!”

Jo and Paul’s article for the March/April issue looked at ways in which travellers can minimise the environmental impact of their trip, and highlighted countries around the world – from Scotland and Denmark to the Maldives and the Galapagos – which are going the extra mile to make tourism more eco-friendly. “There will always be a dilemma between travel and sustainability, but we’ve seen first-hand the good travel can do,” they wrote.

It was a theme they returned to in July, explaining that they are supporting a social enterprise holiday company which funds nature restoration projects, and championing “hotels with soul” which help to regenerate the environment which surrounds them. For their September/October article, Jo was delighted to describe her first voyage back to adventure since the Covid era began – a trip on board Golden Horizon, the world’s largest square-rigged vessel, which called at Fowey, Falmouth, Dover, Torquay and the Isle of Wight. The luxurious ship was decorated in a style designed to make passengers feel they had travelled back in time to 1913 – but this was 2021, and Jo had a nervous 30-minute wait on land for the results of her lateral flow test. This was soon forgotten when she was welcomed on board Golden Horizon with a glass of champagne!

In November, with the end of the year in sight, she and Paul found that demand for travel was skyrocketing, and they were recommending St Lucia for winter sunshine, Christmas market cruises on the Rhine, and the ski slopes of Canada. The discovery of the new omicron variant at the end of the month was a reminder that Covid19 is still with us – but Paul and Jo remain hopeful that there are exciting times ahead for everyone who loves travel as much as they do.