Brent I think taking due caution on international travel, especially to Europe and Asia at this time is a very wise thing to do. There is no harm in a ‘wait and see’ approach, especially when you have excellent alternative areas to cycle tour.
Graham,
We booked before the COVID-19 became an issue and still have not taken out travel insurance so at worst we could be out by the deposits that we have paid. Interestingly however the barge has 11 X 2 bed cabins and requires at least 16 entrants to go ahead. As of last week they only had fourteen so we may still get our deposit refunded if the trip does not go ahead. There could be a problem with booking reasonable price air fares if we wait too long but as of today I would assume that there would be some real bargains on sale!
Mike
Mike it sounds as if you aren’t too exposed financially which is good. Yes it’ll be interesting to see what happens with air fares. Oil prices are falling but passenger numbers are falling dramatically. The international travel situation is going to take at least a few months at least to stabilise with so much uncertainty. The flow on effects could be considerable. The current situation reminds me a bit of the oil shock years in the early 70’s. Different causes but similar vibes of multiple repercussions.
Anyway I hope your European travel plans work out OK. My guess is they will.
Our plans are very much affected. My long-dreamed-of trip to Italy was to begin on April 21... So far, we haven't cancelled anything and the only nonrefundable booking is our 3 nights in Bolzano. The flights were booked through Aeroplan and can be changed/refunded with a relatively small fee. Air Canada has suspended all flights to Italy until May 1 and says affected customers will be notified and offered full refunds. We haven't heard anything yet and may not--only the first leg of our outbound trip is AC and our return, all on AC, isn't until June 19.
Staying home isn't all that exciting to me. We explored BC every summer for 23 years and I'm desperate to see the rest of the world. We are considering changing our trip to go in the opposite direction in the fall, with the hope that things will have settled by then.
Jacquie I know a few cyclists... roadies... here in Canberra who have put their Italian plans on hold. Australia has also just stopped incoming flights from Italy.
QANTAS Airline has announced major cuts to its services and even the CEO has stopped paying himself for the next few months.
Is South America a cycle touring option for you? It hasn’t been in the news much here.
Jacquie, we have been thinking about you. You have a fairly short timeline. We have been looking forward to your trip and living vicariously through you. Our own plans include Northern Italy, starting in Zurich again. We were (are?) planning another fall tour. We fervently hope, for reasons bigger and more important than our bike tour, that things will have settled down by then. Two weeks ago when I was going to start looking at flights we decided to wait a couple weeks...now we are waiting a few weeks more. Or months. We have also discussed Quebec, or even a door to door tour of BC, perhaps modelled on the Anderson Swan Song with the Jetta tour. Riding along the shoulder of the Trans Canada doesn’t have much appeal, but exploring with the vehicle and bikes would be very doable and maybe we would finally do the Banff Jasper Parkway. We will see. For now I still have my fingers crossed we will be in Zurich in late August. We had a great local ride today in the cool sunshine and we are going to make it work one way or another.
You’re right of course, Kathleen. Worrying about whether our trip to Europe this fall will be disrupted sounds so trivial right now when the world is falling apart before our eyes. If we do get to go though, let’s keep in touch about itineraries. We’ve already booked our flights for a fall tour from Copenhagen to Rome, and we could find ourselves in the same corner of Northern Italy at the same time. Cappuccino and cannoli in Cremona?
South America is affected, but to around the same level as Canada at this point, as far as I can tell. Besides the general possibility of things changing for the worse by the time we left or returned, there are two problems that come to mind: I don't think we could get there without travelling via the US and all the extra bother that would bring, and the season might be wrong. Patagonia is on my list but most trips there are in December-March. (For many reasons, this is the part of the world I'd pay to go supported.)
It looks more and more like we will be staying home this spring.
I'd been planning this trip in my head for years and we made our bookings in early January. I had wanted to go last year, but had to wait for Al to retire and wasn't sure how my knee would fare with mountains, so I went to western France instead.
I agree that riding on most BC highways doesn't appeal. We might do a car-supported BC road trip with our mountain bikes if I can convince Al to camp. I want to save my money for new places!
I'm now wondering if my Alpine Club trip to the Elizabeth Parker Hut at Lake O'Hara in August will be cancelled too...
Scott yes let’s hope the situation is calmer in a few months.
Tomorrow I’m flying to New Zealand for urgent family reasons (not a holiday) and I’m not concerned about the disease risk. I’ve been on a lot of planes over the past few months including to/from China, Taiwan, Indonesia and within Australia and have managed to avoid catching any lurgies via the usual procedures such as frequent hand washing, no hand-face contact, trying not to touch stair rails, care with food and drink etc.
My other small obsession is a daily dose of freshly made ginger/tumeric/chilli tea. Indonesian friends swear by it as an anti microbial and immune booster. It seems to work.
4 years ago