Day 97 – A Year of Gratitude and Joy – Vacation Planning

As a travel blogger who hasn’t been able to add more stamps to her passport for two years, I am craving a trip to anywhere that requires me to dust off that trusty blue document and hit the friendly skies. 

When COVID shut down the world, we had trips planned to South America, Italy and the Galapagos. One by one, those destinations became unreachable. I canceled more trips than I planned. Greg and I dug out the maps and focused our attention on road trips.

Things have finally eased to a place where I feel comfortable booking flights, hotels and a rental car for a nice, long trip “across the pond.” I grabbed my trusty map of Europe and considered the options. We picked dates on the calendar, chose a route and I headed over to the airline’s website to set the dates and choose our seats.

We settled on trying to recreate the planned trip to Tuscany. The credits I managed to secure when we canceled our 2020 trip to Italy are cashed in and we are in the throes of planning details.

We’re getting into the nitty gritty of wardrobe choices. I’m printing up turn-by-turn directions so we can stick to the backroads where cell service (and therefore GPS service) are spotty. 

The final “paperwork” item on my checklist is safely in our hands … International Driver’s Licenses.

The biggest challenge now is waiting for the date of departure to arrive. It’s exhilarating! Travel has always filled me with joy and I am struck with the level of gratitude I am feeling now that the world is reopening and I can feed my insatiable wanderlust once again.

There’s a whole world out there just waiting to be explored … and I am THRILLED to get back out there and keep exploring it.

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