After being unable to do any travel beyond the borders of California for a year now, I have realized how much of a privilege it is to be able to travel. For most of my life I have taken travel for granted, assuming if I save the money and vacation time, I can go wherever I want. As a kid our family trips weren’t usually extravagant, but my parents took advantage of every opportunity they could to take us somewhere new. My dad used his airline benefits to take us to Key West, Orlando, Orange County – anywhere we could get on his standby passes. For road trips to visit family at the holidays my mom usually added in at least one stop for us to see something new: Taos, Acoma Pueblo, Meteor Crater Landmark. I’m ashamed to say that I sometimes complained about these trips as a kid, but now I realize that I was so fortunate to have those experiences. For the first time ever, in 2020 I planned out almost all my travel at the beginning of the year. Dates were set for trips to visit family and friends in Phoenix and Denver, trips to several National Parks and a trip to London to mark 20 years since I studied abroad there. Even after the lockdowns started, I held out hope that some of those plans would still be feasible, but now that we are a year into this pandemic I’m just hopeful that we will eventually have the opportunities to visit far off places and experience different cultures.  

Many people I know are so excited to get the vaccine just to be able to travel, as if things will suddenly go back to normal; however, the world has been drastically altered. The travel industry has taken a huge hit and it will be a long recovery. Will we still be able to get the ultra-cheap transatlantic airfares? As borders reopen, will other cultures and countries still welcome tourists? Are museums and popular attractions going to open to throngs of visitors again? And is it really that awful if things don’t get back to the way they were? Seeing how much some of the popular tourist sites are thriving without visitors has made me realize that we haven’t respected our privilege. Coral reefs shouldn’t need a pandemic to survive, and it should take a good amount of effort to see places like Machu Picchu. Maybe if it’s not as easy to travel we will have more appreciation for our experiences, and hopefully more respect for the places we visit.