UPDATED POSTING MARCH 3, 2020
“Dear Lorenzo, we are sad to have to tell you that we must cancel our stay in your Air B&B because of the corona virus in Italy. We were looking forward to our stay in your lovely place.”
Our Saturday morning began with an email like this one. It was followed with another to Alberta. Then one to Marco and another to Roberto. Then we wrote to Carina, Stephano, and Lavi. In all, a dozen people, each one an individual whose livelihood, in part, depends on their ability to rent out rooms to tourists. With each one, we canceled a part of our 2020 dream and removed a portion of their 2020 livelihood. It was a sad morning.
We have not given up on this dream, and we hope to have the privilege of being able to yet meet each one of these lovely people and make the kinds of human connections that make international travel so wonderful. But that time is not now.
Sigh.
ORIGINAL POSTING:
The ground rules for this trip are different from the others. Our goal is to:
- Go further. See twice as many locations as ever before.
- Go slower. Stay in each location about twice as long.
- Go deeper. Stay with locals as much as possible and see more than just the major sights.
We plan to be gone 11 weeks, starting in London and ending in Venice.
“If not now, when?”
