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Post-lockdown travel restrictions are an opportunity, not an obstacle

lakes - getty
lakes - getty

As detoxes go, being deprived of social gatherings, cultural events and travel beyond our backyards certainly puts any January fad diet in the shade. With the UK lockdown in its ninth week, we’ve become adept at doing a lot with very little.

But this strict diet means that now, with lockdown restrictions easing, we’re all set to travel with heightened senses, refreshed tastebuds for life. So I refuse to accept that the British summer has “effectively been cancelled” purely because “big, lavish, international holidays” are unlikely to happen, as Matt Hancock unhelpfully suggested last week.

Instead, we’re eagerly plotting visits to local beauty spots, camping trips and day trips to country estates. Right now, local residents aren’t exactly rolling out the red carpet for visitors. But the British hospitality industry, when it reopens, will desperately needs travellers, and visitors desperately need British escapes, so we need to work during this crisis to build a safe, sustainable tourism model that works for residents and visitors alike. The great British summer of 2020 is an opportunity for travellers and our national tourist industry, not an obstacle.

In late March, as I self-quarantined, I didn’t long for fancy hotels, tropical islands or colourful carnivals abroad. Instead I pined for the Lake District, a region I’ve consistently failed to visit in my 10 years as a travel writer.

The Lake District been on my travel to-do list since I studied Romantic Literature and fell for the poems of Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley and Coleridge. I was a broke Irish student at Glasgow University, without a car, so this adventure remained beyond my grasp.

And when I finished university, I backpacked around Thailand for weeks, splurging the remainder of my student loan on cheap hostels, £1 bowls of spicy green curry and PADI diving courses. I don’t blame my 22-year-old self for making this decision. But I am embarrassed to admit that this same attitude that has kept me from the Lake District ever since.

When I got my first job as a reporter in London, I was in one of the best bases for international travel on the planet. And the poor little Lake District didn’t get a look-in. There was always some showstopper of an alternative. Why bother with Windermere when there were cheap flights to Mexico? Did I really want to risk the rain of the Lakes when all my friends would be cavorting at a beach festival in Croatia? The Lake District was crowded and unfashionable, I was told, by people who wanted me to join them on yoga retreats in Tulum.

But now, I’ve had weeks to revisit those poems that first fuelled my imagination, that built the Lake District of my daydreams – and I’ve had time to think about how to visit this over-visited region with minimal impact. I’ve thought about how residents are currently concerned about high visitor numbers and the viability of social distancing measures as lockdown eases. I’ve looked into lesser-known spots, uncrowded trails and more remote campsites, and tentatively planned my visit for the less-crowded autumn months.

And for a recovering fast-paced traveller like myself, slowing down, and re-acquainting myself with my old tastes, desires and whims, has been a rewarding exercise. Right now we’re removed from dizzying distractions like flight deals or unmissable package offers. We don’t need to be at that jazz festival in the Alps. There is no requirement to giddily Instagram a “hot new” hotel or “hidden gem” of a restaurant in an up-and-coming European city.

I know I’m not alone in taking this time to reassess the travel that really matters to us, and think about how we can visit the places that mean the most to us, without feeling complicit in their decline.

Travel this summer will be more nature-focused, as open, air-filled spaces and outdoorsy pursuits reopen sooner. It will also be more family or friend-focused, with large gatherings and resorts out of the equation. It will be much more local, and largely UK or Europe-based, which we should celebrate, as we have a reeling economy that needs our tourist pound more than ever.

Most of all, travel this summer will be more personal, as we all prioritise the holidays that matter most to us. Whether this is a long-overdue visit to family in Scotland, re-tracing the steps of your honeymoon in Wales, or, like me, a chance to turn long-held daydreams into a reality, our first taste of travel this year will be a feast.