After COVID-19: longing for long holidays and longer breaks?
Pent- up demand, revenge travel, making up for lost time, unspent travel money –may all come together, to make travelers determined not only to catch up with lost time, but to also make their holiday as long as possible. And all this will be unleashed, no sooner the barriers for international travel are removed.
In anticipation of this, several travel and tour operators have put together some of the biggest trips ever offered prior to COVID-19. Most of these should easily satisfy anyone’s pent-up lust for travel.
If you are the rugged outdoor type who prefers to hike your holiday away – the Great Himalaya Trail through Nepal is hard to beat or ignore. The mountainous 1700 – kilometer trek through steep, rugged terrain that gets you traversing close to many of Nepal’s 8000+ metre peaks will seriously test your stamina. Certainly, this holiday is not one for the frail or weak, with the tour lasting 150 days – 145 of which are spent trekking. World Expeditions that organizes the trek, reckons it to be the longest guided commercial walking tour in the world, noting that as far as they can detect, it is currently the longest land tour in the world.
If you don’t have the feet for travel, then there is the option to sit back and take Adventure Overland’s 52-day, 16,000-kilometre drive from Imphal in eastern India to London via China, Central Asia and Russia. If you want to take an extended tour by bus, then there is the biggest, grandest and most epic coach journey in the world – between Delhi and London over 70 days. A departure is currently scheduled for August 2021, but, be warned, that bus may not leave by then…perhaps later.
If you prefer to travel within the African continent, Intrepid Travel has a 64-day "Africa Encompassed Northbound" open-truck journey with many departure dates in late 2021 and 2022. It takes hardy travelers from Cape Town to Nairobi and includes Okavango Delta and Serengeti safaris, the Victoria Falls, gorilla-spotting in Uganda, ending with a well earned ‘R & R’ on the beaches of Zanzibar.
For those who seek the call of the seas…you may have missed the boat. Regent Seven Seas Cruises' 143-night world cruise in 2023 is already sold out. Oceania’s "Around the World in 180 Days" cruise in 2023 was sold out on the first day of launching ticket sales – setting a world record for cruise ticket sales. Take heart though, Cunard and Crystal Cruises are offering world itineries well over 100 days with departures both in early 2022 and 2023.
Viking’s longest cruise is from Florida (USA) to Greenwich (UK) via the Pacific, Australia, Asia and the Mediterranean, counts a total 138 days. Its extravagant 245-day, 55,700 nautical miles “Ultimate World Cruise” in 2019, had to be aborted on day 204, in Dubai due to the coronavirus pandemic. Had it not been for that, it would have notched a Guinness World Record for the longest continuous passenger cruise.
For those wishing to go freezing cold, Silversea’s first expedition world cruise “Unchartered World Tour” sailing from South America to Norway visiting 30 countries, 107 ports and remote places including the Antarctic Peninsula, South Shetland, Easter Island, and Svalbard above the Arctic Circle, during its 167 day trip, in January 2022 will invigorate the travel itch.
Hospitality Sri Lanka
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