The COVID-19 pandemic has touched all of us, all around the world, in many different ways. Our absolute top priority must be to do all we can to ensure the health and safety of ourselves, our families & friends, our local communities, and by extension our globally connected world.
For most of us, this means respecting and following what our government & community leaders and health experts, like the WHO and CDC, are asking of us: stay at home, practice physical distancing, do our individual part to collectively slow the spread of the virus and permit our heroes – frontline medical workers and other providers of essential services – to treat the ill and support our society through this difficult time.
This also means that travel is on pause. Exploring the wonders of the world is on pause. Connecting with the locals in foreign lands, experiencing their culture, enjoying their hidden treasures – that off-the-beaten path trail, that small family-run restaurant hidden in the alleyway, that grotto that can only be accessed in a small locally-piloted skiff – it’s all on pause.
This is an incredibly challenging time in the travel industry. But in many ways it’s also incredibly inspiring for us.
At Terraficionados, we are blessed to work with a tightly woven global community of local travel partners who share our passion for bringing the world to life for our clients and immersing them in meaningful ways. They are not simply our suppliers – they are our close friends; our travel family. We are supporting each other. We’ve been working together tirelessly to bring passengers safely home through a gauntlet of cascading travel restrictions and border closures. We’ve been cooperating to ensure that travelers who have upcoming plans can modify and postpone until it’s safe to travel again. And in some cases we are collaborating to completely re-think how we deliver high impact cultural and learning experiences for our University clients whose study-abroad plans in emerging markets have been disrupted by the pandemic – moving to a remote/virtual model that enables the essence of the learning and the cultural experience to be achieved even if the physical experience of living and working in foreign lands cannot be realized right now.
So – while at Terraficionados our efforts to compose and deliver incredible travel experiences around the globe are on pause in the near-term – in many ways we are busier than ever. We are in it for the long-haul. And we are here for you. If you want to start imagining or perhaps tentatively planning your next adventure, please reach out to us. For many of us, current constraints on our movement, on our ability to physically connect and to stimulate our senses, is feeding our thirst to travel once we are on the other side of this. Beginning to think about that next journey can be a source of hope, of joy, and can provide something wonderful to look forward to – a further incentive to do what must be done now to overcome the pandemic.
In the meantime, hunker down, stay safe, stay positive, and stay in touch!
Feel free to contact us – We are available to answer any questions or concerns you may have.
