Obviously at the time of writing, the novel coronavirus has put a stopper on virtually all travel, people are stuck in countries, others are struggling through enforced quarantine every border they cross, and the situation has changed a lot since people asked on this board "should I still start my trip?" and others said "just go, it'll be fine".

The question is, when do we reasonably expect things to get back to something closer to normal - when should we plan to start the next big trip?

My own opinion, and I'm sure others will differ (this is just for discussion, not giving advice) is I don't expect to see any semblance of normality return before 2022. I know some are saying it'll all be over by Christmas (where have I heard that before?) but this is why I think it'll take a lot longer, and why even 2021 may not be a good travelling year:

• The threat of the virus will still be out there, particularly in more remote areas, long after some semblance of herd immunity has been achieved in cities
• Containing the spread does not develop immunity and places that have contained it will still be vulnerable to subsequent flare-ups
• Only widespread availability of an effective vaccine will neutralise the threat, and news suggests that's 12-18 months away
• Global distribution of the vaccine will take several months, and may not reach poorer areas at all
• There may be a risk that travellers from afar may not be welcomed as guests but rather shunned as potential plague bringers, particularly in unvaccinated areas

I suspect hat what you have said is just about spot on. Even in 2022 I suspect that strangers will be treated with some level of caution. So I suspect that the big trips will be limited in scope - for us in Europe probably just to the EU (except for British citizens obviously ). Across the pond probably USA, Canada and possibly Mexico (depending on the election results in November I suspect) being one lump that can be toured. That said those are both big areas with plenty to see and do.

Hmm, I’m trying to look at a half full glass at the moment. There is (or there was anyway) a huge travel industry out there whose whole purpose is trying to convince us to follow our dreams, fly here and there, book hotels, cruises (good luck) or even just fly and flop for a fortnight in August. They may be down and out at the moment but those that survive (and it’s in various national interests that industries like these do survive) will very quickly be pushing their wares at the population again.

Our little niche corner of the travel world exists to some extent on the back of mass tourism and they are not going to wait one day longer than they have to before pushing sun and sea and sand at us once more. And it’ll be an easy sell if we’ve been cooped up in self isolation and working from home for months. And it will be months unless the death rates start looking like a WW1 casualty list. When we putter in somewhere on our bikes I doubt very much we’ll be met by locals with pitchforks. Mass tourism will have got there before us and greased the wheels.

Ok, the virus has done for the trip I was planning next month (April) but I’m still cautiously optimistic that my next one in August may be possible in some form - maybe 50:50 at the moment. Maybe I’m not grasping the big picture but we’ve only had this bug for a month and serious society wide adaptations for a week. Let’s see how it develops but I’m not writing everything off yet.

Depends on where you were planning to go. You're based in the UK - there might be a 50:50 chance that you could travel within Western Europe towards the end of the summer. By "could", I mean that you would not be restricted from travel by legislation, border closures, etc.

So far as more exotic destinations - Africa, Central & South America, anything that ends in -stan, etc. are concerned, I think that Des (TomKat) got it right - it will take at least 18 months, and the development and widespread dissemination of a vaccine, before it becomes safe, practical, or even possible for anyone to visit those kind of places.

Michael

Our type of travel will be restricted until our present country and those we wish to visit either have a programme of mass vaccination and the pandemic dies out (but there's no vaccine as yet) or have so many 'recovered' in the population that there's herd immunity and the pandemic dies out naturally. But by then there will be millions of deaths around the world.

The SIR (susceptible-infected-recovered) modelling was developed in the 1920 by Kermack and McKendrick along with the predictions that in an influenza-like pandemic you needed a recovered percentage of 80% to prevent transmission to the remaining 20% susceptibles. The term 'herd immunity' was coined by Captain Major Greenwood (Captain was his rank, Major his first name) in the 1920s to describe this.

I'm currently reading 'The Rules of Contagion' by Adam Kucharski who's a Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and one of the team who's doing the mathematical modelling of likely outcomes for the UK government.

None of what's happening is new or even unexpected. This is the UK government's strategy paper on dealing with a pandemic last updated 2011, https://assets.publishing.service.go.../dh_131040.pdf

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"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

Pretty much agree with everything the OP says...