"revenge travel"

I woke up and ran downstairs and fed my crows. 

Samuel and I went on a warm walk and before we reached his limit we saw mallards!

And then the best part - trip planning!

50% of the joy of a trip is the planning. It is so good to have something to look forward to! There is a strong social current of reluctance to plan anything in advance anymore, but there is a strong opposite current. 

There is a report that predicts 1.3 million people will visit Iceland next year, which is welcome given how much of the economy is now based on tourism. "About two million visitors traveled to Iceland in 2019. In 2020, that number took a dive to less than 500,000."


I am not going until September 2022 because
- that is when I will have enough vacation time
- that is when the skies are dark and you can see the Aurora Borealis
- it is 4 degrees warmer than October
Additional benefits
- it is cheaper than when kids are out of school
- the roads are still open, there isn't (usually) snow yet
- Autumn colors
- berries abound


But I noticed that, even as far out as September, some of the AirBnBs that I was looking at were starting to book up. I'm completely certain that it is just people are eager to go and reserving space because they don't have to pay now and they can cancel later if they don't go. 


There is a new term:  revenge travel. 
It sounds ominous, but it is revenge on Covid: 
"Pent-up demand to travel freely again, or as freely as can be under COVID restrictions, has resulted in an increase in “revenge travel.” That has come to mean the strong desire to travel even more than before the onset of the pandemic—more about getting revenge on the coronavirus and more than a year lost to lockdowns."
https://fortune.com/2021/10/09/what-is-revenge-travel-pandemic-covid-delta-variant/



People feel robbed and they WANT. 


Still, I want the comfort of knowing I'll have a place to stay the first few days so Kate and I began the fabulous, fun process of figuring that out. 

Now, we just need Izzy to be ok.