Guesses on summer air fares??

[BryanS]

Something to consider: Based on the US patchwork approach to this pandemic and expected length of time for it to be an issue there, I would expect other countries will be restricting those arriving from the US for some time after these other countries have recovered.

Also consideration will be needed as to the availability for travel insurance in the near future. The companies we use when traveling to the US will not provide the majority of their coverage at this time, no indication when this might change. I would assume the same for travel to other countries.

There are still a lot of unknowns, purtoppo

 

[Alpinista]

As someone with unrelenting wanderlust, don't feel much like traveling at the moment

I understand that side of the equation, but my love is travel is summarized by "the joy of seeing plans become memories" -- I am somewhat OCD and usually have 2+ years' worth of trips planned at a time. It is a miracle of life that my wife and I have enjoyed almost 40 years of travel together. I plan to an excruciating level of detail -- then, when we are under way, she says, "Let's do this instead" -- and yet we keep on going. I have reached an age (75) where we're trying to simplify. I gave up my 42-year long season tickets for my university's football season last year. I stopped coaching youth travel baseball (took 2 teams a year to national tournaments in Cooperstown, NY); stopped teaching in winter baseball clinics and stopped doing private instruction. Only thing I've kept is travel (3+ months a year) and high school baseball -- winter sessions November to February; season March through May (oh, and Capitals and Nationals partial season plans). All this long prologue is to say that high school baseball is canceled; the NHL and MLB may not resume; and this year's trips are in serious danger of going away. Even though the chances of actually going anywhere are bleak, I am (as they used to say in West Virginia where I grew up), as anxious as a dog on point to get out the door. My wife is more accepting of the probability that we will stay home. When younger, I also jumped out of airplanes and climbed mountains, so have not been known for doing such a great job of balancing sense and sensibility -- sigh.

 

[RojBlake]

We don't feel like thinking about travel at the moment. Or rather, perhaps I should say we are thinking about travel, and missing it hugely, but we don' expect to be going anywhere for at least 4 months.

If we're lucky, we may get to have a break in the UK during the autumn, but nothing more than that.

 

[Alpinista]

Took a look at fares and routes as we continue to roll over 2020 plans to 2021. Still no direct flights for next May listed for United from Dulles to FCO and it will be a cold day in you know where before I ever willingly fly through Newark again. We had planned a side trip to Berlin this year and will now do that to start the trip rather than doing it after being in Italy. The round trip fares from Dulles to Frankfurt are about half of what the fare from Dulles to FCO was for our fall trip that was canceled (and almost equal to the low fare we got last November when we booked our May, 2020, trip).

I'm sitting on a United credit for the canceled May flight and have a credit balance in my Visa account from the refund of the canceled trip we're supposed to be on right now. Decided to book our May/July trip via Frankfurt and will then have a long time to figure out how to structure the time and internal routes (Berlin to Pisa/Florence and then back to Frankfurt) while waiting for vaccines, drops in infection rates, and spring to roll around. Still have an Italy trip next September to plan for, but not sure even I (with my OCD approach to trip planning) can start this far out for that.