1st Post-Pandemic Trip - Big Cities or Small Towns?

The trip that got cancelled last year. It’s all small towns in the Aragon and La Rioja regions of Spain.

Same as Jamie, but in France. Villages in the southern Ardeche and Auvergne. Hopefully at the same gites we had reserved at last year.

A combination of both in GR.

I think the key here is just keeping some distance from others no matter where you are and perhaps face-masks in places you may be close to others. Example: I could easily go to Rome and avoid crowds and walk many places to avoid crowded buses and crowded metro. I would just avoid places where close contact is unavoidable. Try eating at less crowded times or places. I would do the same for smaller towns. Same for anywhere else.

A bit of both - rural Tuscany, some by bicycle, bookended by large cities - Bologna and London. This wasn’t a “big” vs. “small” decision; this is where we we going this past fall, and where we’re picking up this fall.

We had two entire 5-week trips planned, one to Umbria in November 2020 and one to Sicily March 2021. We go to some pretty small and obscure museums and churches on our trips, and a few times such places have been closed because we travel in the off-season. We're concerned that even more such places will be closed due to COVID.

We've now added a third emergency post-pandemic trip plan to just go to Rome or Florence and stay there the whole time, on the theory that surely many places will be open. We've already spent many weeks in both cities and know that we love them. So, anyway, that's why we'd pick one big city instead of many locations. If necessary. At least we'd be in Italy.

I always stay in small towns or villages on a trip, unless I am just doing a short city break. I won’t be doing any city breaks this year, as I would avoid public transport and taking taxis due to Covid. We always have our own car or a hire car for the duration of any trip (other than city breaks).

Last October in Spain, face masks were compulsory outdoors, despite the island I was visiting having few Covid infections at the time. It’s not great wearing a mask all day when it’s so hot, but everybody observed the rule. Outdoor mask wearing is currently compulsory in Rome and other parts of Italy. In the U.K., it’s only indoors. Mask wearing outdoors would impact on where I travelled to if I were going in the height of summer.

In the U.K., many pubs and restaurants in the smaller towns and villages didn’t reopen once lockdown restrictions were eased, as the reduction in table numbers due to social distancing meant that it wasn’t viable to open - this was less of an issue for larger establishments in cities.

My trip to rural France next month in my caravan isn’t going to happen, so my only other foreign booked trip this year is to the Canary Islands in October where we rent a cottage and hire a car and hit the beach. It’s a trip postponed from January, which was cancelled due to lockdown.

Depending on when I would be able to reinstate my 2020 trip to Poland, I might trim the itinerary to a longer stay in Warsaw, and (later) combine the other (smaller) towns with a connecting itinerary to the Baltics.

We do hiking-centered trips so rural, but we will - hopefully - spend time in London and a stopover in Paris. 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

We are planning the Ring Road in Iceland for August, so just small towns around the country with just one night in Reykjavik.

Big
London/Paris or
Rome/Florence

Can you say "Christmas markets" ? If Germany, France and Austria open up for them, we may replicate the 2019-20 trip, which was largely big cities.

Not Iceland (the flavour of the month) and no road trips with National Parks (another repeat flavour of the month). Most likely a direct flight to anywhere from near home, then somewhere with lesser population. Alternatively off the beaten track like a 'Stan or Bulgaria, Romania or such.
At this stage, the travel climate will direct me.