Welcome Back to Breakfast with Lisa & Josh!

With a few exceptions, the whole world is open again for travel, and that’s just amazing. It almost, almost feels normal. Well, normal with everyone wearing masks all the time. Do you even remember what it was like before the pandemic? It’s hard for me to recall anymore.

Our parents just joined us in Sydney, and even after flying for nearly a full day to get here, they brought just the energy that we needed, the energy that we were missing. I think that energy was wonder - we had become complacent, started taking the amazing opportunity that we have right now to travel the world for granted. There’s really nothing like seeing your parents after a long time away to put you back on track - to put things back into perspective.

We just finished booking our flights to our next destination - Singapore - and after jumping through all of the COVID hoops that is the norm in booking an international flight these days, we realized that we could, with a bit of effort, travel to just about any country now.

This is a huge change from the way travel was 3 months ago. Three months ago, with Omicron looming, everywhere was closed, or in the process of closing. It really felt like all hope was lost - like things would never be back to normal in the travel world again.

This is a map of everywhere you can go if you are from the USA and are vaccinated.

Look at all that green! Look at it! Everywhere dark green is a place that you can go without any restrictions, and the light green involves usually a pre-departure COVID test. There’s some big areas missing, but the vast majority is open for travel, right now.

THE WORLD IS OPEN, AND THAT’S A FRICKIN’ MIRACLE.

Are we probably going to be wearing masks most of the time for the foreseeable future? Yep, more than likely. Are they going to require booster shots 1, and likely 2 in the near future? Yep, probably. Is it going to be annoying? For sure.

But at least it’s possible. 

Back when we were sitting in our cabin in the dead of winter, constantly scrolling news after news of countries closing down indefinitely, the thought of being able to ever travel again, to ever see Thailand, or the Sydney Opera House, or our parents and friends, and have it feel even remotely normal felt impossible. It was, truly, impossible then.

But somehow, through all of this, the world has found a way to open back up again. It’s found a way to be able to reconnect those that couldn’t see each other for multiple years. Families stranded on opposite sides of the globe with no feasible path to reconnecting can now see each other. Travel can, sort of, go back to normal. Just with a few more guidelines than before.

I’m sure those will go away in time too.

What I’m trying to say, if I’m saying anything, is that if you’ve been waiting to book that trip, waiting to plan that vacation, waiting to fly somewhere - now is the time.

You don’t need my permission. Just look again at that map above, or go and fill it out with your relevant infomation, and

The flights and hotels are never going to be this cheap ever again.

The beaches are never going to be this empty again.

And, you get the opportunity to help tourism get back on it’s feet. That’s something that benefits everyone.

Videos This Week

A video about how to travel on a budget in Sydney, wrapped in existential crisis.

This is the one where it all turned around for us.

The feeling that stuck around too long.

So, that’s it for this week. More videos coming soon!

See you next Sunday…ish :)

- josh (and lisa)

P.S. - We gave our website quite a facelift, and added some new, very interesting stuff. If you made it this far into the email, you’re the first to know about it :)

Oh, and if you want to learn how we afford to take all these trips after quitting our jobs last year, you’ll likely be interested in our Skillshare course on Travel Hacking and Frequent Flier Miles. It’s been really taking off lately, but we still have a few uses of this link left for those of you who want to see the class for free. It comes with a free month of Skillshare, which is more than enough to watch our class and any of the other great courses on there!

Check it out here: https://skl.sh/lisaandjosh02221

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