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Travelling
May. 11th, 2020 12:12 pmWhen I was younger I wanted to travel. I have been very fortunate that my political career has offered lots of opportunities to be a delegate to international committees and congresses of one kind and another, to act as an Election Observer and, best of all I think, to be a member of the Committee of the Regions, an advisory body to the European Parliament, during a very interesting decade, travelling all around the EU and nearby. In addition, I have enjoyed attending Science Fiction Conventions, both in the UK and elsewhere, and - when I had the time - simply going on holiday, preferably to somewhere new.
Until the last few weeks, I have not thought much about all the agreements and mutual trust that underlie the opportunity to travel. Back in the day, many countries required visas as a condition of entry, which was partly a reflection of the political relationship between Britain and the country you wanted to go to and partly an assurance to your destination that you had enough money to fund your stay and that you really were intending to go home again. Much of this structure vanished as we got involved in the Common Market (later the EU) and, of course, after the fall of the Soviet Union. The handful of visas Mick and I needed for travelling round the world in 2016/17 were easy to obtain on line, some of them when we were already on our way.
When I was a child, travel was an expensive business. I remember reading that the "package holiday" was invented by the travel industry to overcome the capital controls that limited how much money you could take out of Britain. Suddenly, people who had never thought they could afford to travel found that "abroad" was accessible, affordable and quite often enjoyable. They still enjoy it - or did till a few weeks ago.
Health has long been part of the travel equation, whether to assure your destination that you were not carrying vile diseases, or to assure yourself that you could get home if you fell ill or had an accident, or to get access to cheaper healthcare or indeed operations that were not available at home. When I went to Cameroon as an election observer, I had to have so many vaccinations that they ran out of space on my arms and had to move on to my legs. The threat was that if you couldn't prove you had had them, they would make you have them at the airport when you arrived. Yet I encountered people who had simply bought the certificates (fifty dollars a time, as I recall)......
Extrapolating all these requirements and conditions into the future, it seems obvious that travel over even the shortest of distances will be much more expensive if "social distancing" means that only a small proportion of seats can be occupied. It will also reduce much of the enjoyment of travelling because people will be much less likely to talk to each other if they are wearing masks and sitting far apart.
The risk of the traveller bringing a deadly disease with them will, I am sure, enforce certification that you are Covid-free before you are allowed into a train, boat or plane, let alone into your destination. I suspect that the British Government's chaotic approach to managing the pandemic will mean that British certification will not be perceived as reliable and that Brits will be required to get some internationally-accepted certificate, which will undoubtedly cost us time and money.
I know an elderly man who has travelled extensively on Container Ships as one of a handful of paying passengers or even the only passenger. It really is only an option for people with time on their hands because there can be unforeseen changes in the cargo, the destination or even the ship and he has occasionally had to take a lengthy diversion or (last resort!) pay for a flight home. If the future arrangements mean that long-haul travel is primarily to transport goods, with just a small space for passengers, this may become our only option to see the world.
The other option is to use one of the internet systems you can buy ( look at the Lonely Planet site - before they go out of business! )to go on virtual tours of famous tourist sites, where you will not have to queue and no-one will block your path when you want to take a photograph. What a brave new world where you can see the site, but never taste or smell the cuisine, or have a conversation with a real person: and where you will start to forget how a hug or a handshake feels.
Until the last few weeks, I have not thought much about all the agreements and mutual trust that underlie the opportunity to travel. Back in the day, many countries required visas as a condition of entry, which was partly a reflection of the political relationship between Britain and the country you wanted to go to and partly an assurance to your destination that you had enough money to fund your stay and that you really were intending to go home again. Much of this structure vanished as we got involved in the Common Market (later the EU) and, of course, after the fall of the Soviet Union. The handful of visas Mick and I needed for travelling round the world in 2016/17 were easy to obtain on line, some of them when we were already on our way.
When I was a child, travel was an expensive business. I remember reading that the "package holiday" was invented by the travel industry to overcome the capital controls that limited how much money you could take out of Britain. Suddenly, people who had never thought they could afford to travel found that "abroad" was accessible, affordable and quite often enjoyable. They still enjoy it - or did till a few weeks ago.
Health has long been part of the travel equation, whether to assure your destination that you were not carrying vile diseases, or to assure yourself that you could get home if you fell ill or had an accident, or to get access to cheaper healthcare or indeed operations that were not available at home. When I went to Cameroon as an election observer, I had to have so many vaccinations that they ran out of space on my arms and had to move on to my legs. The threat was that if you couldn't prove you had had them, they would make you have them at the airport when you arrived. Yet I encountered people who had simply bought the certificates (fifty dollars a time, as I recall)......
Extrapolating all these requirements and conditions into the future, it seems obvious that travel over even the shortest of distances will be much more expensive if "social distancing" means that only a small proportion of seats can be occupied. It will also reduce much of the enjoyment of travelling because people will be much less likely to talk to each other if they are wearing masks and sitting far apart.
The risk of the traveller bringing a deadly disease with them will, I am sure, enforce certification that you are Covid-free before you are allowed into a train, boat or plane, let alone into your destination. I suspect that the British Government's chaotic approach to managing the pandemic will mean that British certification will not be perceived as reliable and that Brits will be required to get some internationally-accepted certificate, which will undoubtedly cost us time and money.
I know an elderly man who has travelled extensively on Container Ships as one of a handful of paying passengers or even the only passenger. It really is only an option for people with time on their hands because there can be unforeseen changes in the cargo, the destination or even the ship and he has occasionally had to take a lengthy diversion or (last resort!) pay for a flight home. If the future arrangements mean that long-haul travel is primarily to transport goods, with just a small space for passengers, this may become our only option to see the world.
The other option is to use one of the internet systems you can buy ( look at the Lonely Planet site - before they go out of business! )to go on virtual tours of famous tourist sites, where you will not have to queue and no-one will block your path when you want to take a photograph. What a brave new world where you can see the site, but never taste or smell the cuisine, or have a conversation with a real person: and where you will start to forget how a hug or a handshake feels.
