Have you already booked your summer vacation? There is hardly any other topic in my circle of friends at the moment. Somehow understandable, after all, it should be something special, the first vacation after the seemingly endless Corona winter and the seamlessly following Corona spring. Finally feel waves on your feet again instead of just reading about them in the newspaper. Huh.
However, I am lagging behind. While the couple who are friends are meticulously planning the road trip through Corsica and the neighboring family is still considering whether two weeks in Andalusia would be enough or not a third would be good, I sit on my terrace with my glass of wine and ask myself: I want it anywhere at all?
Now, as a person who prefers to spend his free time in the mountains, it is easy for me to talk in the south of Munich. As someone who, in the face of a plethora of sudden options, tends to do nothing at all for the time being, probably too. And as a new dog owner anyway, but that’s a different topic.
So I ponder the question of where I would have wanted to go in 2021 if this whole pandemic had not happened and almost every border in the world had been open to me at any time. And come to the conclusion that my answer would probably have been “South Tyrol” anyway, Corona or not.
This is mainly due to the fact that, according to all that is known, the most beautiful hiking and climbing areas remain where they have always been, even in times of pandemics. But that also has to do with the fact that I just don’t want to get on a plane if I can somehow avoid it.
Are we really all so “starved to travel”?
But the question is: can it be avoided? The people are “starved from travel”, states Thomas Jarzombek, coordinator of the federal government for aerospace. Even if many now consider climate protection to be important, only a few are “willing to forego the flight to Mallorca at the moment”. Renunciation, one of the major points of friction in the climate debate, there it is again. Just for the statement that it should be over with short-haul flights at some point, the Greens have recently gotten a lot of trouble.
Whoever is hungry should eat; Longings want to be satisfied, wanderlust needs to be alleviated. The only question is whether the spontaneous flight to Mallorca three days after the lifting of the travel restrictions and the first package tour at the beginning of the summer holidays really have to be the means of choice. Whether that can be sustainable – both in terms of the environmental impact, but also in terms of your own travel bug. And above all: What happens when the first great wanderlust is gone, but at the same time everything is possible again. Do we then fly happily through the world, simply because we can?
How do you feel about traveling this summer? Are you “starved” too? Or are you struggling to get on the next best plane in a few weeks? Please write to us at [email protected]. Either way, I wish you a wonderful summer.
Best regards,
Vivien Timmler
(This text is from the weekly Newsletter Environmental Friday you here free of charge can order.)