Southern Belle in Training

Fashion, Travel & Lifestyle Blog || Est. 2012 || Virginia Beach, VA

December 21, 2020

Oh, The Places I Didn't Go (in 2020)!

      Can you believe that my word of the year for 2020 was "wander"? HAHA right! Boy, God must've had a good laugh when I picked that as my 2020 mantra. 😊2020 was the year I had the most PTO I'd ever had in my career thus far, my first year without any student loans, and I had just moved into an apartment with a roommate again in 2019, so I was saving money each month on my living expenses compared to the last couple years. All this to say- I was ready to TRAVEL! And travel I did, for February at least. After March... well, you know the rest!



   I've shared throughout this year how much of a bummer it was to have so many cancelled travel plans in 2020. And I know sadly I'm not alone! My heart hurts for my friend who was supposed to go on a 30th birthday trip to Europe, and for another friend who was supposed to fly out-of-state with her family for her grad school graduation. There's the friend who was excited for a much needed weekend getaway with her boyfriend to attend a black tie wedding, and a friend who was supposed to be taking her very first flight ever in the spring. And these are just a few friends I thought of off the top of my head... honestly pretty much everyone I know had big and meaningful travel plans cancelled this year. In some ways I take comfort in knowing I'm not alone? But in other ways, my heart just hurts for the travel industry as a whole. 

     Anyways, since travel is one of the things I missed most this year, I thought it was only fitting to share a blog post ode to the trips I didn't take:

Oh, The Places I Didn't Go This Year:

Bermuda (March) - My dad turned the big 6-0 in March, and we were supposed to be celebrating on a father/daughter Bermuda trip! Some of you longtime readers might remember that I skipped the traditional party scene for Spring Break every year in college, and instead took really fun and chill trips with my dad for three years straight! This would've been our first big father/daughter vacation since 2016. I had even ordered him a matching Lilly Pulitzer tie to go with this dress I have. We waited until just a few days before this trip to cancel it, as in early March traveling throughout North America still seemed safe. But at the last minute, we decided to cancel. 

Washington DC (March) - My friend Sierra was organizing a girls' weekend to go up to DC to see the famous cherry blossoms. I got to see them in 2018, the first year that I lived in Virginia, and have been dying to see them again. We ended up cancelling this out of an abundance of caution... at the time still believing by late spring things would be better. I hope all of us girls can get up to DC in 2021, but TBD if it'll be safe to do a group trip in time for the 2021 cherry blossoms.

Charlotte, NC (March) - In 2019, I planned a big girls' weekend trip for a bunch of my Charlottesville friends to come down and see my beloved Charlotte NC. That trip remains a highlight of that year! There was a girlfriend I got closer to later in 2019 who I didn't know yet at the time of that girls' trip, and I learned she had never been to Charlotte. She and I were planning to go down in March, just the two of us, and stay with one of my college friends. My friend in Charlotte is a season ticket holder for the Hornets, and we were going to go to a game. This would've been my first ever NBA game! After the NBA cancelled their season, my friends and I felt it would be best to cancel this weekend. 

Spain (May) - I've talked about this a lot on Instagram by now, but mom and I were supposed to spend Thanksgiving 2019 on a trip to Spain, but we had to cancel at the last minute and reschedule it for 2020 due to my mom having a medical emergency. In February when we started hearing about COVID cases rising in Spain, my mom switched the trip to August and picked another European country that had lower cases. Obviously neither May nor August trips abroad ended up happening! While I am thankful my mom is now totally fine after her medical emergency, and that it happened before COVID infiltrated the hospitals... I am genuinely so bummed we didn't go on this trip last year as planned. We currently have rescheduled our Europe trip for the fourth time... in 2022. So far away! 😔

Tampa, FL (May) - One of the biggest joys of 2019 was been seeing my friend Gentry of Girl Meets Bow meet the love of her life and get engaged! I was beyond honored to be invited to their May wedding down in Tampa. This would've been just *one week* after the Spain trip... which is craziness, but I was going to make it happen, jet lag and all! I found an incredible deal on a flight and lodging and the whole thing seemed meant to be for me to be there. But alas... COVID! The good news is Gentry and Rob did end up getting married on their original May date in a beautiful and intimate backyard wedding, which you can see her blog post of photos from here

Chicago, IL (August) - Out of all the trips on this list... hands down this is the one I was most heartbroken to lose. Yes- way more sad for this than the two international ones!! My co-host Marc and I were supposed to attend Morning Show Bootcamp, the premiere annual radio conference for morning show hosts, which is held at a hotel in downtown Chicago each summer. It was a really big deal for us to get to go, as it's usually just those that work for big stations in big cities that get to attend! The semi-good news is MSBC did end up moving their event online this year, and we did attend the virtual two day conference in September (live from my living room). But I am still so crushed our first in-person MSBC didn't work out. I was so excited to meet new radio friends from across the country, travel with Marc to a fun city, and experience my first in-person industry conference! Hopefully next year... I feel 2022 or 2023 might be more likely as far as me attending one.

Dallas, TX (September) - My girlfriend Mercedes won a weekend hotel stay at a really nice hotel in the Dallas area in a giveaway from her work last year (to be redeemed in 2020). She kindly invited me as her plus one for the trip! We had decided to go Labor Day Weekend- as that's my birthday weekend and her birthday is a couple weeks before. What a fun way to celebrate with a girls' trip to Dallas! We couldn't wait to enjoy the hotel and the city together. Although the hotel had re-opened by September, neither of us felt comfortable flying to Texas and doing a full on "normal" girls' weekend so far out-of-state during this time. I hope we can still visit Dallas together at some point!

Charlotte, NC (December) - It's broken my heart that I wasn't able to get to Charlotte at all in 2020, and I really wanted it to happen in December. After all, it is on my 101 in 1001 list to see Charlotte at the holidays again! But that won't be happening in 2020. I had booked my own hotel room so I wouldn't be staying with any friends to try to do things as safely as possible... but it still just didn't seem right to be traveling this month for a non-essential reason when cases are so high everywhere.


     This silver lining to this blog post? In the summer and fall, there were a few (fairly) COVID-safe weekend trips I did get to take! And all of them were so wonderful and appreciated. I also did get to take a longer trip home to Maine with lots of precautions and planning. I'll be recapping all of those trips I did get to take in my annual Year in Review blog post, which will be coming in just a couple weeks. But for today, we mourn the trips not taken! 

     What trips were you supposed to take in 2020? Have you rescheduled them for next year, or were some of them just one-time opportunities?


     God Bless,

  

      xoxo Annaliese 

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3 comments

  1. What a funny title which was sad but true. So sorry you missed all of those trips, but especially the ones with your parents. We usually go to Europe for 2 weeks (ish) and this year was no exception. Obviously our 2 week road trip around Scotland was canceled, as was a relaxing island/Mexico trip in winter. However, we did do a beautiful Fall overnight in Lancaster County (foliage, covered bridges, Amish buggies) and a week in Cape Cod (also in the Fall) which could not have been better timed bc of covid. I feel like this year really was the year things didn't work out, but also the year of silver linings that did. Happy holidays!
    B

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  2. Mourning the loss of travel this year seems like a good way to say goodbye to 2020! I had two trips planned and cancelled both because I was very pregnant and it was at the start of all this COVID. Hoping you get to do a little travel next year!

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  3. Definitely had our share of cancelled trips this year- most noteably our honeymoon to Italy!! Such a bummer, but we are now hoping to make it our 5 year anniversary trip! You know how much we would have loved to see you at our wedding, but now you can just plan to come meet Miss Eliza!! :)

    ReplyDelete

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