Ringing out the old year, ringing in the new!
It’s hard to believe that we are already looking back on 2021 and looking forward to 2022! It may not be as we had hoped by now, but we have made progress. Vaccination rates are up. People have begun to travel. And more are planning to do so in 2022.
Our 2021 was pretty frugal travel-wise. Trips planned for 2020 and rebooked for 2021 have been re-rebooked for 2022. But two trips went forward this past year.
Susan and her son Ben made a relatively last minute trip to Italy. They visited Venice, Florence, Siena and Rome. In spite of limited advance time, we were able to line up some of our favorite guides in each city, providing personalized and in-depth introductions to Ben who had never traveled before to Italy. Susan is a longtime visitor to Italy and wanted to introduce Ben to its wonders. Personal guided tours interspersed with down time so that they could wander and explore on their own in each city turned out to be for them a very satisfying combination. There was time for both the Uffizi and the Museo delle Pietre Dure in Florence, for a garden tour and a wine country tour around Siena, and an Underground Rome tour to see the newly-opened gladiator corridors under the Colosseum. All in all, a great success, as Susan reported:
I want to wait no longer to send a huge thank you for the great trip you set up for us. Couldn't be better! Ben got a deep immersion (remedial Culture I call it), visually, and enjoyed it all. Having the guides gave us much more insight than my usual guide-book references and made us focus on details and background we might have otherwise missed. All in all--- an absolute delight.
Our very first clients back in 2013 — a group of our friends who travel together, celebrating milestone events and enduring friendship — gathered for a delayed 2020 trip, originally planned for Québec City but moved stateside to Lyme, New Hampshire during this year’s fall foliage season to avoid border crossings. We cut back on planned activities and focused on time together, catching up, laughing, dining magnificently and often, and generally renewing lifelong friendships and strengthening newer ones. We were missing a few people this year but hope they will rejoin us on the next adventure of Goats on Tour, as we are fondly known among ourselves.
As for 2022...
Our patient friends Joe & Peg will finally, after rebooking numerous times, be heading for Florence, Naples, Capri & Rome in May. This much-delayed 60th birthday celebration will nonetheless be a celebratory milestone!!!
Equally patient Danni will finally make her way to Paris, Normandy & Avignon in June, a trip she has been promising herself for a very long time, originally booked for 2020.
Jerice & Jon will board Amtrak in May for a cross-America & back 50th Wedding Anniversary celebration, stopping along the way to visit family and also to visit San Francisco, the Grand Canyon, and Washington DC!
And, never ones to fall back into inactivity, Barbara & Anne put together a group trip to Sicily for the fall of 2022 for Kendal at Hanover residents. Putting together a journey for groups is not our usual bailiwick, but Anne had a great time doing advance work in Sicily this summer, and both Anne & Barbara are looking forward to accompanying the group to Baroque Sicily next fall.
Can we help you plan your next adventure? We are ready to help. It’s what we do. Well.
Meanwhile…happy new year!
Always sending our very best,
Anne & Barbara