[Closed] Is it time to book a big family holiday yet?

Get travel insurance, book holiday. Have fun and relax.

And I thought we were the last to go abroad! I reckon you'll be alright

We're in the middle of a wave and you can still travel

We’re pretty keen to get abroad but feel there are still too many variables to be able to pay a large sum of money and properly kick back and chill once there.

Biggest concern is one of us treating positive whilst abroad and having to isolate in some local quarantine facility leaving the other at the hotel with the boy or all having to isolate at the hotel. I can’t imagine anything worse than being stuck in a hotel room somewhere nice and sunny with a 9yo who is just desperate to get some pool time etc whilst me and Mrs D rue the wasted ££££.

No amount of holiday insurance etc is going to help there…

@dannybgoode that's exactly the kind of nightmare scenario I'm worried about.
Waste a load of money and holiday time to sit in a hotel room miserably.

We’re keen to get away this year on a big holiday

You and nearly everyone else. I predict a mass exodus this summer.

Back to Bodrum, Zante, Shaggerluf, Ibeefa, Benidorm and the Dominican Rep. The indignities of a British holibobs with a caravan shower curtain stuck to you whilst washing your body with a dribble of water inside a cupboard. The glorious days out in howling gales and pissing rain no more. 24hr cheap booze, all-you-can-eat and perma sunshine around the pool.

I'm thinking similarly. The trickiest bit for me is that i need to plan months in advance and there's so much uncertainty now.
Do I venture back to what's left of the UK before it's sold off, dissolved in acid rain, nuked by Russia/North Korea? (see other thread) Do i take my kids with me as they're probably old enough to get something out of it? And their grandparents may not be able to travel long distances soon.

Don't skimp on the travel insurance. Our Dutch partner will no longer consider COVID postponements or cancellations at no charge and others are moving that way. The virus is now regarded by many as a fact of life not an exceptional incident and should be accounted for when booking holidays.

I booked in September 2021 for Sicily in August 2022.

Do it! My eldest is off to uni in September. You dont get this time back. Flexible booking terms and insurance are key. Once youve taken all the precautions you can, you should sit back and relax!

And I thought we were the last to go abroad!

Nope. Will be a couple of years at least before we can afford to go abroad on holiday, making at least 5 in total where we haven't. Not that that's some incredible hardship but it would be nice!

Our big family holiday is 3 nights in Filey at Easter. 🙄

Daughter, on the other hand, has a week in Switzerland for Eurogym and another week in Austria on a music tour - that risk of testing positive as part of groups of teenagers is frankly terrifying.

Speaking specifically about southern and eastern Africa, I've been looking at travel and covid related issues over the last few years. Most African nations I have been watching are (1) happy to have travellers visit, they have had very consistent rules for the last year or so, most require a negative PCR test within 721 hours of departure. That isn't too onerous unless you live in the Highlands, as long as you accept the additional cost. (2) Many countries have a mask mandate in all public areas, compliance depends on how public it is. So if you are going to Africa to see wildlife for example, it really won't affect your enjoyment of the place. And you can still do wine tasting or whatever. (3) Since omicron, I haven't seen a southern African country tighten up restrictions. South Africa didn't change from their Level 1 and are through their latest wave, so there is no reason to believe that covid restrictions would suddenly change or tighten in-country. At present you don't need to take a test to get back to the UK and with Boris's tone that all covid restrictions will be allowed to lapse in March, I don't see how he will be able to justify making new travel rules if there isn't even a legal obligation to isolate in the UK even if you are positive.

With regard to insurance and risk. If one of your party catches covid within 14 days of the outbound flight, most airlines/tour agents are allowing you to postpone to new dates (as a medical reason), so that's not a big financial risk unless you are convinced you won't be able to rearrange in the following ~12 months. We have reasonable insurance for covid issues with Staysure; since the lapse of 'red lists' and the FCDO advice against travel due to covid, nearly all insurers now are including the most common covid issues (i.e. having to quarantine or self isolate if you were found positive abroad - the airlines are generally allowing you to re-arrange flights for free because its a medical reason you can't fly).

We went to SA in November 2021, we were lucky in our timing coming back, but we're due to go again in March 2022 and we'll go provided we don't catch coronavirus between now and then. The biggest risk with e.g. South Africa is not the SA Government making changes, but the UK Government having another knee-jerk reaction and as above, I think Boris won't do that again.

I booked in September 2021 for Sicily in August 2022.

That's going to be awfully hot!

We managed to get all 11 of us (4 households) into a big house in Devon in August 2020. We were considering going further afield, Spain, Greece, this year but realised that instead of 6 months of excited anticipation we would spend 6 agonising months waiting for it to all go horribly and expensively wrong.

Looking into travel insurance myself. Lots of places are not covering Covid at all. We're coming from Aus to Europe for 6 months and I'm T1 Diabetic (well managed, but still, it's the largest comorbidity for Covid related deaths).

The feeling of it all going to sh!t is real but we're trying to book places which have clear and logical cancellation polices so we don't lose (much) money. One of the biggest issues is the vast differences across Europe with what's required / expected re testing etc. Me and wife are triple jabbed, kids (7 and 10) had their first shot on Wednesday and due the 2nd shortly before we fly at the end of March.

So yes, it's time to book a big family holiday, just set your expectations accordingly!

I think the key things are to ensure that flights and accommodation can be cancelled at short notice if needed and that you have insurance that covers Covid issues.

We have a fairly big family holiday planned for the summer. We are heading to Egypt for a couple of weeks in August. A few days in a hotel, then a week on a boat diving in the Red Sea, then a few days in another hotel to finish the trip. All booked independently. Hotels are booked on Booking.com and I can cancel those a few days before if needed with no penalty. Flights are with Easyjet, who I have found have been very good at issuing refunds for flights that don't operate, or they can be rearranged if needed. The dive boat I can't cancel, but if needed they will roll the booking over to next year - this year's trip was originally arranged for 2021, but obviously we couldn't go at the time so they moved it to 2022. The travel insurance I have offers covers us if one of us tests positive 14 days before we go - although at that stage everything could be cancelled or moved to 2023 so in my case it wouldn't really offer any additional protection. It also covers us if ones of us tests positive while travelling and need to delay our return.

If the trip can't go ahead I do have a fallback UK option, but really hoping we can have a family trip abroad this year.

I was in Egypt last October, and plenty of European's were there, and generally everything felt safe. The UK has had a very restrictive travel policy for the past 2 years, so I think people are feeling nervous about travel.

We have booked a ferry and accommodation in Spain which is all refundable / cancellable.

It doesn't avoid the issue of catching Cv19 on holiday, but nor does it help if one of us falls off a bike or similar other misfortune.

I hope we can get to go.

We've got a 23 night road-trip to Italy booked for the first 3 weeks of August.
The main part of the trip (2 weeks in Lake Garda) has been rolled over twice - pretty much everything is either movable or cancellable but we've not had a family holiday since summer 2019 so determined to go this year unless there is an outright ban on travel.
We've even moved it forward for a week to enable us enough time to isolate when we get home before the kids go back to school.

Biggest risk for me would be one of us testing positive whilst we're away - but if that means we have to whack another week on a sunny Eurocamp site on my credit card then so be it.

I'm 50 in Dec and had been planning to be away for it (was looking at flying to Rome for a few days) but i'm a bit nervous that if everything is going to go wrong again it'll be over the winter..