Anh and Jean-Benoît are a true Globe Trotteur duo! This couple have been traveling the world since 2016, after leaving everything behind to realize their dream. They recount their exciting experiences through their blog Tourdumonde5continents.
What has changed for you over the past year?
Our start to 2020 was a fine string of fails. We were in Mexico and had to get to Asia for a road trip to China...
Our plane tickets were cancelled and we decided to go back to Europe for a few weeks "just until it calmed down", and had set our sights on Italy, which was confined immediately afterwards.
We then booked transport and accommodation for Austria just before the country closed its borders.
So we were in France at the time of the sudden announcement of the confinement. We've been traveling around the world since 2016 and no longer have a foothold on land. So we had 24 hours to find a solution. The situation was quite stressful, but we found a sublet in the Paris region in a hurry.
We've been able to carry on with our professional activities, and since we've been teleworking at 100% for years, our habits haven't been disrupted.
However, the need for a change of scenery soon became apparent. It's hard to stay within a one-kilometre radius for so long when you've been travelling around the world for years!
How did you keep your blog going during this period? diversification of topics? posts from past trips?
Normally, we publish at a fairly steady pace on our blog. During the lockdown, we had even more time!
We've been catching up on our overdue travel diaries, writing articles about products or services we use, interviewing a friend stranded in Sri Lanka, ...
We were also keen to a confinement logbook then the decontamination. The situation we lived through was so mind-boggling that we'll enjoy reading it again in a few years' time when it's all just a bad memory.
How do you see tourism recovering in the months/years ahead?
We would have liked to say that tomorrow's tourism will be more responsible, more sustainable, more united... Unfortunately, we don't believe in this famous "world after".
Once borders are open again, the desire to travel will be so strong that mass tourism will take off again.
A glimpse of this can already be seen, as travellers flock to the few open destinations such as Mexico, even ignoring exit bans. Without even mentioning the business of false PCR test results, we can clearly see an increase in selfish and irresponsible behavior.
Our vision is not very optimistic, but we're afraid it's realistic.
On a less negative note, a number of companies have experimented with telecommuting and found that, despite their unpreparedness, it worked just fine. This will undoubtedly contribute to the development of digital nomadism, which was already a major trend before the covid crisis. This mode of travel is not without its faults, but as it generally involves longer stays, it contributes more to the local economy than traditional tourism. In fact, we're beginning to see destinations seeking to attract this type of traveler by offering special visas or even subsidizing stays.
Do you plan to return to the adventure once the situation has calmed down? If so, could you tell us more about it? (We promise we won't follow you.... Whatever!)
We're already on the road! We were so itchy when we got out of confinement that we took advantage of the summer to tour France - what a beautiful country we have! In September, when the second wave of the epidemic was not yet a topic, we headed off to Italy. What an incredible opportunity to enjoy Rome, Venice or Florence with so few people. We know we're privileged! We are now in Montenegro and should be in Albania in a few weeks' time.
What's changed is that we have to be even more adaptable than usual. Normally, we like to define our itinerary for the next few months. At the moment, we can't see beyond the next few weeks.
While we usually use public transport for the most part, we're temporarily favouring individual modes of transport.
We do our utmost to reduce risks as much as possible and scrupulously comply with the instructions of local authorities.
We're also staying longer at each stopover. Where we used to stay 4 to 6 weeks per city, we're more on a 3-month rhythm. We've become very slow travelers 🙂
We hope to return to Asia as soon as possible. We have family there we haven't seen for too long. Impossible at the moment to know when that will be.
A destination you'd like to discover?
Without this crisis, we certainly wouldn't be in the Balkans, and it's a wonderful discovery. It makes us want to discover other, less touristy regions that we wouldn't have thought of. Central Asia, for example, appeals to us, but nothing specific is planned at the moment.
Photo credit: Anh and Jean-Benoît, Tourdumonde5continents.
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