As they say, "Good things come to those who wait." Patiently. For a long time.
As I’m sitting here writing this blog from Dallas, Texas during an extraordinarily long layover, it struck me during my flight here this morning that the journey to this tour has indeed come full circle. Years ago, I was such a spontaneous traveler, and loved picking a place, frantically researching it, sorting the details and jumping on a plane a few weeks later. While the pandemic put a damper on that for a while, even though I still managed to travel as much as I could, I don't think I have ever waited as long for a trip to happen until this one. Ever. In all my years of traveling.
Alas, I digress. Back to Dallas. On my flight here this morning I realized the last time I was in Dallas was for a work conference in early October 2019. It’s not one of my favorite cities by far, and while my time here was packed as it normally is during a work conference, it was the trip that came immediately after that ultimately led to the journey of this one.
A mere 36 hours after I arrived home from Dallas, I jetted off to Italy for a week long yoga retreat. It was much needed after a busy few months and . Time to just be in a beautiful place, practicing yoga by the sea, and relaxing on this charming private beach in mid-October to extend my summer just a little while longer and take a break from life. It was while I was sitting on that beach in Sicily, Italy that I pondered what was next, where the next trip after the one I was currently on would take me? 2020 was an open slate just waiting for me to make some plans.
By the end of that week in Sicily, while talking to some of my fellow yogis I made the decision to book three trips over the course of the next 18 months. Two yoga retreats in 2020; one in early March in Morocco and a second in September in Croatia. If you’ve been reading and following my blog for a while; you’ll know both those trips happened. And if you’ve really been paying attention, I never wrote about my time in Morocco, (at least, not yet); but I did share my time in Lisbon on the way home from that week shortly before the pandemic took over our lives. And Croatia, there's several blogs about that phenomenal trip.
The third was a Food & Wine tour to South America; specifically Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile. What drew me to the tour and that part of the world was quite simple. I had just returned from my second trip to South America to Ecuador, the Galapagos, and Peru a few months before and knew I wanted to explore more of that continent. Coupled with the opportunity to taste wines from these three countries was too good to pass up.
So, on October 29, 2019, I signed up to be a group coordinator for Go Ahead tours by adding that food and wine tour. We were scheduled to depart on February 5, 2021. The tour would end in Santiago, Chile on my birthday, February 15. And I had planned to stay a few extra days to celebrate.
Looking back over three years later, I really had no idea what I was doing as a group coordinator and I certainly had absolutely no idea how challenging that gig would become in the coming months as I worked to convince friends to travel with me in the midst of a worldwide pandemic!
Ever the optimist, I hung on to that Food & Wine tour departure for February 2021 for the first part of the pandemic, determined it would go, all the while stressing about my trip to Croatia later that summer and if it would happen. But, while planning Croatia I kept my eyes on South America. The countries we were to visit were closed down pretty tightly with no signs of allowing visitors, including any restrictions any time soon. About six months before the tour would have departed, I preemptively rescheduled the tour for March 2022. Although there were people interested, no one had officially booked to join me so it was an easy call to make.
In the meantime, I continued to travel, navigating the ins and outs of the ever evolving nature of pandemic travel; which if anything, taught me to roll with the punches that come along with traveling with even more finesse than I had before. I focused on launching two more tours, a Christmas Market tour to Europe for late 2021; and later a tour to Scotland for August 2023. I had committed to myself in doing one tour a year and this food and wine tour would be the one for 2022!
Then as we watched the world slowly reopen in 2021, the three countries in South America I was watching seemed to be giving no signs of opening or relaxing their restrictions any time soon. But, having pulled off a few international trips on my own, I was determined. Watching and patiently waiting but determined. As the summer turned to fall, I got the green light that my Christmas Market tour was a go (but was later canceled eight days before departure and did go in November 2022); I also realized the probability that my March 2022 tour to South America would go was looking not so favorable. I decided to move it early 2023. I still had convinced no one to go with me, but several that said, "if you push it to 2023...."
They say third times a charm, and within the first six months after launching this tour for the third time, the tour was sold out. Finally!
So today, 1,207 days after I officially booked that Food & Wine tour, and two days after my birthday, myself and the fabulous people that have chosen to travel with me are finally on our way to Santiago, the city where I thought I’d spend my day two years ago. Two years and a few days later, it almost seems fitting that the flight that will take me to Santiago starts here in Dallas as that's where I was when I starting thinking about the tour. Though I sadly, won't be returning to that beach in Sicily this year (I did make it back in October 2021); I'm sure a beach in Chile or Uruguay will do.
And hey, this is the last trip I had booked that was hindered by COVID. So, it has indeed come full circle. It can only get better from here. Take that COVID, I'm calling it a win in my favor.
It all starts in less than 24 hours. Stay tuned.
