I’m feeling the itchy feet, the urge to travel is back.  

Now that we can, it’s tantalising isn’t it? I’m worried that once everybody does start bouncing out the door, I’m going to get wicked FOMO.  

But here’s the problem, with all this time locked up at home and locked down, I’ve become too attached to the dog and vice versa.  

I’m serious. I don’t know how I leave her now. She didn’t cope well when my daughter finally went back to school, having had all these months of just having everyone home all the time, walking her, cuddling her, feeding her, playing with her. And now it’s like, well real life is knocking on the door again and the dog’s not coping.  

She’s gotten used to us all at her every beck and call. And I’ve become so attached to her that I genuinely don’t know how I would up sticks and leave her to gallivant off somewhere. Only dog people will understand this of course. So, I’m not sure what I’m going to do here. I fear my family will probably just go regardless and leave me and the dog behind. 

So how many of us are heading out back into the world? Flight Centre said in one report that ‘travel inquiries surged by 75 per cent the day border restrictions for vaccinated Kiwis were relaxed.”  

Apparently, vaccination rates equal travel confidence. And there’s nothing like being locked up for two years to make one feel like they need to spread their wings. 

So where are we all going? (Well, those of us who can leave their dogs that is.) Flight Centre says most popular destinations include London, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane as well as India. 

And how many of us are actually going? Flight Centre research said in one report that of around 160,000 clients, 88 percent of them intended on travelling. But intending to, and actually making it out the door are two different things aren’t they.  

We’re seeking luxury though apparently – people want to make the most of their holidays having missed out on them for two years, Flight Centre says. We want a trip to remember. 

But you don’t want it to be memorable for having spent it in a mask or isolating. Or for catching some new variant, and that’s my other worry (apart from the dog). Imagine spending a fortune on some exotic far flung holiday and then some new variant crops up and everything grinds to a halt and you’re back isolating again or stuck somewhere.  

I mean I think until the world feels truly back to normal and we’re not hearing the word “Covid’ in news reports anywhere, ever, then we may at that point start to feel fully relaxed about travel being normal again.  

But I imagine at the moment it still involves a lot of testing, temperature checking, extra sanitising and queuing, which can bog down your travel plans and make it a bit admin heavy.  

Won’t it be cool when the world’s 100 percent back to normal and we can just jump on planes again? No masks, no temperature checks, no tests. 

Until then, I think I may just be sitting tight at home with the dog.