I just wonder if we’re missing travelling? I mean international travel obviously.

I mean so far, I don’t. I thought about this over the long weekend.

And I’m not sure whether that’s because we have collectively fallen in love with our country all over again and developed a real appreciation of it.. or whether we look at the state of the world – lockdowns, overflowing hospitals, closed shops and restaurants, chaos, and think, no thanks.

I personally wouldn’t want to take the risk, you know, heading off somewhere and then wham, there’s a Covid outbreak and you can’t get back home or you’re stuck in quarantine and that’s before we get to the extra two weeks you have to endure holed up on your way back home. So I don’t see the risk, or expense, as worth it right now.

But I wonder when the borders open back up, how many of us will be packing up and waving sayonara to the Kiwi campervan experience and all those family trips to Rotorua, and hurling ourselves onto planes again.

How many of us miss airports and crowds and being in foreign places and having international experiences?

I imagine, despite many prophets of doom forecasting to the contrary, that air travel will be away and laughing again.

That at the heart of it, despite our distance from the rest of the world, we are in fact explorers who love to travel.

The number of Kiwis overseas astounded me when Covid first hit and we started tallying up just how many New Zealanders were not currently in New Zealand. I mean we are used to travelling in crazy numbers. I couldn’t actually work out how so many people could be on holiday at any given time? How many people were able to be off wandering the world for weeks and months on end. Don’t they have jobs? Or mortgages? Or pets? Or kids? Maybe it’s age and stage.

But I do wonder whether there’s been a chilling effect for those who’re risk averse.. and may still feel afraid of the virus – despite a worldwide vaccine rollout. How scarred are we by what we have seen and heard? How lucky do we feel being so far away from it all, and do we feel afraid to risk that by venturing forth into places less fortunate in that regard? Have we in fact become obsessed with our own backyard? Developed a new found love for the West Coast or for the Fiords or Northland or the Nelson lakes? Have we enjoyed keeping it local, staying in one currency, one time zone, not being too far from home.

Mix that in with a big dose of homegrown pride at how clear of Covid we are, and have we got a winning combination that we don’t want to undo? Time will tell obviously, but I have a sneaky suspicion that despite all this local love we’re currently showing our country, once we get the all clear to go – we’ll be storming through those international departure gates in record numbers.