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If there’s one thing we’re all in need of after the last few months it’s a holiday. Even if that holiday just consists of a tent in your mate’s back garden – it’s a change of scenery we’re desperate for.
Your travel plans for summer 2020 could be a little more adventurous though. This week, the government announced that overnight stays and holidays in England will be allowed from July 4. Hotels, self-catering properties, B&Bs, cabins and campsites will be allowed to open up on that date.
Travel further afield in the UK, to Scotland, for example, might be possible later in the same month, while travel in Wales will likely be allowed from July 6. And, as more countries around the world start to open their borders, an overseas adventure doesn’t seem as impossible as it did just a few weeks ago.
There are a few things holding us back from an international holiday right now. Like the UK’s current quarantine rules, which state that anyone entering the UK, including British nationals returning from abroad, must self-isolate for 14 days.
Those restrictions might not be around for much longer, though. Conservative MP Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown has suggested that the quarantine measures might be lifted by the end of this month. ‘If we are going to do it, we should’ve done it much earlier,’ he said on the BBC’s ‘Today’ programme, adding: ‘I think it will be eased from June 28 or thereabouts.’
Whether that means the quarantine will be scraped or altered remains to be seen. The BBC have reported that ‘the government is planning to relax its travel quarantine rules in early July for some countries’ adding: ‘the UK hopes to make an announcement on June 29 that it has secured a number of "travel corridors".’ A travel corridor with Portugal, for example, would mean people from Portugal could travel to the UK and people from the UK could travel to Portugal without quarantine on arrival at their destination or upon their return.
Another concern for people wanting to escape the UK right now is guidance from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. People from the UK are technically welcome to visit places like Italy without a quarantine period on arrival, but the advice from our government contradicts that.
While advice from the FCO has been amended and simplified recently, it does still state that it ‘currently advises British nationals against all but essential international travel’ adding: ‘This advice is being kept under constant review.’
So when can we go on international holidays again? For now, it’s best to keep daydreaming.
Need something to daydream about? These are the coolest places to park a campervan in the UK.
Further afield? Check out the most Instagrammed islands on the planet.