Confessions of people who miss travel 'too much'

For these travel lovers, a year of being grounded has had some rather bizarre effects. But perhaps you, too, don a pilots' outfit while sipping 'inflight' G&Ts in your gazebo? Or, maybe you've also become oddly obsessed with planes (absence makes the heart grow fonder, after all) – or have built a ski slope in your back garden?

Do tell us your antics in the comments section below. Think of it as your confessional – then carry on, captain. After all, we're clearly in this for the long-haul.

'I'm serving drinks from my British Airways 747 booze trolley'

Robin McKelvie, travel writer

From savouring 30-40 trips a year to not being able to venture much beyond the end of my nose was quite a fall. I had to adapt, engineering a garden transformation that I’m genuinely surprised has caused so much surprise: I’ve fashioned multiple sanity-saving sitooteries to ‘travel’ around.

There is ‘The Vue’ (an outdoor cinema with views); the ‘Forth View’, a storm shelter (fancy tent) gazing over the Forth bridges; the New England-themed ‘Boathouse’; and a rockery with a stone pew called ‘Balboa’. I know. My friends’ favourite (ah, friends…), the ‘Bridge Bar’, sports a rainproof gazebo bar, hot tub and an actual BA drinks trolley, culled from a retired 747.

And, yes, I have a pilot’s outfit: we’re democratic with drinks pouring on McKelvie Air. There are model planes too. And ferries. Oh, and a roving fender, lighthouse, metal Concorde portrait, propeller and whisky barrel to sip your G&T at. Ice and lemon?

'I'm turning into a plane spotter... and I like it'

Hazel Plush, Senior Content Editor

When you live within earshot of Heathrow, you are reminded – sometimes at 60-second intervals – of our country's extraordinary connectivity. In my patch of Berkshire, the aircraft usually loom low overhead: loud, yes, but also oddly comforting in their regularity. It is both remarkable and mundane – and I never usually gave it a second thought.

But now, after a year of markedly quieter skies, I have become (whisper it, please) a bit of a spotter. On the rare occasion that one flies overhead, I gaze through the roof of my conservatory at the lucky sods going somewhere, anywhere, that I can't.

An Emirates plane tugs at my heartstrings (I long to get back to Dubai), while a Singapore Airlines – likely loaded with freight, not passengers – is a reminder that the world never really stops moving. Sometimes, I'll load up FlightRadar just to see who's up there... and wait, eyes to the sky, 'til I can hear their engines roar.

'I'm sending my Sims on holiday – and living vicariously through them'

Charlotte Johnstone, Content Editor

While I’ve been stuck inside, my Sims have been having the absolute time of their life. After playing the virtual “dollhouse” game as a child, I decided to buy the latest version for a lockdown-bought PS4 last summer.

Members of my virtual family have eaten in cool new restaurants at the top of skyscrapers, drank in beer gardens, shopped in designer boutiques, danced in busy nightclubs, had parties in karaoke bars, booked Swedish massages in fancy spas and, most importantly, gone on holiday – all the things I haven’t been able to do in the last year.

Whether I sent them to an overwater villa in a Bora Bora-looking world, camping in what looks like North America, or skiing, mountain-hiking and onsen-bathing in a destination styled on Japan, I have immensely enjoyed living vicariously through them. Am I embarrassed? Absolutely not. It has been an exceptional creative outlet. A splash of pixels and colour in a very long year of lockdown.

'I'm taking trips to the past instead'

Oliver Smith, Assistant Head of Travel

Where I used to spend weeks travelling, and countless hours planning those trips, this year I've found a new hobby to pass the time: genealogy. I'm now paying for subscriptions to both Ancestry.co.uk and the British Newspaper Archive, and live in the hope that I will uncover some noble forebear. So far, no luck. I've gone back to the 1700s and I have little but the blood of Yorkshire mill workers and Devon farm labourers coursing through my veins.

The most interesting discovery was Frederick Fawthrop Drake, my 3rd great grandfather, who parted fools with their money as a Bradford "bonesetter". Apparently the city was a veritable hotbed for quacks in the Victorian period.

Once I can travel again, I don't intend to give up my new hobby. On the contrary, I've added trips to locations as exotic as Halifax and South Molton to my bucket list. The Maldives and Tuscany will have to wait.

'I've transformed my garden into a snowboarding slope'

Jamie Nicholls, Pro Snowboarder

Prior to the pandemic I had never imagined myself jumping off my outhouse gym roof on my snowboard, onto a home-made rail line and Proslope in my garden, with my neighbours cheering back flips and filming from their windows. It only took a couple of days to build, and it's definitely kept me and the neighbours entertained.

Although I’ve loved riding the setup for myself, being able to teach my daughter to snowboard on it has been a highlight of the last few months. Stepping outside our back door onto our doorstep nursery slope has been really convenient for teaching her, and for me to keep the snowboard legs tuned in for when I’m back on snow.

'I can't get to Australia – but I can still have kangaroo for dinner'

Megan McIntyre, travel PR & Marketer

Two months into lockdown, my ‘itchy feet’ led me to the kitchen. Feeling nostalgic for travel freedom, I (badly) attempted a return to Asia via a beef rendang recipe from the chef at Sukau Rainforest Lodge – my last trip before lockdown. If I couldn’t travel, at least the tastes could come to me.

It snowballed from there: instead of a planned Italian rail trip in May, my husband and I dined on homemade pizza and Pasta alla Norma. As the British summer faded, with no travel in the immediate future, we ate our way around the world: kangaroo to celebrate my niece’s birth in Australia; fajitas and burritos in November to mark a cancelled trip to Mexico; tagine to recall a long-ago journey to Morocco.

Not all have been successful ‘visits’: hummus defeated the blender, with chickpeas and tahini flying more around the kitchen than I’d travelled in months – but cooking my way around the world has given me both comfort and inspiration.

'I'm planning every last detail of my future cruise trips'

Alex Gradwell-Spencer, founder of CunardCritic

My evening wear is abandoned, holiday clothes neglected, passport gathering dust – but I’m planning Christmas in the Caribbean and New York, spring in Japan, the Rhine in autumn, and the ancient worlds in summer.

I’ve got my cruise excursions planned to a T – and have spent hours of lockdown working on them. I know exactly which company I’ll be hiring an e-bike from in Saint Maarten, how we’re getting to the port in Brooklyn (the ferry by the way, its $2.75), in which parks to find the best cherry blossom in Tokyo; even what I’ll be wearing on embarkation day. My dinners are planned too, because I’ve even been absorbing old menus.