A Pandemic Vacation of Memento-Hopping Across the World
Adding to the distress of this already coronavirus-disrupted summer is the latest target of the quick-to-criticize crowd: vacationers. Travel shaming is now a thing. Media reports say it’s common for people on vacation — even those taking every precaution to protect themselves and others in the pandemic — to be reluctant to post pictures on their usual social media channels. They fear being trolled by safety-conscious critics, including their own friends and family members, who might condemn them as selfish for putting others at risk.
I say, to each his or her own. But my wife and I have opted for a safety-first summer this year. Normally, we’d be in Europe right now, enjoying our annual hiking trip to Zermatt, which became a tradition during our 16-year stint as expats living Switzerland. After that, we’d planned to visit friends in the U.K.
I guess we could have bitten the bullet and gone, but not without forfeiting a huge chunk of our holiday in quarantine. That sacrifice, along with the coronavirus risk, convinced us to remain in semi-lockdown. At least we avoided the shaming threat.
But what to do? Our cabin fever is as bad as anyone’s.
Take Two Tchotchkes and Call Me in the Morning
The remedy we’ve found, inadequate though it may be, is pouring ourselves a couple of…
