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 ex-pats living in 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…
