A note from the founders

After all, most of 2020 seems to have been about waiting; for lockdowns to end and vaccines to arrive. For being able to explore the planet again. And now we feel that this sentiment is shifting. Moving from a time of waiting to a time of anticipating. Anticipating what is to come in 2021, when the world begins to turn again, and we can begin to indulge our nomadic tendencies. For us, half the fun of travel has always been about the anticipation. From the excitement that builds as the day of departure gets closer, to the smile that breaks across your face as you wonder as to what incredible experiences you’ll have on your next trip.

We feel that we can now embrace anticipation. And with it, we can begin to plan the trips that you’ve been yearning for throughout 2020. Many of you have already begun to plan with us and we are delighted to have seen conversations struck up again with our Travel Experts (particularly using our Face to Place service), confirming your travel plans for next year.

If you haven’t begun planning, then we would love to hear from you and we would also recommend that it would be good to do that sooner rather than later. Trust us that this is not sales patter, but rather the tacit recognition that the world is desperate to travel again in 2021 and already some of our favourite spots are beginning to fill up. It’s our job to help you get away, so please know that we will always be here to make the travel magic happen for you, but we also want to give you every possible option for your trips next year.

So, we’ll leave it there other than to finish with an acknowledgement. To accept that there is still a long journey ahead and there may be some bumps in the road. But crucially, we can see what awaits us at the end of the road. And for us, we see two simple things: gratitude and joy.

Gratitude for those who have fought the disease, gratitude for the partners we work with and how hard they have endeavoured to support us, gratitude for the brilliant people we work with at Black Tomato and gratitude to all the amazing people we get to call our clients, so many of whom have become firm friends.

And joy. Sheer, unfettered, overwhelming, knock you off your feet levels of joy, as we once again can plan to cross oceans, explore continents, feel the warmth on our face as we step off planes, wake to exotic sounds so alien to the humdrum of our locked down lives, reminding us to never ever take for granted what it means to travel.

Here’s to bringing joy to your 2021.

Yours with huge amounts of gratitude,

Tom Marchant, James Merrett, and Matt Smith