We’re all going on a summer holiday

By Andrew Adie, Managing Partner

Summer 2020, it’s all a bit weird isn’t it?

The sun’s shining but many people are still sheltering indoors, tentatively breaking cover to go to the shops. Schools are up for summer but without the end of term farewells, and no summer clubs to occupy bored minds (and keep parents sane).

Even the traditional sound of the summer anthem has been silenced in 2020 as the enforced closure of clubs and festivals (and until recently the closure of pubs) means a lack of communal gatherings to ignite a solstice trend.

The traditional summer holiday get-away is also different this year. For starters it’s kicked off early. Hordes of people are piling into July breaks rather than the traditional August escape. And the way we’re choosing to holiday is creating new tribes of holiday makers.

Forget the Magaluf Massif and the Ibiza Weekenders, we now have the Garden Campers and West Country Wanderers.

While one holiday tribe (the Quarantine Quitters) are braving cancelled flights and queues for half empty beaches in the sun to get their traditional holiday abroad, many are rediscovering the joys of the UK countryside.

I was speaking to a letting agent in Cornwall last week (yes I’m a West Country Wanderer) who told me she’s desperate to escape ‘up country’ to The Lake District. While some Cornish residents fly banners from motorway bridges telling visitors to “go away” it appears that many Cornish seaside residents can’t wait to escape the crowds and enjoy vertical rain and Wainwright Walks in the beautiful Lakes.

I think there’s probably another tribe emerging - the Digital Day Trippers. Bored of the lack of holiday options they’re taking shorter breaks to spend time at virtual festivals, gaming with the world or living digitally without the joys of a remote connection to the office.

There is however one tribe that’s more frenetic than any: the Parental Party-Animal; freed from home schooling and with a narrow window in the Zoom schedule it’s fair to assume that the nation’s online wine delivery businesses will be gaining an unexpected lockdown bonus.

Whichever holiday tribe you fall into there’s one thing that will unite us all. As we sit fretting over the open suitcase the anguished cry won’t be: “where’s my passport!”; “have you got the insect repellant?”; or “where’s the phone charger?” It’s going to be “have you packed the face masks...?” In 2020 the tan-lines to watch will be the ones that form around your nose and mouth.

The thing that defines 2020 is that wherever you go you’ll end up looking like an extra from a Zombie movie, face covered, glancing nervously from side to side and hoping no one spots that you are on holiday at all. But regardless, I hope you have a good one, because boy, have we all earned it this year....!