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Seriously, there are gently caress-all new posts in this forum since you're all either in permalockdown or are in a third-world country where COVID is running amok. Share your tips for enjoying a relaxing trip away to your home.
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Jan 8, 2021 06:45
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TBH this subforum had been slowly dying for a while, with the exception of the Disney and Cruise threads. Most people I know have been doing lots of nature trips in the past six months, e.g. rent a cabin in the mountains or beach or whatever, and go hike or surf or whatever is season-appropriate. Lots of people I know went ski touring for the first time ever over Christmas, since the lifts are closed in France. People that aren't outdoorsy and only enjoy travel for going to bars and restaurants have, I assume, been slowly wasting away on their couches. Surprisingly, I haven't seen that many good sales on hotels or AirBnBs, perhaps because domestic tourism is up so much and because, for hotels, room capacity is way down since they have to leave 24 hours between guests and lower capacity, so the reduced capacity has equalled out the reduced demand. I have seen great sales for places that overwhelmingly get foreign tourists, like I booked five nights at a super fancy hotel in North Africa for 75% off, and so far I've been able to reschedule my dates while keeping the same price locked in. Given European incompetence and corruption related to Sanofi with vaccine selection, and the general slowness of anywhere that isn't Israel, the US, and a handful of other countries, it does not seem like there will be much improvement in foreign travel until July at the absolute earliest. It's stunning and enraging that the EU did an incompetently worse job than the Trump administration for vaccine acquisition. I will be surprised if the per capita death rate in the EU doesn't exceed that of the US when the dust clears. (US rollout info: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-19-vaccine-doses.html ; European rollout info: https://www.euronews.com/2021/01/03/coronavirus-which-european-country-is-fastest-at-rolling-out-the-vaccine )
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Jan 8, 2021 13:44
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The forum is sort of dead but I'm hoping it will come back once vaccines are widely available and everyone starts to clamor to get the hell out of their homes and go see family, etc. While buying shares of US airlines is generally akin to lighting money on fire, I did buy a few call contracts for JETS as I expect some improvement in airline stocks due to increased demand for later this year. That said, we've done a couple staycation-style trips over the last nine months with success, but they were all in the middle of nowhere so we didn't have to interact with strangers. Hotel rates are down in a lot of cities but Airbnb rates, especially in areas that are desirable for pandemic travel, have seen high booking rates in my anecdotal research. For me, it's about doing things in an intelligent manner and planning ahead to reduce grocery store trips and whatnot. It's definitely possible, but not something that is attainable by everyone.
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Jan 10, 2021 22:04
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Went on a New England road trip in September that went very well, all things considered. Made the itinerary just by searching around online and it turned out to be a good time with no pandemic-related problems. Should probably try to book something international for later this year while prices are low...
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Jan 13, 2021 22:38
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Today's adventure: Walked to the library and read 60 pages of Ian McEwan's "Amsterdam." Goodreads says I am 87% through the book, and so far the whole story has taken place in London and the Lake District. loving bullshit. Good story though. If you're into middle-aged upper-middle-class British dudes self sabotaging their cozy lives.
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Jan 16, 2021 16:45
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runawayturtles posted:Went on a New England road trip in September that went very well, all things considered. Made the itinerary just by searching around online and it turned out to be a good time with no pandemic-related problems. My one trip in 2020 was driving up to Maine to see Acadia National Park and staying at some state park camp sites and private camp sites (state park was better). I'm hoping to camp in Utah by end of summer if everything doesn't fill up. The entire world will want to vacation at roughly the same time. I have thought about booking something way in advance but airline tickets internationally seem to be about the same price as always. Hotel prices are down in US cities but not so much in the few European cities that I've checked.
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Jan 17, 2021 23:34
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Campervan/RV trips are a pretty good option at the moment. We did a one month road trip around various parts of Australia in June 2020 which was pretty great. It means you can stay as isolated as you want, visit places that aren't crowded, and you're pretty self-contained as well with your own bathroom and kitchen facilities. But yeah it's not super surprising that the travel forum is dead while people can't travel! Even the travel subreddit is pretty dead, most of the posts are just people showing off old travel photos whoring for karma 
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Jan 18, 2021 05:18
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Dr Strangepants posted:My one trip in 2020 was driving up to Maine to see Acadia National Park and staying at some state park camp sites and private camp sites (state park was better). I'm hoping to camp in Utah by end of summer if everything doesn't fill up. The entire world will want to vacation at roughly the same time. Same, Acadia was the main destination and we just made a bunch of stops in a loop on the way there and back. No camping though, just some highly rated bed & breakfasts. I haven't looked at any international prices yet myself, but I heard my father in law just booked a couple hotels in Italy that I recommended years ago for about 80% less than what I paid. I don't know, could be specific to Italy or just the couple places he's visiting before his tour.
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Jan 20, 2021 21:22
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A VR headset is mostly a giant waste of money but sometimes putting it on and popping on Google Earth and zooming in as much as possible can kind of feel like a road trip. A really boring road trip.
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Feb 2, 2021 06:18
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I actually had an idea about 5-6 years ago when I first started travelling full-time that I'd get a 360 camera setup and start producing immersive VR video content of different tourist locations. As VR looked less and less likely to take off I've kinda shelved the idea, but jeez it would've been pretty great to have up and running 12 months ago.
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Feb 2, 2021 06:51
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360 video is a dead end. 180 degree stereo can look alright under certain circumstances but is still fundamentally flawed and causes eyestrain. Convincing VR scenes need either photogrammetry, requiring a lot of fine tuning or lightfields. Lightfields are almost practical today, Google's demos are extremely impressive, but tools and workflow are scant. In Google's lightfield video demo suite there's a couple scenes of a beach, it's some of the best examples of that kind of thing I've seen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvRgkXQZIQg
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Feb 2, 2021 09:18
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SCheeseman posted:360 video is a dead end. 180 degree stereo can look alright under certain circumstances but is still fundamentally flawed and causes eyestrain. Convincing VR scenes need either photogrammetry, requiring a lot of fine tuning or lightfields. Lightfields are almost practical today, Google's demos are extremely impressive, but tools and workflow are scant. Wow, that's pretty incredible. Looks like some real sci fi type stuff. "Zoom. Pan. Enhance."
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Feb 2, 2021 11:44
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I am indeed sad this forum is dead as it has chance of being very useful.
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Feb 15, 2021 04:03
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What you all need to do is get really high/drunk, go to youtube, search for your favourite cities followed by 4K. Then you can just wander the streets virtually for hours.
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Feb 24, 2021 02:09
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Picnic Princess posted:What you all need to do is get really high/drunk, go to youtube, search for your favourite cities followed by 4K. Then you can just wander the streets virtually for hours. I'm down for some parts of that.
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Feb 24, 2021 17:51
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