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We used to scour Google for last-minute holidays – now we just want to know if we’ll ever travel again

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We used to scour Google for last-minute holidays – now we just want to know if we’ll ever travel again

While the key dates of the roadmap out of lockdown have been seared into our consciousness (12 days until the pub, 12 days until the pub…), the future of international travel remains frustratingly vague. And so, as always, we find ourselves turning to Google for answers. Where once we scoured the web for last-minute deals, now we focus on trying to navigate the ever-shifting landscape of Covid restrictions. 

Search traffic about “holidays” has hovered at half its usual volume throughout the pandemic, and in this lockdown UK queries for “flights” have slumped to their lowest level on record.

Every day, however, thousands of Brits google every conceivable variation of “when can we travel?,” “when is the travel ban lifted?” and “can I go on holiday this summer?”, and we still google “red-list countries” obsessively, despite the UK’s blanket overseas travel ban rendering the hotel quarantine rules largely redundant.

Monday’s easing of England’s rules prompted a fresh outpouring of wishful thinking, with a spike in searches for “can I travel after 29 March?” and “how far can I travel now?” (this remains unclear – the Government tells us we can now leave our homes, but must “minimise travel”).

The announcement of new penalties for frivolous international trips last week sparked panicky queries for “£5,000 holiday fine” and “is it illegal to travel abroad?”. Our instinctive desire to test the boundaries of what we can get away with is demonstrated by the rise in people triple-checking “what is essential travel?” and feverishly trying to ascertain exactly what can constitute “a reasonable excuse” or “a valid reason” to leave the UK.

There were also thousands of searches for “Stanley Johnson loophole” and “Stanley Johnson clause” after new legislation conveniently absolved the Prime Minister’s father from a trip to his Greece holiday home in a previous lockdown. This development did at least provide a glimmer of hope for some well-heeled Brits, who rushed to check “can I travel abroad to my second home?” (most commonly in London, as the metropolitan elite hatched its getaway plot). 

For those unable to dash off to our Mediterranean bolt-holes (it’s worth noting that Spain remains top among all UK “property for sale” searches, so plenty of us are considering it), our priorities have shifted. Search for “staycation” has peaked at around 10 times its previous high, while there have been twice as many queries for “holiday cottages” as before the pandemic. 

Cornwall and Devon are our most popular picks, while search around Wales has understandably spiked with the reopening of self-catered accommodation (for Welsh residents only). Much of this interest comes from across the border, where jealous searches for “can I travel to Wales from England” grow ominously by the day.

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