The Lockdown Lowdown

Another week, and we’re very happy to see some more largely positive news from governments around the world as travel restrictions continue to lift. Let’s dive right in…

Australia

After two long years, Australia has announced that it will finally be opening up its international borders to vaccinated travellers from 21st February.

But before you start clicking furiously on the Qantas booking form, there are a couple of caveats:

• The state of Western Australia continues to have its own far stricter restrictions in place. There’s a hard cap on incoming travellers, and all new arrivals must quarantine for a week. (So if you wanted to check out Perth or plunge through the Horizontal Falls, we’d keep waiting.)
• Unvaccinated travellers will need to apply for a travel exemption, and then participate in a hotel quarantine.

Got that all figured out and ready to fly? Here’s some inspiration to get you started - Wanderlust has just released its list of the top Australian destinations for travel in 2022. The ancient rock art and foggy forests of Grampians National Parklook particularly inviting, don’t they…?

Yeah, this will do us just fine...

New Zealand

Having just cancelled her own wedding, NZ PM Jacinda Ardern has at least given international visitors some hope for the future, unveiling a new phased plan for the country’s borders to reopen.

• From 27th February, vaccinated citizens in Australia will be able to return. Vaccinated citizens in other countries will follow suit from 13th March.
• A batch of 5,000 international students will be allowed in from 12th April.
• The rest of us will need to wait until at least October to get a look-in, however.

Morocco

Morocco has reopened its borders to UK travellers for the first time since 20th October.

You’ll need to be fully vaccinated, and present a recent negative PCR test - Morocco has also warned that there’ll be rapid-testing required at airports, and ‘random PCR tests’ for batches of passengers.

Europe

Meanwhile, as half-term approaches, a number of European countries have been easing up on their entry requirements.

France, Greece and Portugal have all made concessions, stating that negative PCR tests will no longer be required for fully-vaccinated travellers.

However, as the Guardian reports, make sure you’re triple-checking the latest changes before you book that week away with the kids: some European nations, including France, Spain and Denmark, have begun requiring booster jabs as part of their entry rules.

Fly off to faraway shores for less - save £50* on flights with TUI

Our friends at TUI have a lovely new long-haul discount exclusively for JFC members.

When you book one of TUI’s selected long-haul return flights this summer, using this link (flights must depart between 1st May 2022 – 31st October 2022), you’ll save £50 per traveller. Magic.

And just to make this offer even sweeter - if you upgrade to JFC Premium, they’ll even throw in an extra discount code for an additional £20 off as well.

Your discount will be automatically applied at the time of booking and appears in the prices shown.

Booking terms and conditions apply. The offer is subject to availability, available for a limited time only and may change or be withdrawn without notice.

Valentine's Variations

As flight-finding experts, we can tell you - nobody loves Valentine’s Day quite as much as the travel industry.

Airlines, hotel owners, chocolatiers and restaurant-owners across the world all mark Feb 14th on their calendars with glee…and charge tourists accordingly.

Now, we love a good discount, and we're not big fans of a price hike. So we’ve gathered together a couple of great anti-Valentine’s recommendations for celebrations abroad (one for couples, one for singles) that just so happen to fall on different dates…

Dragobete, Romania: February 24th

In Romania, Valentine’s Day, or ‘Dragobete’, is traditionally celebrated a little later in February - it shows up on the 24th, in fact. (So yes, you still have time to book.)

The festival is named after a mostly-forgotten, ancient Romanian mythical figure. Son to Baba Dochia, a grumpy old legendary woman who’s associated with the end of winter and the return of springtime, Dragobete was supposedly so good-hearted and kind that he was chosen to be the Guardian of Love - and now watches over Romanian youths in the first bloom of romance.

Where to go

On Dragobete, couples traditionally head into the hills or the woods to pick flowers and enjoy the scenery together.

And conveniently enough, Romania’s stunning mountains are the perfect place for a romantic getaway. Grab a car from Bucharest or Sibiu airports and set out on your great couples' adventure into Transylvania:

Nestle up in Alpine Escape Studios - a set of traditional wooden homes and cabins in the fir trees overlooking the charming village of Magura.

Indulge in a bit of hand-in-hand hiking through Piatra Craiului National Park, and then stop off to meet some of the area’s local wildlife; Magura boasts both a brown-bear sanctuary and…er…a cave that’s filled with bats. (OK, so maybe that part isn’t so romantic.)

Stop off at the town of Biertan. This delightful medieval commune is famous for its magnificent church, its locally-grown wines…and for a very curious approach to couples’ therapy.

It’s said that in the town’s medieval past, unhappy married couples would be locked up in a tower room together in the church, until the two of them reconciled. Worse yet, they were only given one bed, one glass, one plate, and presumably one toothbrush to share between them.

That may sound like a particularly lousy episode of Married At First Sight, but the local folklore of Biertan now proudly proclaims that there’s only been one recorded divorce in the town in 300 years. Hooray…?

South Korea - Black Day, April 14th

And why should couples get to have all the cool holidays, after all? For all the amazing single readers out there - we heartily recommend taking a trip to Seoul to celebrate South Korea’s Black Day.

You see, since around 1960 in a number of countries across Asia, Valentine’s Day has gradually transformed into a drawn-out, two-month-long, heavily-commercialised ritual.

On February 14th, women buy chocolates or gifts for their crushes. On March 14th, or White Day, men are then expected to reciprocate. (The practice has been at times controversial for a number of reasons.)

And now South Korean singletons have chosen to poke fun at the entire affair - by celebrating ‘Black Day’ on April 14th.

It’s a tongue-in-cheek day of ‘mourning’ where single people get together with friends, dressed in funeral black, and chow down on jajangmyeon, or noodles in black bean sauce - celebrating their uncoupled status in light-hearted style.

Where to go

As it happens, South Korea is a fantastic destination for a solo traveller at any time of the year: Seoul is consistently ranked amongst the world’s safest cities, with a fantastic street-food and café culture - and the country’s ultra-modern transport network makes light work of getting around.

NomadHer has a brilliant round-up of solo-travel suggestions to get you started, but we’d make it a priority to check out the magnificent city of Gyeongju (pictured above), just up the coast from Busan.

Dubbed “the museum without walls”, this astonishingly well-preserved citadel contains centuries of Korean history and was picked as one of Lonely Planet’s top 10 cities to visit in 2022.

Of course, quarantine restrictions are still in place across South Korea, so maybe pencil this one in for now…

Our Pick of the Clicks

All the important (or silly, or strange) travel news from across the web this week.

• Urban explorers, eat your heart out - CNN has been giving its top tips on the world's most magnificent abandoned towns and cities.
• Ever been served a cocktail by someone in a hazmat suit? The Beijing Olympics have been kicking off…with some COVID-19 alterations.
• The Guardian has been tracking down the most splendid sculpture trails across the UK.
• A historic Rotterdam bridge is being dismantled so that Jeff Bezos can get his giant yacht out of the harbour. Bit weird that you didn't think about the bridge when you started building, Jeff.
• And TripAdvisor has just released its Traveller’s Choice Awards for 2022. The Choicies (they aren’t called that, we just made that up) are jam-packed with the greatest destinations, hotels, restaurants, beaches and more across the world. Dive in and start bookmarking your faves.

Did You Know...?

Once again, our huge thanks to the Detour reader who requested a regular column that covers ‘one interesting, but obscure or hardly known, fact about a country. Any country.’

This time around, the Random Country Generator has thrown up Peru:

As you wonderful Detour readers probably already know, Peru was once home to the Incan Empire.

Living at a high altitude and without access to iron or steel, the Incans came up with ingenious new forms of technology - like hillside terraces to help their soil drain and long bridges constructed from woven grass to cross the mountain canyons of the Andes.

You probably also know that the Incan Empire was invaded by Spanish conquistadors in 1532. Over the next few decades, its leaders were wiped out, its traditions were brutally purged, and its buildings, like Machu Picchu, were reduced to ruins.

What you might not know is that 500 years later, one of the Incas’ grass bridges is remarkably still standing.

Take a day trip out of the city of Cusco, and you’ll come to Q'eswachaka (literally ‘rope bridge’), a magnificent if vertigo-inducing 118-ft construction over the raging Apurimac river.

The bridge no longer serves a practical purpose - there's a concrete bridge just down the round - but to this day, local villagers continue to pass down the Incan craft of bridge-making.

Every June, the locals weave an identical new bridge using only the materials and practices of the Incans, and ceremonially lift it into place - climaxing with a massive party and feast. (The old bridge is allowed to drift away and rot downriver.)

Pure Peruvian awesome. You can watch the bridge being built here.

Sick of Wordle? We'd check out CityGuesser next.

The free browser game is ingeniously simple fun. You're shown a street-level live-feed of a city somewhere in the world, and you have to guess exactly where you’re looking at. Let us know how you get on!

Thanks for reading!