Holiday Destinations for a UK Citizen in 2021

[omniflow]

I suspect that I might be a little premature starting this thread, but I'd like it to become a collection of facts (and rumours) about which countries are open to tourists who are UK Citizens in 2021. Personally, I am only interested in short haul - but I acknowledge that other people might be considering further afield.

I did read in a local freebie glossy that Cyprus will be allowing UK citizens in who have been vaccinated, but I haven't seen anything to confirm that.
Someone posted a link to a Times article on another thread stating that Greece would be doing the same as Cyprus.
On another thread, someone posted that Spain wouldn't be letting any non-EU citizens in until they had reached 70% vaccinated.

Any more?

[omniflow]

GT03ROB said:

The situation changes so frequently I'm not sure there is any value in doing much planning. It will all just be idle speculation. I have flights to the UK booked for 2 weeks time, quite expect these to change in that time.

The first step will be for the UK government to let you all out, then think about to where.

Idle speculation - yes I totally agree.

However, I am extremely idle at the moment, so quite happy to speculate.

The post above yours, pointing out the UK Gov site, is quite useful (although should have been obvious). The site itself is quite poor, with lots of clicks leading to pages which look pretty much identical to the page you were on, until you scroll down. From there, the current state of Greece looks dreadful - 9pm curfew in amber places, 6pm curfew in red places.

The question is -

Do you book now and hope that the refund policy is as good as stated?

or

Do you wait until UK restrictions are lifted so that your travel insurance will provide some cover?

or

Do you wait until both UK and your chosen destination are both rosy?

Holiday company prices are seriously inflated - what we paid £2,700 for 2 years ago is now selling for £3,900. However, putting together an independent package looks completely do-able. A combination of AirBnb (which I have never used) and Easyjet show masses of availability and loads of choice, and the total cost looks to be about £1,000.

[omniflow]

GT03ROB said:

seen Hancocks latest missive....... do ya really want to go on holiday & risk your destination going into red & then being charged 1750/head for 10 days quarantine on return.

At the moment I think the whole thing is a gamble.

Book now:

Pay less (possibly a LOT less)
Have plenty of choice
Have something in the diary to look forward to during lockdown

Possibly end up losing some or all of your deposit
Be disappointed because you can't go
Pay £1750 to quarantine

Book later:

Covered by travel insurance
More certainty about situation in other countries

Pay more
Take what's left
Lockdown is over - don't need something to look forward to as much

[omniflow]

RichFN2 said:

If its a case of Israel or UAE once you have had your jab then that will do for me, not places that were the top of my list but both are interesting enough to consider. A sunny week in either would be a nice break from my own place and home town..

I'd rather spend a week in Skegness than visit either of those places - I don't want sunshine THAT badly.

[omniflow]

Yesterday - whilst browsing on AirBnb - everything I was looking at in Crete had free cancelation up to a week before departure.

Today - having decided to book something - the cancelation terms on everything I looked at had changed to only a 50% refund.

Very very annoying.

I don't want to stay in a hotel.

[omniflow]

I've booked a "sea view" holiday apartment in Scarborough for 3 nights the week after normal schools go back for the summer term - ~20th April. That replaces a 3 night hotel booking that I had for the same time period. The hotel had / has free cancelation up until the night before - but according to yesterday's announcement - they won't be open. The apartment has a 50% cancelation penalty - which I MIGHT get back if the rules change, but I'm not banking on it.

That's as far as I've got - a change of scene, some nice sea views, some nice roads nearby for driving on and hopefully some outdoor pub meals if the weather is halfway decent. I'm fairly sure Scarborough is quite skanky, but it's off peak, on the coast, not expensive and also not where I've been for the past god knows how many weeks.

As for sunnier climes - I haven't actually seen anything about any new rules there. I might take a punt on booking a house / apartment on Crete in September. There's a 50% cancelation penalty on everything there, but I think it's getting to the point where it's worth the risk. It's a case of paying £4K to a holiday company for complete flexibility / cancelation cover or paying a total of £1K to do it yourself - with the risk that you might lose £300 of that if it all goes tits up.

The other consideration is that with the holiday company you get a really nice peaceful villa that's slightly out of the way (which is why it's peaceful). Whereas if you DIY you can book an apartment right in the middle of the town / village. Normally the thought of this would horrify me - but right now it's exactly what I want - to be able to sit on the balcony and just see people acting normally.