All countries are created equal but some are more equal than others… let’s hear it for the PIGS, the big winners on the UK Green List.
We will all now be able to visit Portugal, Israel, Gibraltar and St Helena from May 17 from England.
Make a break for it
Portugal has always been a personal favourite and it’s also fun for all you sporty types too.
And they are being rewarded for their Clean & Safe project with this green light.
Israel have been frontrunners from the get-go on the vaccination programme and I will be back communicating with the Promised Land through the week.
I am indebted to my old colleague from the American Travel Fair Britain’s Young Travel Writer of the Year Lottie Gross for road testing Gib for us over the pandemic.
And to Napoleon for doing the same.
Through countries
The one niggling issue though is the status of the through countries to get to Gib and St Helena with neither Spain nor South Africa on the green list.
St Helena remains unfinished business.
With my walk in the footsteps of Le Petit Caporal ahead of this month’s 200th anniversary of his death there cancelled at the last minute.
Ice, ice baby
But while the PIGS pushed themselves out, as they do, as the big winners on the UK Green List there are others celebrating today.
Iceland also makes it onto the list and a long-promised visit to the Iceland Phallological Museum where all the Big Dicks hang out.
While the Faroes too, between Iceland and Norway, await and are tempting us with nature and wellness and hairy Vikings.
Further afield Singapore, and Brunei are long-haul bucket list favourites.
Bonzer
Of course it used to be that being sent to Australia and New Zealand was a punishment.
And the poor peoples on those islands are still suffering, albeit different hordes now of English Gap Year students… see The Inbetweeners 2.
Falklands awe
The good folk of the Falklands and South Georgia came onto our radar 40 years ago next year when the Argentines laid their beach towels down.
It’s a long way to go for a penguin but we’re here to serve.
And so are our friends at G Adventures who have a 22-dayer from Montivideo, Uruguay to Ushuaia.
No me neither, nor how it works with Uruguay not being on the list, and near pariahs Brazil, but G Adventures will be all over it.
And we should just be glad we don’t have to go to war to get a holiday.
MEET YOU ON THE ROAD