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Published: March 25th 2022
Dear All
Greetings from London! I’m currently in England on the eve before quite a big trip that I’m beginning tomorrow, and I’m excited! After two years of exploring the British Isles, having done trips in North-East England, Scotland, the Isle of Man and Ireland, slowly building up my distance from home as travel restrictions have eased over time, I’m now ready to go further. Although my destination doesn’t sound too far-removed from England, it really is and I’m so excited to be exploring further afield again. Tomorrow I head to New England!!
The plan is to first fly to Boston from Heathrow on Saturday morning, to spend a few nights in the city, before heading down to Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard for a few more nights. From there I head westwards to Providence, Rhode Island, and then on to New Haven, Connecticut. My plans then take me up north into the heart of Massachusetts at Springfield, before returning for my final two nights in Boston again. In all, my journey is two weeks, and since it’s still quite a short one, whilst desiring to spend more time travelling than writing, I plan to write up my blog
entries after I get back home again. I am just writing this first blog entry to introduce my trip before I go, and to say how excited I am to be on the eve of the proper travelling road once again.
The story behind this trip began in March 2020, when the world changed. I had booked a short ten-day trip around California for April 2020, and then had to cancel it and get a British Airways travel voucher refund for who knows when (which I have since used for Ireland in February, this current trip to New England, and with a little bit still left over for the summer). In my pre-trip planning for California, I learned that since my last trip to the USA in 2012, I was no longer eligible to apply online for the easy-to-get ESTA, which replaces US tourist visas for many countries including the UK. This was due to a change to who was eligible for an ESTA introduced not long after, meaning that anyone who had been in certain countries such as Iraq, Syria and North Korea, along with a few others, since March 2011 could no longer apply for an ESTA. Darn! I had been in Syria in April 2011, literally leaving the day after the British Embassy advised all British nationals to leave the country before it imploded, and thus was not eligible! Instead, I went down the US tourist visa route, which although was a mighty pain, I’m really glad now to have done it. It involved pretty much a whole day of filling in one of the longest forms in my life, to include all my addresses, education, qualifications, employment, and countries visited, for pretty much most of my adult life. This took a while! I then had to arrange an in-person interview at the rather stunning new US Embassy in Battersea, London, which I was just so nervous about! The interview went well though, and my interviewer was very friendly – I just had to explain to him my reasons for going to Syria (purely tourism of course!). I did note that in the interview room, the interviewer was comfortably seated behind a pane of glass, while there was no chair for the interviewee, and the interview desk was uncomfortably low so that one wasn’t able to lean on it – I think this humbling design was not by chance. A few days later, I got my US tourist visa, due to last for ten years!! Seven years longer than an ESTA. And so it was sealed, I planned to visit a different part of the US every Easter for the subsequent ten years, to take full advantage of my hard-to-come-by US tourist visa!! Travel plans did not go according to plan these last two years though, but now I’m ready to make use of the eight years still left on it. Rather than head as far west as California this time, I thought I would cautiously choose a destination which was closer to home, and from where there were more frequent flights back to England should travel restrictions change again suddenly. Thus, a two-week trip around New England was born!!
Travel very much seems to be opening up throughout the world again now, which is so wonderful to see! Unfortunately though, and unlike most of Europe now, the USA still requires a pre-departure c-word test the day before the flight, which I was hoping would be rescinded by now. No such luck, and this morning I went for my rapid antigen test to fully complete the documentation needed for my trip, along with a vaccine passport and a signed US “Travel Attestation” form. It only took an hour for me to get my (negative!) result, but it was rather a long hour I must admit. When my result came through I was elated, and I think in future I shall only aim to plan travels to countries with no restrictions. I have not particularly enjoyed this last week or so waiting to have this pre-trip test. Incidentally, the UK now has no international travel restrictions at all, so coming home now should be fine.
So yes, my travel plans are on schedule now, and tomorrow morning a taxi will pick me up at 7am to take me to Heathrow Airport, and onto the travelling road once more. I absolutely love America, and American people, and I’m so excited to be exploring a new part of it once more. All being well, I’m hoping this will be the first of many Easter-time trips to the USA to come.
As mentioned, this is just a pre-trip blog entry, and I plan to write about my time in New England in blog entries upon my return home in two weeks’ time.
In the meantime, thanks for reading, and America – here I come!
All the best 😊
Alex
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Welcome to New England
Dave here.....hope you enjoy your travels in a unique part of America! We lived on Cape Cod and Merry Jo worked in Boston.