Bide your time: with travel so uncertain, try masterful inactivity

Simon Calder’s Travel Week [View in browser]( [The Independent]( [Travel] Simon Calder’s Travel Week [Simon Calder]( Written by Simon Calder | April 30, 2021 Hello, and thank you for signing up to The Independent’s weekly travel newsletter. A wedding in Cyprus in August, followed by a weekend in the Spanish city of Valencia for a triathlon in September: Deirdre Philpott, from Berkshire, has a splendid summer lined up. But she also has a concern. “The trips I am looking at are expensive, so I am loathe to commit without suitable travel insurance. Is there a policy which would cover a cancellation due to the destination later moving into the 'red list'?” Deirdre’s question started me thinking about what I will henceforth call "traffic light colour change cover”. But don’t start searching for it online, because it doesn't exist – and I don't believe any travel insurer will be prepared to offer such a policy. Tourist Area? If only. A signpost in Paphos, western Cyprus Next month the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, will colour in the world: assigning each country red, amber or green status depending on the perceived risk to the UK. The colour dictates what happens when travellers return. From red list countries, hotel quarantine is mandatory, at a cost for a single traveller of £1,750. Amber arrivals must self-isolate at home for 10 days (reduced if you take an additional test from day five of quarantine). Only people coming in from nations on the green list escape self-isolation. The government makes it clear that a country could move into a tougher category at a moment’s notice. The potential financial hit from a downgrade from green ranges from the cost of an expensive holiday if the change happens before a trip to the cost of hotel quarantine and lost wages. Calculating risk is impossible, because there is no useful historical data. An insurer would need to price the premium so high that no rational traveller would touch it. So I advise Deirdre to practice "masterly inactivity": the fine art of rationally doing nothing for a while. Prices may increase, but that is a better outcome than finding yourself saddled with a trip you cannot take, or suddenly obliged to pay for 11 nights in an Isolation Row airport hotel. Looks green to me: a hiker in Spain I am always open to questions, and sometimes in a live setting: next Tuesday, I will be tackling the broad horizon of “Holiday 2021: where, when and how?” on Clubhouse. At the moment, membership of the platform is invitation-only; existing members of Clubhouse can access the event [here](. And if you are not a member, perhaps you have friends or colleagues who can invite you? Always ask. Destination of the week: Dundee Open day: in the Tayside city you can remember what life used to be like as a tourist Since last Monday, Scotland has been unlike the rest of the United Kingdom: it is the one nation where some approximation of an actual holiday is now possible once again. You can stay in a hotel, consume inside a pub (food and soft drinks, no alcohol mind) and visit tourist attractions – such as the marvellous V&A in Dundee. It reopens this weekend with an exhibition called Night Fever: Designing Club Culture. In one of the many ironies of the coronavirus era, while you can't actually go to a real nightclub in Scotland for many more weeks, you can revel in their the joyful design history from Studio 54 in 1970s New York via the Hacienda in Manchester to London's Ministry of Sound. And all without leaving the fine city beside the Tay. Deals of the week - Cornwall is a long, rugged and beautiful county best viewed out of the window of a train or from the top deck of a double-decker bus. And both modes of transport are open to holders of the one-day Ride Cornwall card, which gives unlimited travel (after 9am on weekdays) from the Tamar to Land's End – and even allows travel across the Royal Albert Bridge east to Plymouth and on the Gunnislake branch in Devon. The £18 day ticket (or £11.90 with a railcard) starts providing savings with a simple trip such as a train from Plymouth to Truro, a bus onwards to St Ives and the train from there to Penzance. Buy it on the day; no advance planning needed. - A little-known quirk of Eurostar's pricing involves the "Any Belgian Station" fare from London St Pancras: you can use it for a two-centre stay. Take the 11.04am train to Brussels, arriving at 2.05pm, and you can stay in the Belgian capital overnight and travel on next day to anywhere else in the country – an obvious choice being the entrancing city of Antwerp – within 24 hours. A similar allowance is made before your homeward Eurostar train. Travelling out on 1 July and back on 5 July, the fare is £118.50 return. And in the spirit of these uncertain times, you can change your booking as many times as you want. Pay no exchange fee, just the difference in fare. Question of the week: will UAE be 'un-red-listed? Question: Do you think the "red list" rating for the UAE will end in May? Answer: The inclusion of a country with one of the most comprehensive and effective vaccination programmes in the world on the list of nations from which returning travellers must go into hotel quarantine appears baffling. But the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, explained that it is all down to the fact that UK health officials simply could not tell where arrivals were coming from because Dubai and (to a lesser extent) Abu Dhabi are global hubs for aviation. That status is not going to change. Since that appears to be the official stance, there appears little chance of the UAE being "un-red-listed" any time in 2021. Indeed, other countries may fear being added to the list because of their hub status; Turkey and Singapore look prime candidates. I honestly can't see how the UK government can change its view without an embarrassing climbdown/U-turn – which in turn would lead to serious questions about the competence of the risk assessment system. 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