With vaccinations ramping up you may be thinking about booking your next trip, but what if the pandemic strained your finances?
Travel addict and author Karen Gershowitz says travelling on a budget means ditching the tourist guides. "Go a little bit out of the way, go into the neighbourhoods, ask people. You don't have to go to the best restaurant in town to have the best food in town. Many, many, many experiences are free or next to free. There are beaches and parks and natural places to go hiking, just gorgeous places to go that cost zero."
She notes she's been to more free musical festivals than she can begin to describe.
Gershowitz has visited over 90 countries. She offers this advice to inexperienced travellers planning their post-pandemic trip. "I would say start small. If your dream trip is going to Paris this probably isn't the year for it. Pick something that's a little more modest, a little more local. There are lots of places to explore and you don't have to go very far to do it, no matter where you live."
In the meantime we aren't supposed to stray far from home. Gershowitz has used the pandemic to explore more of her home in New York. "I went on the internet and started doing searches and I literally looked up 'quirky things to see in New York' or 'drives around New York'. I particularly like street art and as it turns out there is a lot of street art in New York, so I started tracking down street art. It took me into neighbourhoods - and I've lived in New York most of life - that I'd never seen."
Gershowitz says let yourself fall down the rabbit hole of searching online your own city, then get out and explore.
Her book "Travel Mania: Stories of Wanderlust" releases July 13th.