Dear Traveller,

Here we are, over a year after our lives and travel plans hit a massive roadblock.

Our wonderful 2020 tours were cancelled and postponed until 2021. In light of the still sluggish movements on many fronts – vaccine distributions, coordinated government measures by all countries, actions and reactions by suppliers – we have to move most of our programs to 2022. While domestic travel might become a possibility as the year moves along, international group travel with more required planning time is still a challenge.

We are all ready to travel, standing with the suitcases packed by the door and waiting for the door to spring open. We have a couple of group tours scheduled for the end of 2021 still. One of them, For the Love of Vienna, is based on staying at a wonderful hotel in one great city, thus minimizing moving around. We will know in the next couple of months if that tour can become a reality.

For now, we are concentrating most of our efforts on 2022. 

Anyone who was signed up on a 2020 or 2021 tour, can stay booked/committed and will keep their priority status, along with the incentive from the original postponement.

Anyone who wishes to come along and would like to get on board any of our tours can do so by sending the filled-out reservation form to secure a tentative spot. We expect a high interest level for all our tours and sold-out programs. At the end of the summer 2021 – by which time we expect vaccine issues and travel logistics to be sorted – we will provide the newly set-up payment plans, terms and conditions.

For us at Special Travel International, travelling has been our passion and life for decades and we all wish for travel to become again something of great enjoyment and value. This means being able to interact with people, and experiencing other cultures while enjoying the fellowship of our travel companions and not being scared of others. Being concerned about following arrows and dots on the ground, being handcuffed by numerous limitations, having the words "safety" and "fear" dangled in front of us cannot be the travelling we want to do.

Our "2021-22 Revival of great STI tours" is happening with the biggest hopes. We have to trust that the authorities around the world get their approaches coordinated and synchronized, so we can rely on clear information and protocols in order to plan with confidence in the future.

We are fortunate to live in a country like Canada. The economies of the world have been linked together in a very intricate web over centuries and to just stay in our own little bubble does not work anymore. We can only hope and keep our fingers crossed that we will soon be able to visit our friends around the world, helping others make a living while doing the same.

Enjoy every day and let’s hope that this “time of weird” is coming to an end soon.

Your STI team
April 2021