Celebrate Good Times

Travelers again look to special trips to observe life’s milestones.

- By Rina Nehdar

2020 was a year of missed celebrations. Graduates didn’t walk to receive diplomas, parents didn’t escort brides to reach their soulmates. Kids celebrated birthdays in driveways, waving to a procession of moving cars. The celebratory moments that make up the memories of a life came and went with minimal acknowledgment. Our optimism told us our next milestone celebration was months away and the COVID-19 pandemic would be over by then. The news told us a different story.

Yet it’s not too late to celebrate. It’s not the date on the calendar that we mark but our achievement of getting to a certain place in life that we honor and which can be observed anytime. Now, with better COVID-19 testing and the worldwide vaccination rollout, many people are wondering how they should do that.

“What better way to celebrate yourself than to indulge in a destination?” said Steve Lima, director of marketing USA and South America, G Adventures. “People come back feeling revived, refreshed, reenergized,” Lima said. Besides just the normal milestones, people deserve to commemorate less glamorous but notable wins like beating cancer or finishing up a divorce.

So when my time came, at the end of 2020, to celebrate living to an age that ends in a zero, I knew I wanted to see and hear live music. After months of listening only to virtual concerts, I longed to hear the soulful vibrations of people channeling their ecstatic experience through trumpets, guitars and voices. Immediately, legendary and historic New Orleans, Louisiana, came to mind.