GET YOUR ZEAL BACK
Let’s look forward to the coming months when the vaccines have kicked in, the travel chaos of Covid-19 will just be a bad memory, and we can once again head abroad on holiday. Here’s our four-page pick for 2021...
Journey to Middle-Earth
Fans of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit would no doubt love to make a pilgrimage to New Zealand this year.
It is the 20th anniversary of the release of The Fellowship of the Ring movie, so there’s no better time to visit the mystical filming locations in Middle-Earth and explore these incredible landscapes.
You could try your hand at kayaking down the same river the dwarves rode in barrels in The Hobbit, climb the iconic mountains such as Mount Doom (Ngauruhoe) and visit Tongariro National Park, which doubled as the land of Mordor.
Fifteen nights in New Zealand on a Best of the North Island tour, including Hobbiton Movie Set tour, Hole in the Rock cruise and various other excursions, from £2,769pp. Departs in June. flightcentre.co.uk/holidays/new-zealand
America’s national train network marks a half century in service this year.
On May 1, 1971, the first Clocker train rode the rails between Philadelphia and New York City. Today there are more than 500 destinations throughout the railroad’s 21,000-mile system.
Amtrak set up its headquarters in the US capital, Washington DC, and its busiest route is along the Northeast Corridor out of DC’s iconic Union Station all the way up to Boston.
The Northeast Regional route is a great way to explore the Capital Region and the US’s northeast coast, taking passengers from Roanoke or Norfolk in Virginia, through DC and into Maryland (journey time of around six hours and 45 minutes).
President-elect Joe Biden is one of the railroad’s most famous cheerleaders – as a senator he let the train take the strain for his daily commute to Washington DC, earning him the nickname “Amtrak Joe”. amtrak.com