Can you have an awesome holiday even though there’s a national lockdown? It turns out you can, and I affectionately dubbed mine a ‘Cornwall corona-cation’. We caught up with Tyler Archer to find out what her summer holiday was like during these unusual and unprecedented times.
Year two of university was looming, and the word ‘dissertation’ had appeared on the horizon, so I knew I wanted to go on holiday before things got serious. My boyfriend and I talked about it for months before; where we would go, how would we get there, all the usual logistics.
The only thing that wasn’t logistic was a global pandemic ruining everyone’s summer plans.
At first, we made our peace with it, substituting holiday planning for video calls and socially distanced walks. Still, eventually, we became sick of staying at home repeating the same day, and I noticed that I really wasn’t engaging in my hobbies. At the beginning of lockdown, I was working out four times a week, but that dwindled to nothing a few months later, which was not normal for me. I knew something had to break me out of this funk. And lo and behold in July, restrictions were eased slightly, and there was a glimmer of hope.
After a serious talk about whether this was worth doing, we decided to throw caution to the wind. We wanted to have something that was ours only, and something that we could look back on when we talked about lockdown in the future. So, we made a plan.
We decided to stay just outside Penzance since we both knew the area – and getting a flight anywhere was out of the question. Our first stop (pun intended) was the Trainline app, where we booked the cheapest tickets we could get. We managed to book in advance, which brought the cost down a fair amount. I highly recommend this when booking train tickets!
Next, we booked a campsite within walking distance to the beach for just under a week, which was long enough that we could settle in, but short enough that we didn’t have to use the communal showers too much: perfect. Our pitch was surrounded by people with tents the size of living rooms and cars that could fit inside. But that didn’t matter, because we still managed to pack everything we needed.
Image credit: Tyler Archer
Oh, packing, what an experience. Those bags (a camping bag and a board bag) were bursting at the seams with the tent, cooking gear, our personal things, wetsuits and two bodyboards. I seem to remember this the most when we got on the wrong train carriage that was disconnecting in Brighton, and we couldn’t walk through the carriages. The result? Running down the platform just before the train left and jumping into a carriage that was 50 metres from where we got off. It was definitely an adrenaline rush.
Speaking of trains, until we got onto one, everything seemed familiar: booking tickets, packing bags, driving to the train station. But, wearing a mask for practically 7 hours straight with breaks only for eating? I can still feel my ears aching from the elastic.
Thanks to the ticket booking system, people were distancing on the train, but some seemed to think this meant the masks weren’t necessary (the woman sat near us whose mask was on her chin for a 2-hour phone call!) The most shocking moment of the trip for me was when a woman asked us to move our bags off the seat in front of us so she could sit down. Which, in any other situation, would be reasonable. However, she was on a 12-carriage train that was supposed to be socially distancing, so she couldn’t have sat in front of us anyway (even if we could have put our bags anywhere else to comply with her passive-aggressive tone.)
Once we arrived at the campsite, we had to fill out a travel history form which was relatively easy since we were one bubble, then it was off to our pitch!
Once we got the tent up, we’d been awake for nearly 14 hours, but we’d also been cooped up on trains for most of the day, so we decided to go in the sea anyway, and it was so worth it. As I felt the stress from that day’s journey melt away from me, I knew there and then that this holiday was exactly what I needed to take my mind off of the current state of the world.
We were in the sea nearly every day for the rest of our trip, stuffing ourselves with chip shop chips and pasties (they’re never the same when they’re not in Cornwall). Thinking about the food reminds me of one of my favourite memories: eating takeaway pizza on the beach at sunset, which made a covid-affected anniversary date seem so much more familiar.
Travel aside, the week felt akin to a typical holiday. That’s the good thing about being in the sea, it’s easy to socially distance. So, for a while, we forgot about coronavirus. That was until I nearly walked into the campsite café for a pasty, still in my wetsuit, but without my mask.
As for doing all of this when I’m a responsible adult, I loved the freedom. We could get in the sea at 8 pm if we wanted to, but equally, I could stay at the campsite and read in the morning sun, because going bodyboarding three days in a row tired me out. The downside, however, is that you have to solve any problems yourself. For example, when we woke up one night to discover a broken sleeping mat (we still don’t fully know what happened). So, we returned to Penzance to buy a replacement. We explored the shops that were open (armed with masks and sanitiser) and had lunch whilst we were there. Ultimately, I believe that the people you go on holiday with can make or break whether you look upon it as a good memory or a hideous nightmare because we were able to make the best of a bad situation that day.
Image credit: Tyler Archer
Although we didn’t visit any local attractions, and I spent my time out of the sea wearing a bumbag containing my mask and sanitiser, I’m still glad we decided to work around coronavirus and make memories of a lifetime.
Written by Tyler Archer
Feature image credit: Anna Elias – @annadoesdesign_