When this volume was proposed during the spring of 2020, we, as editors, considered the various obstacles that might emerge during its production. During those early days of the global pandemic, one such obstacle that we anticipated might emerge concerned the very impetus for the project: the Covid-19 pandemic. We, rather naively, questioned whether the effects of this pandemic were likely to be as significant or long-lasting as many predicted. Remembering the outbreaks of bird flu in 2005 and swine flu in 2009 that had dominated the headlines for months before being swiftly forgotten, we wondered whether the Covid-19 outbreak would likewise prove something of a ‘flash in the pan’. The thought occurred to us that, by the time of the volume's publication, the global pandemic that inspired its production would have slipped from the popular consciousness and our project lost its relevance. This, evidently, has not been the case.

The production of this volume began in earnest just as the United Kingdom entered its first national lockdown on 16 March 2020. It was as the United Kingdom entered its second national lockdown on 5 November of the same year that we prepared to submit a first copy of the manuscript to our publishers. Besides the hundreds of thousands who have died globally as a result of this virus, the knock-on effects of lockdowns and social isolation have irrevocably changed the lives of almost every human being on this planet. It remains unclear how things will develop in the run-up to this volume's publication. There is increasing hope that vaccines may offer the solution to the world's ills, although many remain sceptical we will ever return to what we once considered normality. One thing is certain, though: our initial suggestion that this virus might end up as little more than a ‘flash in the pan’ was most definitely wrong.

What is certain is that this pandemic has unequivocally changed how we think about travel and travel writing. Worldwide travel has ground to a crashing halt. Here in the United Kingdom, those who might ordinarily jet off to Spain or the Seychelles for a summer jaunt have instead fixed their sights on the likes of Somerset, Salcombe and Skegness.