We had two goals for our August escape this year: 1) check out some places we’ve never been before and 2) spend more time by the sea. With a little over a month to work with and a road trip in mind, we still weren’t sure where to go. One region, surprisingly close to our home in Lucca (at least as far as European road trips go) that we’d been contemplating for years yet still felt foreign and strangely elusive, came to mind - the Balkans.

​Five years ago, newly engaged, with a newly incorporated business and a shiny new Italian passport in hand, we packed up six suitcases and boarded a one-way flight to Spain. Through a combination of adventurous spirit and complete naivete, we landed in Valencia, a city we’d visited once before, for less than a week. Three and a half years later (clearly haven forgotten how hard the first year in a new country was), we moved again, to our now home in Lucca, Italy. 

When we started Cohica five years ago, amid a nearly year long trip around the world, one of our main goals was to spotlight sustainable and socially responsible travel. I was just two years removed from an MBA in Sustainable Business, and Megan had just left her Director-level position at the Fairmont Kea Lani Maui where she’d worked closely on the hotel’s burgeoning sustainability initiatives. Along the way, we found ourselves constantly asking how the life-changing travel experiences we were having could have an even more positive effect on the communities that served as their foundation. So we started to meet with local business owners and sustainable tourism program managers, curious as to how international travel and tourism could provide long-term, sustainable economic development, preserve local cultures, and minimize environmental degradation. We wrote story after story, promoting responsible travel companies and, in 2016, when we first launched Cohica as a travel design agency, made sustainable travel a primary focus of our growing business.

After a devastating year for international travel in 2020, there are promising signs for a return to exploration and adventure in 2021. Nations across the globe have begun mass vaccination campaigns with hopes of mitigating and eventually eliminating COVID-19. In the U.S especially, vaccination efforts are quickly ramping up, with plans to inoculate every American by August as the number of cases, deaths and hospitalizations continue to decrease each day.

A not-so-insignificant part of these efforts will be to create safe and healthy travel experiences for international tourists. Since late December, Delta and Alitalia have been offering “Covid-free” flights from Atlanta to Rome, allowing visitors to bypass quarantine upon arrival in Italy. With the addition of coordinated vaccine or testing programs like this, we’re very optimistic that European borders will open to American visitors by summertime.

While we hope international travel will be completely secure in the latter half of the year, there will surely be some lingering Covid concerns among travelers. After more than a year of social distancing, mask wearing, and plenty of self-isolation, we’ll all want to feel safe and comfortable as we explore new places and share new experiences abroad. That being said, our criteria for selecting the best destinations and travel experiences are, (1) Outdoor experiences and natural beauty, (2) Effective local health and safety protocols, and of course (3) Low (or no) infection rates. With these factors in mind, we’ve crafted a list of our top eight destinations for 2021.