About a month ago, my wife and I began plotting our first real travel in well over a year. We decided to start small, and semi-local, with a drive. To Washington D.C.

We have bigger travel plans for the rest of 2021, given our expectations that everyone in the family, and most people we’ll encounter out in the world, will be vaccinated within a few months. Indeed, we’re well underway: I got my first vaccination last week, as did our daughter, and our son texted us this morning to tell us he was getting his first vaccination next week. My wife will be part of a coming wave of vaccinations—every state does things a bit differently, of course—though it’s not clear yet when that will happen.