Detours by Jim Byers
It was one thing when travel shut down due to COVID.
This was something else.
I was at home in Toronto in May 2025, feeling very sad about the death of my father two weeks earlier. I also was having sharp pains in my abdomen.
I Googled the usual ailments, but none of them seemed to match what I was feeling. When things got considerably worse, my wife whisked me to a nearby hospital.
The nurse did a quick blood test and told me my white blood cell count was 140.
“Okay,” I replied. “What’s normal?”
“Four to 11.”
Oh.
After a couple more tests I was diagnosed with leukemia, which had enlarged my spleen and was causing all the discomfort.
My wife and I were floored. The day before I had felt fine. And suddenly I was faced with what looked like a potential death sentence.
It was a complex diagnosis, but by July the doctors had figured out I had a rare form of the disease called myelo proliferative neoplasm, and that I would need a stem cell replacement from a suitable donor. Without that, I might have two, perhaps three years left.
Sobering doesn’t begin to describe the feeling.
The summer wasn’t easy. But they found three donors pretty quickly, allowing me to receive my stem cell treatment in November.
It wasn’t pleasant, particularly the chemotherapy and the frequent bathroom trips and pain, not to mention the rabbit antigen they gave me that had me freezing and shaking at night. Losing my appetite and my hair (it has since grown back) didn’t help.
Grounded
I knew it would take time to recover physically, and I was fine with that. What I didn’t quite realize is what this would mean to my travel career.
As travel editor at the Toronto Star from 2008 to 2013, I had become used to jet-setting around the world: Australia, China, England, Tahiti, Dubai. I have since been freelancing for publications across the globe, and have visited such faraway spots as Malaysia, Easter Island, Colombia, and New Zealand.
But when you have a full stem cell replacement like I did, you lose your vaccination status. That meant severe restrictions on my ability to socialize. My grown-up kids were allowed to visit me in hospital and at home with masks on, but I couldn’t see any of our grandkids. I also couldn’t go to a restaurant or attend the destination/tourism events I would usually go to once or twice a week. Even a trip to McDonald’s was considered too dangerous for someone with no immunity system.
“It’s like we have COVID but nobody else does,” my wife said to me one day. As my primary caregiver during my recovery, she, too, was grounded from doing a lot of the things we’d taken for granted, including hopping on a plane or even, for a while, having a meal at a restaurant.
Things gradually began to improve, and I got stronger as 2026 marched on. The doctor said we could go out for dinner provided we went before the crowds. By May we were cleared to do car trips and stay overnight at hotels. I was told I couldn’t fly until the fall, after my vaccines kicked in, but I would be okay to take driving trips.
When you’ve been stuck at home for months, even a one-hour trip to a nearby town is a huge treat.
A Year Without Travel Comes to an End
Our first trip out of Toronto was to Prince Edward County, a formerly unheralded farming area on the shores of Lake Ontario that has been transformed into a fine wine-tasting region complete with fancy shopping and Instagram-worthy inns.
We went for an early dinner at the sleek Drake Devonshire Inn and had a fine meal. It was a warmish day in early May, and there was a nice sunset on the water behind the restaurant. I ducked out and sat on a small bench alongside a rocky beach, watching a young boy scrambling on the rocks and listening to the sound of the small waves lapping on the shore.
It wasn’t quite Napili Beach on Maui, my favorite spot on Earth, but it was a tremendously freeing moment I won’t soon forget.
We have several more driving trips in the fall, and I have my first flight set for California in November, followed by Hawaii, New York, and Florida. I hope to resume international flying next April with a trip to Tahiti and a supply ship cruise to the remote Marquesas Islands.
Given the year I’ve had, I suspect that first flight will be a tad emotional. I hope I remember how to navigate the airport. I hope I remember how to get through security. And I hope I never take traveling for granted again.
Jim Byers spent 32 years at the Toronto Star, five as travel editor. Since retiring, he's freelanced for the Los Angeles Times and National Geographic, runs www.jimbyerstravel.com, and is senior writer/editor at openjaw.com. A past board member of the Society of American Travel Writers, he's one of Canada's most established travel journalism voices.