Travel after coronavirus: Has being trapped at home given you an epiphany? It won't last

What will the world look like when all of this is over?

Right now there are few bigger questions; there are few things we consider more often in our little dens of hibernation. What will life be like "AC" – After Coronavirus? It will have changed forever, of course. But how?

I like some of the theories that have been floating around. There's an admirable positivity to the notion that the COVID-19 pandemic will change us for the better, that we the human race will learn important lessons about our skewed priorities and our messed-up values.

In some ways, how could it be any different? How could you look at photos of Delhi and Bangkok, Beijing and Bogota, these formerly smog-laden megacities that right now enjoy clear blue skies and alpine air and not think: this is the way we should be living all the time? How could you hear stories of wildlife reappearing in urban areas, of Andean pumas wandering the streets of Santiago, of coyotes on the Golden Gate Bridge, and not consider the negative impact we've been having on the Earth?

We spend too much money on material things – surely that, too, is obvious after being locked inside for a few weeks with nothing to splash your cash on, or no longer having the cash to spend. We in the West have become rampant, mindless consumers, swinging from one purchase to the next, always chasing the next shiny, expensive thing.

The theory is that the coronavirus and our enforced hibernation and separation will change all of this. We'll re-emerge into the normal world in six, 12 or even 18 months with new and better ideas about the way the world should be run. What's important. What's not. What's valuable. What's unnecessary.

I wish that was true – but I don't think it is. And I think anyone who has travelled for any reasonable length of time would also recognise the futility of it.

Because we've all had these epiphanies before, haven't we? We've all come to these conclusions on our travels numerous times in the past.

They usually hit you while you're sitting in some beach shack in south-east Asia, wearing the same boardies or sarong you've had on for the last four weeks straight, sipping a 50c beer and watching the sunset. Later you'll curl up for the night under a ratty old mosquito net. You'll wake to the sound of roosters and breaking waves.