the eu's chief negotiator is briefing ambassadors of the 27 member states of the european union on the post—brexit free trade deal. mps in the uk will be called back on the 30th of december to vote on the deal. thousands of lorry drivers are spending christmas day in their cabs in dover. military personnel are being deployed to clear the backlog of lorries waiting to cross the channel. in his christmas message, pope francis has urged world leaders to share the coronavirus vaccines, saying that nationalism cannot stop a pandemic which knows no borders. the article is a generosity and kindness towards victims of the pandemic. generally, and costa rica have been vaccinating people against coronavirus. they are the first countries in latin america to do so.

now on bbc news, it's time for the travel show. let's be honest, it hasn't been the best year for travel. but amid the gloom, we've still found moments of inspiration and seen parts of the world, albeit sometimes virtually, that would take your breath away. laughs. i can't do it! welcome to our look back at 2020. what a year it's been and it all started so well. wow! lucy took a trip to a simulated

martian outpost in the caves of northern spain. in argentina, mike went to the world's second—biggest wetland and took a dunking. oh and we're away! laughs. and i went underwater to swim with sharks in the maldives. they're just so close! but then, disaster struck. lockdowns, border closures and holiday cancellations for the foreseeable future, leaving some of us still out of pocket. but back in those early days in march, simplyjust finding a way back home was the main problem facing many. my situation is, i'm, i'm stranded. virgin cancelled my flight yesterday due to leave at 6:25pm from miami and i was told the day before that of the cancellation.

the advice we've been given has been quite confusing. i mean, i'm obviously not a fluent italian speaker so that's partly my fault, but in general, the advice given has changed every few days and it varies by region quite a lot. now it's not possible to travel to the neighbouring islands or into the city unless you have a reason to do so. we also have curfew in place here between 10pm and 5am. we just want to get back to friends and family. i have got a new grandson who's going to be six months old tomorrow. i haven't seen him six weeks now. i am being told i can book an alternative flight but i don't know if that is with the same provider. can i go with a different airline like ba, will i be reimbursed for doing that? it is unsettling, there is so much happening everywhere. it is really easy to get caught up in the panic when you speak to people. i would love to get home, yeah.

well thankfully, the vast majority of people did manage to find their way home. but as the health crisis deepened, most of us forgot all about travel and went into some form of lockdown. key workers around the world though stayed on the frontline in the battle against the virus, and in april, we heard about an inspirational international push to recognise the amazing efforts and give them something back. in recent weeks, there's been an outpouring of support for them, notjust in weekly claps like these... applause. but with the tantalising offer of free holidays once bans are lifted. here in the uk, a campaign under the #treat our nhs, now has hundreds of giveaways on social media. we have a holiday let in devon and i put it out there on instagram for

a giveaway, two nights to an nhs member of staff, and very quickly i had lots of nominations coming in. and ijust thought, only one person's going to win this. so she decided to spearhead the campaign and made this video to help spread the word on social media. some people with larger accounts shared it and very quickly that message got across and the rest of us followed basically. we have over 700 people with giveaways on board now which is amazing. we have got such a breadth of accommodation on offer. we have got — it ranges from a shepherd's hut in dorset to an amazing chateau in the south of france. it is just amazing acts of generosity all across the board.

sarah decided to open the offer up again on her own property and was sent 2,000 nominations. the winner was picked at random. is it a two night stay? two nights' stay and when you get down here, then a close walk to a lovely cafe down the road where you'll get a free meal. you can get breakfast. spend a way to your heart. i feel like crying. 0h, love. who nominated you 7 one of the girls who i worked with the other day, she nominated me. that was really sweet. i can't believe it. 0h, bless. oh, you're making me cry. it's so nice to win something. let's hope once the lockdown eases here in the uk, it won't be too long before nurse rachel gets that much deserved break. but this idea is notjust limited to health workers

here in the uk. the international campaign under the #mytravelpledge has been gaining serious traction abroad, with properties and hotel rooms on offer to health workers and also to low income key workers such as hospital cleaners. avery and tiffany nominated each other. they're both nurses at saint pauls hospital in vancouver, canada. we just made a plan to nominate each other but her nomination for me was selected, and within a couple of days, she texted me and was like, ‘oh my god, your nomination was selected.‘ of course my first thing was, i'm going to take you and she was like, ‘no, no, it is for you and your husband.‘ it's because avery was supposed to go to spain this year for her 10 year anniversary and of course that got cancelled, that got cancelled, so hopefully this can be her 10 year anniversary vacation.

avery has got a free stay here in the dominican republic when travel restrictions finally ease for a well earned rest. working in the healthcare sector right now is really scary. we are both psychiatric nurses so we serve really the most marginalised and vulnerable population. with covid, we're really afraid it's going to spread within that population so every time we going to work, we feel uncertain, we are scared, we are scared to bring it back to ourfamilies. so it is difficult, it is uncertain, it is definitely a really challenging time to be working in health. ian and andrew set up the campaign to recognise and reward key workers, but for them an important side effect has been to help out the tourism industry in spain where they run a b&b.

the pair have had quite a response. they received more than 3,000 nominations in the past month from around the world with a fast growing portfolio of international properties on offer. the key word for me is hope and support. they are just working full on, if they are not working, they're sleeping. so this isjust something they can actuallyjust nominate, act on and they know that somebody out there is actually looking out for them and there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and a free stay would make their lives so much more bearable at the moment. and to be honest, this situation we are in, it's the very least we can do. what a truly inspirational idea. hats off to all of those hotel and b&b owners around the world

that signed up to those schemes. 0k, make sure you stay with us because still to come: my people! my travel show people! we'll catch up with our travel show family and find out how they've navigated this difficult year on the road. as well as meeting again the people who got caught up by closing borders and grounded flights during their once—in—a—lifetime round the world adventure. now, as you can imagine, trying to make a weekly travel program in this year has been extremely tricky. but one of the things that has made it a lot easier is having an amazing travel show family spread quite literally across the globe. so we decided to catch up with the team and find out how 2020 has been for them. my people! my travel show people! let's have a chat about this

year because it's been an odd year for travel hasn't it, for travel show presenters,. so each of you, why don't you start of first ride rajan? tell us what your year has been like, the highs and lows. i think it's been really weird. i have travelled less than i've ever travelled since childhood and that is weird. so i have missed it. i think we have all missed it haven't we. it's almost like we've had our wings clipped. in the beginning, it was a little bit 0k, well i'll take a break but after a few months when you realise that travel is so much more thanjust seeing places, it is how i found happiness in my life at least. that is how i felt alive so that was taken away. i was allowed to travel to the eu in the beginning ofjuly and i went and have been travelling since. travel is really different and one of the big things i realised was i always thought i loved animals and mountains and waterfalls but when you take away faces, you realise that people and faces are really important to travel. i tell you what i found really

strange, i don't know whether you guys have done it, the few times i have managed to travel overseas, is how empty the airports are. christie and lucy, what do you think, it's so weird isn't it? i'm in dubai at the moment and ijust filmed the latest episode of the travel show. this is the first international trip we have done, i have done for eight months. just being in the airport, i don't know what i was expecting but i definitely wasn't expecting that. just eerie silence, couldn't sit in a lot of places and obviously i know, we're all used to experiencing lockdown, that kind of thing, but it was really surreal, the entire experience. just the fact i got on a plane and was able to step off and get into any country. like mike said, meeting people, the smells, the food and the buzz, i really thrive off that kind of thing and this has reignited my passion for travelling and made me realise how much i hate my makeshift desk in my living room. carmen, what about you, what has it been like

there injapan? fortunately, japan is pretty big so i travel quite a lot in japan this year more so than any other year. it has been great from that perspective. i spent time with my family. but i have missed my family overseas, right, and i've had so many trips cancelled and i've had my trip to chile cancelled three times and then i was meant to go to singapore and then they cancelled and i had a green zone pass that allowed me to travel without quarantining an, overnight, that was rescinded and the trip was off. chris, you are a seasoned traveller, have you found any highs or pluses in this crazy year? i was lucky enough, i think it was august, when i went to germany and not only got to track down some wild boar in berlin but we went down and got a taste of oktoberfest that wasn't!

which was great because it gave us an opportunity to see really what a beer festival was like for locals because the visitors didn't come from overseas because it wasn't on for 2020 but for me, this year, for the first time in my life, i have not been able to go home to australia and carmen, i know you live injapan but grew up in australia but the distance have never seemed wider for me. i miss my family and want to go home is at the moment australia opens borders i will be booking the ticket, i promise you that. and talking about booking your plane ticket once the borders are open, what are your hopes for the future? what will happen in 2021 in regards to travel? ithink numberone, for all the people who work in the travel industry around the world, especially countries where they are dependent on tourism, this'll be a massive relief, they can get some work, for gods sake,

so that is really important but number two, i want to moderate some conferences and there is a notion that, are people going to reset? think differently about travel? will there be more conscience travel and sustainability, thinking about that not just about the environment but what we do with the time we spend? certainly a time to value a trip more. what i think about non—stop is in 2021, if we do choose to travel and we can travel, whether we have a vaccination or risk tolerance, there will be a once—in—a—lifetime opportunity to see mount fuji, machu picchu, the angkor wat temples in cambodia without any tourists, and when will that happen again? i think there is an opportunity if people do choose to travel. i think people will have one big holiday next year.