Princess Kate’s 1258 day problem

Kate, The Princess of Wales is off.

She’s jetting off on her first overseas working trip since 2022, and while it was once all sedan chairs and 220-crew yachts for the royals, now they are just as likely to pick up a budget ticket and have their carry-on weighed.

But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves.

What has actually happened is that this week, it was announced Kate is “returning to international travel” after a more than three-year break, phrasing that conjures a grand international process involving full brass bands and embassy staff on high alert.

Au contraire.

On May 13, when Kate leaves UK airspace wearing her working princess hat, it will be for less than 48 hours. You could leave burrata out on the bench for longer.

Specifically, she’s off to Italy for two days in support of the work of her Early Childhood Foundation where she will be seen delighting small children.

News editors, get your front pages ready now.

Sadly, the UK’s number one poster prince for the casual navy blazer, Prince William, will not be going with her, staying behind to keep the home fires burning and sticking to his turn on the knighting schedule that’s stuck to their fridge door. (He shares these duties with King Charles and Princess Anne, who really makes her full Admiral’s kit work).

Even so, it might be short and solo, but Kate going to Italy is a milestone moment – it was all the way back in November 2022 that she last needed her passport for royal duties, heading to Boston with William for his Earthshot Prize.

Unfortunately, once there, Kate proved that no human being can ever look good in a lime green so neon it could damage your retinas.

(Technical note: The quick trip the princess made to France for the Rugby World Cup and for the Crown Prince of Jordan’s wedding, both in 2023, are not counted as working trips by the palace. Nor are the private holidays she and William have taken with their kids to ski in France or to cruise around the Greek islands).

Anyhoo, work trips. Kate.

If you do the maths, it will have been a 1258 day stretch between the prince and princess’ Boston visit and her ciao Italia one next week.

Let us, of course, politely point out that part of the reason for this very lengthy pause was Kate being diagnosed with cancer in early 2024 and her undergoing chemotherapy, before announcing she was in remission in January 2025.

The whole time, the princess has been remarkably open about the deep personal toll her brush with mortality has had on her and made no secret about the long and slow process of her emotional recovery.

That’s why her going to Italy is getting far more fanfare than a quickie dash might have previously gotten.

However, when the Princess of Wales takes off, then comes the obvious, pressing, stressful question – righto, when will she and William be going on a proper tour-tour? The sort that involves acres of red carpet, presidential welcomes and the full bells-and-whistles diplomatic rigmarole?

You have to go back even further still, to early 2022, to find one of those when the Waleses’ staged a Caribbean tour to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee.

Unfortunately, as you will know if you’re up on your Wales-apedia, that trip was the sort of disaster that battle-hardened courtiers must still wince about. Shots of Kate shaking hands with children through a penal-looking metal fence in Jamaica; the couple cancelling a visit to a Belize village to avoid protests; their cosplaying as colonial viceroys from the back of an open-topped car; them trying to outrun the shadow of the British slave trade all added up to a fully fledged PR diaster.

You have to wonder if, four years later, the Waleses are still feeling a bit battle scarred and tour-shy?

However, once Kate goes to Italy next week, with this bellisima sign that she is getting back to full princessy-power, how much longer can they avoid what has always been a fundamental part of being a working member of the royal family?

All that has been set out is that this year, the Princess of Wales will, the Telegraph reports, “undertake further overseas travel”. That’s a long way from the sort of major three-ring international production that is part and parcel of such a senior royal position.

King Charles still has cancer and is still having treatment yet has, in the last two years, undertaken tours to Australia and the Pacific, Poland, Italy, Canada and Bermuda, most notably heading to the US this month to tickle the presidential trout. A few quips and the handing over of a gold bell to Donald Trump and whamo, it was a healthy shot in the arm for the tattered special relationship.

Even William’s own parents, Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales managed to travel to 27 countries in the 11 years they managed to stay married. (Whether either of them generally looked remotely happy about it is another matter entirely).

Unfortunately for William and Kate, like all jobs, being a working HRH has its downsides that can’t be avoided.

Then add the Commonwealth part into this equation.

It is 12 years since the Waleses last visited Australia – at the time, Prince George was a gurgly baby; later this year, he starts high school.

And Canada – it’s been a decade since they last were drinking maple syrup at the source.

Like it or not, semi-regularly rolling up and mollifying those of us in the colonies is their part of the bargain that sees them enjoy three homes with 32 bedrooms and never having to queue for Wimbledon.

Anyway, for now, Kate has parmesan to look forward to. And pecorino and provolone and if she really nails her meetings, a nice postprandial gelato.

Sometimes in life, it’s the little things.

Daniela Elser is an editor and commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with Australia’s leading media titles.