I’ve gotten lots of questions about planning new trips for this fall and I have to be honest, I have no idea what you should do. However, I can share what I’m doing and why, and I hope that’s helpful to you.
All airlines are treating this situation differently. Delta is not selling middle seats. Frontier is taking the temperatures of all passengers. Most are sanitizing the planes between each flight more than ever before. Some are offering low-risk or no-cancellation-fee flights to encourage folks to start moving around the world again.
But I’ve also heard stories of friends arriving at a busy airport, not many people wearing masks, full flights, and few terminal dining options open forcing folks even closer.
For me, it’s still too risky. Or at least in the way I have traditionally traveled.
Rewinding a bit…
Being responsible adults that we are, we thought after taking a three-week trip to Spain and Portugal in the fall of 2017 and then a three-week trip to Ireland and the United Kingdom in the summer of 2018, we should take a break for meaty international extravaganzas. So we spent 2019 exploring our own country (with a few trips to Canada sprinkled in as well).
Instead of a three-week trip, we ended up taking 15 long weekend trips. I convinced friends from two other cities to join me in New Orleans for my birthday; we explored both Portland, Oregon and Portland, Maine, Seattle, Prince Edward Island, Vancouver, Colorado Springs, Boston, Newport, Rhode Island, New York many times, and much more. It was the perfect “down time” for me while I planned Japan, Iceland, Italy and maybe Hawaii for 2020.
But of course that didn’t happen with the pandemic that hit us earlier this year.
So far, I’ve cancelled a three-and-a-half-week trip to Japan, a road trip to Dayton, a horseback riding expedition around Iceland, a trip to Montreal, and attendance at two weddings. And while I didn’t book flights to Italy, my opportunity for free lodging is lost now. Needless to say, it has taken a lot of retail therapy to get my credit card back to zero after all of these credits. (Any by retail therapy, I mean buying a house and outfitting it with new furniture and decor. Oops!)
While I’ve seen many friends and coworkers take their trips as planned or a few months delayed, I still feel it’s too risky to do the kind of traveling I planned and normally do. As I hear from my friends in San Francisco, Chicago and New York, the urban cityscapes just aren’t as appealing as they were 12 months ago. And international travel isn’t exactly a reliable choice either.
Why I’m not booking flights yet
Travel is such an emotional thing for me. It makes me feel alive; and experiencing other cultures and the scariness of the unknown is an adrenaline rush I don’t get in my everyday life. So many hours go into planning these trips to make them affordable and unique that cancelling them leaves me utterly heartbroken.
The trips I mentioned above were cancelled because the airlines and tour companies cancelled them. It wasn’t my choice. I’m grateful that choice was made for me, otherwise I might have gone anyway… I’m also grateful I got full refunds on everything I had booked. But I know that rebooking those trips right now might not end in the same result if I need to cancel again later.
Many are asking me when they can rebook. And my answer isn’t what they want to hear. While I’m tentatively planning 2021 as a complete redo of my 2020, same place, same time, same travel partners, I’m not actually booking anything. Standard travel insurance doesn’t cover these circumstances and if I rebook and things are technically open, but I don’t feel safe, I can’t cancel and get my credits back.
The risk of losing my money, the energy spent planning and booking, and the emotional drag of cancelling a second time isn’t worth it for me right now.
Traveling and travel planning should be so fun. Right now, with everything uncertain, it’s just not and I don’t want to force it.
What I’m doing instead
I get it; we’re all going a little stir crazy. Humans aren’t meant to live like this. But it’s important we are doing everything we can to not only prevent the spread to protect ourselves, but to protect our friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers.
My company isn’t allowing us to roll over vacation days or paying us out for any unused time come December. So what I would normally consider a healthy number of PTO days for a year, I now have to use in the last 6 months of 2020. Plus, for working so hard during the stay home orders, my employer was kind enough to gift us an #ExtraDayOff. With the self-imposed restrictions or no international and no flights, I’m trying to brainstorm what’s next for me.
I’ve investigated the month-long road trip but I just don’t love driving that much, especially what I imagine is long, flat, nothing of the middle of our country in the heat of the summer.
I’ve investigated AmTrak, but the timing of the stops are usually middle of the night so I’d want to purchase a sleeper ticket and a hotel room for the nights that we’d be in transit which doubles my costs.
I’ve investigated just checking into an all-inclusive resort and hiding there until I drain my bank account but that might only get me a measly seven nights.
So while I thought 2019 was an interesting challenge in traveling only domestically, the second half of 2020 is taking it up a notch. Where to visit within driving distance of Columbus, Ohio where I feel comfortable wearing a mask, socially distanced from others, but still interesting enough to make taking PTO without coverage worth the effort?
So far, I’m thinking the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the Poconos, Red River Gorge, Asheville, NC, and a white water rafting trip along the New or Gauley Rivers.
Any other favorites within a 500-mile radius of Ohio I should add to the list? I’ll share more as I finalize plans and begin to get excited about leaving my home again.
For now, you can find me still researching travel from my front porch. #StayHome still...
If you want help navigating this tricky situation, I’m happy to chat about your particular circumstances. It’s #FirstWorldProblems, I recognize, but it’s still sad and exhausting. I’m here with you.