"Remember that happiness is a way of travel, not a destination." - Roy M. Goodman
Unfortunately, as we all expected, COVID-19 has not *POOFED* out of existence since the calendar changed to 2021. While we can still hope that the virus will hit its peak and start to decline soon, this New Year is certainly not the green light to get back to traveling that many had hoped for. In reality, for many places (including where we live), cases are at the worst they have ever been. We are breaking hospitalization and death records almost daily now and that makes it hard to feel comfortable with planning new trips – especially out of the country.
Now that our downer reality check is out of the way, we ARE still in the hopeful mindset that things could start to look up around the summertime, and that is probably as early as we would feel comfortable making any big plans.
We know that we aren’t the only people struggling with these decisions, so we wanted to share some of our tips for future travel as well as helpful resources that we will be leaning on for travel planning in 2021.
1. Stay up-to-date on the current restrictions of your preferred travel destinations
We recently spent a lot of time digging into a website that keeps track of current COVID controls and entry requirements around the world. For example, it shows that 75 countries are currently open for tourists from the United States, and it also breaks down specific details for each country.
General map (with origin from United States):
Example of country-specific information (with origin from United States):
Check out the site for yourself HERE.
2. Consider locations that have taken COVID-19 precautions seriously
Throughout 2021, it makes sense that a destination’s popularity may have something to do with how well it has managed to control COVID-19. We felt comfortable planning a trip to Asheville, North Carolina in the fall of 2019 because they clearly displayed the precautions they were taking at tourism hot-spots like the Biltmore Estate. If you are still planning to visit a bustling tourist destination, we would check out if the most popular places currently have any similar precautious in place.
3. Don’t book just because something is the “lowest-cost”
We typically have a ton of price alerts set up for hotels, flights, etc. However, we are not likely to jump on a low-price deal this year without double-checking the safety standards of the company (especially when it comes to flights). We will be making decisions based on mask rules, spacing requirements, and all of that fun stuff until the outlook changes. That way, even if things are better in the future, we have prepared for the worst.
Check out THIS helpful article on current U.S. airline COVID-19 policies. (NOTE: Delta is now the only US airline blocking all middle seats).
4. The cool new term: “Vaxications”
Everyone has a different comfort-level when it comes to the COVID-19 vaccine, but we fall solidly into the camp that would do just about anything to get back to normal life and travel. It will be interesting to see if airlines, travel destinations, etc. start to request proof of COVID-19 vaccinations once they become more widely accessible. If we were both able to be vaccinated in a timely manner, we wouldn’t be so strict when planning travel. How do you feel about this one?
5. Road trips will continue to be appealing for the time being
Since we are being realistic, our travels will likely continue to consist of closer-to-home trips until later in the year. It pains us to say that it simply makes a lot more sense right now because we can better control the situation and the risks. We never want to be the type of people putting others at risk so that we can do what we want to do. If you’re around North Carolina, check out the pictures below for some of our favorite spots to visit (we know they don’t compare to Europe, but they’ll have to do for now).
We hope that these tips help a little bit with navigating these (continued) crazy times for travelers. We are hoping to pull the trigger on booking a refundable international trip for late summer/fall of 2021 soon with all of these things in mind. How are you feeling about international travel right now? Let us know in the comments.
Thanks for reading! Let's all keep our fingers crossed for good luck the rest of this year!
-Nikki + Pam
