Travel in the Time of COVID-19

Reflecting on a year of during a global pandemic. By Harold Hickey.

DISCLAIMER: At the beginning of 2019, my wife and I started making arrangements to leave our jobs and take a 14-month sabbatical starting in April 2020. When the pandemic “started” in March we had already sold all of our furniture, purchased numerous never-to-be completed flights, and set irreversible dates for our departure from work and the end of our apartment lease. In short, we were going somewhere. This blog post is not written to convince others that travel in the time of COVID-19 is or should be accepted. Instead, it is written to describe our experience and provide some tips and predictions for those who decide to travel in the short-term future.

(Images: Planning our ill-fated Plan A. Throughout 2019 the entire bedroom wall was filled with a 50”x32” map next to a huge trip calendar.)

My five strongest recommendations for international travel are: 

1. Embrace quality over quantity

2. Buy refundable tickets and book directly through airlines

3. Frequently check travel requirements and local restrictions (they change often)

4. Use multiple sources of information

5. Be flexible

1. Embrace quality over quantity

In retrospect, our original travel plan was overambitious. We had planned to visit about 30 countries and to drive across the United States twice. Although we technically could have made the trip, the quality of our experience would have suffered. Instead of spending a couple days at a time in cities within a given country, trying to see the highlights quickly before moving on to the next stop, we spent months in one location. By staying in one spot we were able to make real enduring friendships with people we met, get a local’s view of the country, and focus on learning a second language; something that would have been extremely difficult while constantly moving.

Our months-long adventure in Colombia provides an excellent contrast between our original plan and our later “quality over quantity” approach. “Plan A” would have resulted in a broad, shallow trip. We probably would have visited Cartagena and Medellin, and maybe Bogota. Instead we spent months in San Carlos, a beautiful pueblo tucked away in Antioquia, only three hours drive from Medellin. In San Carlos we enrolled in a language immersion program through Spanish Adventure. The instruction was superb, but hypothetically we could have taken Spanish classes in the US (although we probably wouldn’t have). What made Spanish Adventure so cool was that everyday we literally went on local adventures (not to mention that we never would have discovered San Carlos without the school as a destination). 

(Images: San Carlos, Colombia)

San Carlos is totally surrounded by hikes around rivers that culminate in waterfalls that you can swim in. Several times a week the school staff would lead us through those hikes, and once a week we performed community service to help clean the gorgeous nature. Everyday we had opportunities to interact with Colombians in San Carlos where we could experience the local culture. On Saturdays, we went on bigger adventures, rappelling down waterfalls (canyoneering), climbing mountains (okay maybe just trying to climb mountains)...and visiting Guatape, another beautiful hiking spot outside Medellin.

In essence, by staying in a given spot longer, (San Carlos in Colombia and Guanajuato in an earlier portion of our travels in Mexico), we had a better experience than we would have had chasing destination lists around the world.

2. Refundable Tickets/ Booking directly through airlines

In a pre-COVID world, as a rule I bought the cheapest tickets I could find for airfare. I love websites such as Kiwi.com and Skyscanner since they provide a lot of flexibility in fare searches and often have cheaper tickets than the airlines. In fact, I still go to Kiwi.com first when searching for flights because you can search multiple destinations over many days. 

However, there are many inconveniences with third-party booking agencies if anything prevents you from completing your trip: First, the likelihood of you getting your money back is low. Generally, a third-party booking agency has to request a refund from the airline that they booked the ticket with. If the booking agency gets a refund, many offer you a future credit with the booking agency instead of a refund. Additionally, many charge a change fee when you use your credit in the future and some require that you use the credit with the same airline you originally booked with. Finally, some third-party booking agencies require that you book over the phone to use a credit. 

Almost all airlines that we booked with directly gave us a refund or flight credit when we contacted them. Furthermore, most airlines currently offer bookings that are either refundable or can be changed to a different date for free. Notably, refundable tickets are usually slightly more expensive; however, by removing change fees it is very easy to postpone a flight indefinitely if you are unable to complete a flight.

Bottom line, if you are worried about having to change plans I would not recommend booking with a third party.

3. Frequently check travel requirements and local restrictions

International governmental responses to COVID-19 have changed frequently and relatively abruptly. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to check if your plans still make sense up until the day of your departure. Planning international travel multiple months in advance is no longer a great idea unless flights/accommodations are refundable. A great example was when my friend visited Mexico City from the US for a weekend. A week before his trip, the Mexican government announced that all bars, restaurants, museums, and liquor sales would be closed from Friday night to Monday morning. Since he could still legally enter Mexico, neither of us noticed the change in policy. He ended up spending a weekend pretty much skipping all of the attractions he had come to see. Similar changes have personally affected us in countries like Turkey, and we have also had to cancel trips to countries like Peru when entry requirements and curfews have changed. 

4. Use multiple sources of information

The story of my friend in Mexico City also directly relates to the importance of using multiple sources of information. The US State Department website currently has a useful list of countries with COVID-testing entry requirements, but if you fly somewhere only to discover that everything is essentially closed you will likely be disappointed. In general, the more local the source of information the better. Local government websites and newspapers are the ground truth and most up-to-date. Additionally, local residents often anticipate impending lockdowns. I would recommend checking local government websites before planning trips (use Google Translate if needed). I also think contacting a potential AirBnB host, hostel or hotel is a useful way to discover local restrictions before booking.

5. Be flexible

Refundable tickets and up-to-date information are no good without the ability to use them. It’s difficult to say that anything good for travel came out of COVID-19; however, you could say that COVID has imposed a degree of serendipity upon travel. Gone are the days when you could plan six months in advance. COVID reminds us that we cannot control what goes on outside ourselves; we can only control how we react to the world around us. 

The best advice for travel I can give right now is to have a varied wishlist, try to make one plan, but always be prepared to switch to an entirely different plan.  I am not going to recount all of our lost travel plans here, but I can happily say that experiencing Plans B thru E have more than compensated for what we missed in Plan A.