While the way people are traveling right now is different from before the coronavirus pandemic, there’s a trend that runs through everyone’s plans. It doesn’t matter if you’re planning to fly to your destination, take a road trip in your car or RV, or take a short weekend getaway, there’s currently a hesitance to put any plans in stone.
The trend that I’m seeing is a bifurcation in the time horizon for trip planning. We’re willing to look at larger trips for when we think travel will return to some form of normal. The consensus is that a reasonable bet for that to happen will be sometime after mid-2021. Any plans before that for us are purely speculative. Cruises and international trips tend to fall into this bucket.
For instance, I’d be willing to look at plans to travel to Japan in November 2021 even though I have no idea what the coronavirus situation around the world will look like at that point. Hopefully, there will be at least one vaccine, better therapeutics, more accurate testing, and a virus spread that’s a fraction of what it is right now.
So how are we going on any trip right now if we’re unwilling to commit?
For our current travels, we’re finalizing plans much closer to our travel date. Instead of booking months in advance, we’re planning trips only weeks ahead of time. Even with such a short lead time, we’re still keeping a close eye on how the virus is being handled where we’re going.
Since we’re in Florida, the big problem for us is that many places won’t let us in, instead of quarantine once we get back home. We have to find places with a similar approach to Florida, which results in most of our trips being through the Southeastern U.S.
No matter where we travel, we’re still not willing to eat inside at a restaurant, we insist on cleaning each room completely with disinfectant wipes, and will try as much as we can to avoid using an elevator.
Right now, we have a trip planned in November but nothing else on the books until July 2021. In a few weeks, I think we’re going to start looking at a trip in January but there’s no need for us to rush into anything.
Want to comment on this post? Great! Please read this first to help ensure it gets approved.
#stayhealthy #staysafe #washyourhands #wearamask
Like this post? Please share it! We have plenty more just like it and would love it if you decided to hang around and get emailed notifications of when we post. Or maybe you’d like to join our Facebook group – we have 15,000+ members and we talk and ask questions about travel (including Disney parks), creative ways to earn frequent flyer miles and hotel points, how to save money on or for your trips, get access to travel articles you may not see otherwise, etc. Whether you’ve read our posts before or this is the first time you’re stopping by, we’re really glad you’re here and hope you come back to visit again!
This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
