Trip Planning During Covid19
Planning When Nothing Is Certain
We’re now half-way through 2020 and what feels like a lifetime of uncertainty related to Covid19. Regardless of your feelings or opinions about how to address the pandemic in your day-to-day, the fact remains that government-mandated restrictions remain. For those that had plans for big life events or experiences in 2020 holding our breath and crossing our fingers has become the only sport available to watch.
A New Set of Rules
Typically when I plan our trips abroad there are certain key factors that I just don’t challenge the wisdom of and that list starts with avoiding Europe in August. However, due to an unrelated scheduling challenge for my husband this year, the only window of time long enough to go anywhere in 2020 just so happened to be in August which I was NOT thrilled about at the start of the year. However, as everyone around the world is now used to saying, “then COVID happened.”
Trip Planning During Covid19
As much as I wish I could be an authority on the subject it’s simply not possible to build a house on shifting sands, so for those that keep asking me what is going on with my summer travel plans, this post is a chronicle of my experience while attempting to plan during a time of the unknown and unknowable.
Timeline
Back in January of 2020, we purchased roundtrip tickets on British Airways from New York to Athens Greece. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post we often purchase inexpensive flights from our hometown to more major cities offering more competitively priced international flights, so in this case, it was Southwest Airlines to the rescue!
January was a blissful time of new resolutions and nieve planning for the new year, but what it also did was to create a protective bubble around our newly booked trip to Greece which was done pre-COVID. That said, “then COVID happened” and put everything into flux. Our financial investment in both our flights and accommodations are safe because of our booking date, but then comes a variety of other things to consider and potential complications to tackle.
COVID Considerations
Government Regulated Travel Restrictions
Government-Mandated COVID Mitigation Rules
Above impact on desired activities
Travel Regulations
At the time of the writing of this post, I’m paying very close attention to International tourism regulations from Greece, the European Union, and the United States. Thankfully the EU is being very communicative about regulatory changes and making those changes available on various government websites.
As it stands the US is under a level 4 travel ban on non-essential travel, which doesn’t mean that we can’t leave but does mean that we can’t get travel insurance. The EU is slowly opening up, and fortunately for us, Greece is at the forefront of the relaxing of those regulations due to the low number of COVID cases they have been able to maintain. However, as of today Greece still requires mandatory COVID testing and multi-day quarantine of all arriving tourists. In addition to testing upon arrival, Greece is also heavily enforcing social distancing guidelines which at present is keeping indoor bars and restaurants closed, and has capped entry to many of the historical sites.
With that being said, the Greek Tourism Board has strongly implied that they expect the current restrictions to be lifted in July, and the EU is slated to release the updated guidelines July 1st, but they have not made implications such as what Greece has.
Travel Regulation Resources
The following list of websites is what I’m paying close attention to in terms of the probability of my trip, and my secondary consideration is checking with my airline to stay up to date with how they are complying with travel regulations in addition to being enrolled in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP).
International Flights
As mentioned above, a secondary thing to remain mindful of is how the airlines are reacting to changing regulations. A great example is one such change that has already occurred to my potential trip and the city of my layover.
My flight in August was scheduled to depart from NYC and then land in Madrid Spain before continuing on to Athens Greece. However, the partner airline that we were booked on (in this case Iberia Airlines) which then would have been departing from Spain, was canceled. The cancelation of the second leg of our flight was not a major issue, and actually was a blessing in disguise! We received the cancelation notice and immediately called customer support at British Airways where a representative immediately took our call, rebooked both legs of our flight on a British Airways flight plan through London, and had the whole process completed within ten minutes from the start of our call.
Where the above scenario becomes important, is that the cancelation of the original second leg of our trip is that it was due to restrictions between Spain and Greece, so it’s important to try and stay aware of the many moving pieces related to travel within the EU.
Needless to say, I'll be waiting with bated breath for the announcement promised for the beginning of July.
