Travel in a Covid-19 World

Tips and advice on what to consider if you are travelling in the upcoming weeks and months.

Undoubtedly, 2020 has not been a year for travel, and the future shape of our holidays looks uncertain to say the least. For many of us, myself included, the world-altering pandemic may have been the push we needed to finally explore more of our home country, but there will be lots of you out there who are still eager to travel overseas and unsure if you should, or will even be allowed to travel. 

I have put together this short guide of the considerations you need to think about if you are considering travelling whilst we remain in the pandemic. My tips and advice are based upon my recent trip to Paris, and information that I have gathered from boyfriend and lockdown buddy, a.k.a. travel agent extraordinaire.

Your Travel Booking

• Be flexible. If you already have a holiday booked and you are due to travel over the next few months, be prepared for your plans to change. They could even change with as little as a week’s notice. Whilst this may be frustrating it won’t feel as gutting if you are prepared for it. Typically, we have been seeing flight cancellations happening 2 weeks or more before the departure date, if you are within 2 weeks of your departure date, there is a good chance the flight will operate.
• If you have existing travel plans, only contact your travel agent, or the travel company you have made your booking with, around a month before you are due to depart. The world of travel is changing so rapidly at the moment that any information you receive about a trip that is over a month away may very well change, you’ll probably just end up spending a long time on hold, only to be told to call back closer to the time. 
• If you are travelling to a country where you are required to quarantine upon arrival and want to cancel, postpone or change your destination this should be possible – speak to your travel provider…but, only within a month of your departure date.
• Keep an eye on the news for any spikes in COVID cases in the country that you’re travelling to. As we saw last week with travel to Spain, government guidelines can change rapidly and you may end up having to quarantine when you return to the UK. 
• Have a chat with your employer, if government guidelines change whilst you’re away meaning you suddenly find yourself having to quarantine upon your return home, will your employer allow you to work from home during the quarantine period, or will you have to use more of your annual leave?
• If you haven’t booked a holiday yet but you’re keen to, perhaps think about vacationing within your own country. A ‘staycation’ is the best option if you don’t want the hassle of last minute flight cancellations, and it means you’re investing in your national economy. If you would still like to get abroad, perhaps for that guaranteed sunshine, (fellow Brits, do you hear me?!), consider making last minute plans just a few weeks before you want to travel. Normally I would never advise this during the busy summer period as flight prices are based on availability, but obviously, things are a little different this year! We booked our hotel in Paris just a few weeks before we travelled and got it for a steal. 
• If you are making new travel reservations for travel within the next few weeks and months, check what the cancellation policy is before you hit the confirm button. Lots of hotels are offering full refunds if you cancel within a few days of your arrival date. Getting a refund on plane and train tickets however, isn’t as easy, and you may find yourself waiting for the refund for a few months, or having to take an airline credit voucher.

The Holiday Prep

• 2020’s hottest holiday accessory – the facemask! Make sure you take enough so that you can change it every day, to ensure that what you’re putting over your face is clean. Please don’t take disposable facemasks, we are already seeing lots of single-use PPE littering the environment, even if you put it in a bin it will still end up in landfill – let’s face it (pun intended), masks are here to stay for the foreseeable future so we should all invest in washable, reusable ones.
• Hand sanitiser – pack it in your hand luggage so you can keep your hands sanitised whilst you travel.
• Book tickets for any attractions you’re interested in visiting in advance. Due to social distancing, attractions are having to limit their visitor numbers and you don’t want to miss out. 
• Check if there is any documentation you are required to complete in order to enter the country you are travelling to. Failure to do so could cause you problems at the airport or train station. The best place to find such information is usually your own government website – for UK citizens check out https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice for the latest updates.
• I’ll touch on this later, but just to note in case you don’t make it to the bottom of the page, that you may also need to fill out documentation to get back into your own country when coming home.

It’s Holiday Time!

• The first thing to note is that things will probably feel a little weird, this ‘new normal’ as it has been coined in the media…well, it’s not normal. If you are prepared to travel you need to acknowledge that you will most likely be putting yourself at more risk of catching the virus that you would be if you stayed at home. Not that this should deter you, but it is something to consider, and evaluate depending on your individual circumstances. 
• When you travel you will inevitably come into contact with lots of people and have to touch lots of things, for example, your tray going through the security check, handing your passport to the immigration officer, using public restrooms. Yes, cleaning has been much enhanced, and staff generally wear gloves, but it isn’t foolproof. 
• If you are eating out in restaurants they may have digital menus – great! But lots won’t, so always wash or sanitise your hands after you’ve finished handling the menu and before you tuck into any of that mouth-wateringly good smelling bread the waiter has temptingly placed on your table. 
• Dine al-fresco where you can.
• Spend as much time exploring outside as possible, and if you can walk instead of taking public transport, even better! We clocked up around 30,000 steps a day in Paris, it was a great excuse to tuck into all of those lovely French carbs. Yum!
• Makeup wearers…just don’t bother wearing foundation, there’s a lot of moisture that gathers under those facemasks and it gets pretty icky. It will be compulsory to wear a mask whilst you’re travelling on any form of public transport, although you can remove it to eat and drink, and in lots of countries you will need to wear a mask anytime you’re inside.
• In the UK we’ve increased our use of contactless payments with many shops upping the limit on contactless transactions and some places even refusing cash, but we generally rely much more on cash when we travel thanks to outrageous foreign transaction fees on most bank cards. As we all know, money is a great carrier of germs so be conscious of washing, or sanitising your hands as soon as you’ve handled any cash. If you want to get a debit or credit card that doesn’t penalise you for using it abroad there are options out there. For readers based in the UK check out the Money Saving Expert website for the best options.
• Currently, for anyone arriving into the UK, including UK citizens, you are required to fill out an online form within 48 hours of your arrival into the UK. For most of us this will mean that you will have to remember to do this whilst you are away. The form is found on the gov.uk website: https://www.gov.uk/provide-journey-contact-details-before-travel-uk  – you do not need to print out the completed form, just make sure you have saved the PDF file to your phone and check-in should run smoothly.

I hope you find these tips useful, I will try to keep it up-to-date but please do your own research too before you travel to avoid any frustrations. Wherever you end up on holiday this year, I hope you enjoy, relax, refresh and stay safe. x