After a Summer of Travel, I’ll Stay Home This Winter

I was able to travel safely during much of this pandemic summer; but as winter begins, I have no travel plans and will stay home. Here’s why.

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On November 29th, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) cleared more than 1 million travelers for the first time since March. It was the end of Thanksgiving weekend, and people were going home to their jobs and their everyday lives. In many cases, bringing the coronavirus with them.

Christmas week is no different. Since Friday (12/18), more than 1 million travelers have cleared TSA checkpoints each day. Despite CDC recommendations to stay home during the holiday season, Americans are still going. And while air travel remains down, AAA estimates that plenty of us will travel last-minute, and 96 percent will travel by car.

I was planning to travel during the holiday season, as well. We’d booked flights to see family over Thanksgiving. But we canceled that trip and have no further plans for the holiday season.

After a summer of travel in this pandemic year, we plan to stay at home this winter.

From Lockdown to Flying

Do you remember how our long national lockdown began? It was a series of events. NBA star Rudy Gobert tested positive for the virus; and before the night was out, the NBA had shut down.

The very same night, Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson announced their diagnosis.

Those two events were a stark dividing line between the world as we had known, and the pandemic world of 2020.

With so much uncertainty about the virus, Americans stayed at home. Well, other than trips to the grocery store to hoard toilet paper. There wasn’t much to do anyway, with restaurants and nearly every other “non-essential” business shut down.

I spent a lot of time reading, looking for information that would help me determine a course of action going forward. I’m not big on staying home all day, and I’ll admit that I was looking for a way out. I learned about masks, and why they work. I dug into airline safety and came away impressed with the effectiveness of HEPA air filters. Even public transportation is safer than you might think. That was enough for me. In May, I decided to test the waters with a solo trip to Seattle. It was strange and eerily quiet at the airport. But I wore a mask and remained cautious about my health, and the health of others.

And felt completely safe.

Our Cautious Summer Travel

We actually traveled a lot during the summer. Travel was (and remains) restricted in much of the world, so we stuck close to our usual haunts. We went to the beach, more trips to Seattle, and three incredible days in the San Juan Islands. We enjoyed the San Juan Islands so much!! The islands are beautiful, and the Washington State Ferries are a great way to get there. Best of all, the islands had basically no COVID-19 at the time.

By July, COVID-19 cases were spiking once again. We’d opened up the country too quickly, and too many of us were pretending that the virus didn’t exist. My wife and I followed the rules and still felt safe. We limited indoor gatherings and used masks. We felt comfortable going to restaurants with either outdoor or socially-distanced seating. The bigger the restaurant, the better. But I was already wondering if travel was a good idea.

More Cases, More Risk

We didn’t immediately put ourselves back on lockdown. It took awhile to put aside our winter travel plans and stay home. When our college football team decided to allow fans in attendance, we enthusiastically opted in and went to all six games. But that was outdoors, with good social distancing measures in place.

But coronavirus numbers continued to spiral during the fall months. Today, nearly the entire U.S. is a COVID-19 hotspot. That’s not good math when it comes to staying safe from the virus.

It’s one thing to travel when COVID-19 numbers are relatively low. And make no mistake — compared to the current situation, the number of cases this summer was tiny. When fewer people have the virus, your odds of catching the virus yourself are reduced. When you wear a mask and limit indoor gatherings, the risk is even smaller.

But higher numbers mean bigger risk. And COVID-19 cases have grown many times over since summer. Masks can help keep you safe, but how do you eat at a restaurant or family gathering with a mask? You can’t do it.

No Restaurants, No Travel

I’m trying to remember the last time I ate indoors at a restaurant. I think it was early November, when we went to a crowded restaurant in Nashville. (Not So Fun Fact: Tennessee currently has the highest per capita rate of COVID-19). The food was great, but it was a relatively small space. I left feeling like I’d taken an unnecessary risk. I was definitely outside my bubble, surrounded by unmasked strangers.

It’s hard to travel without going to restaurants, as that short weekend in Nashville illustrated. It’s even harder to visit family without taking off masks to eat. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo recently pointed to data showing that private indoor gatherings account for 74 percent of new coronavirus cases. The same research was far less conclusive about restaurants, but we know that the virus easily spreads through airborne transmission. If you’re in a small indoor space with lousy ventilation and few people wearing masks, you are putting yourself at greater risk.

Final Thoughts

So after a summer of travel, my family will stay home for most of this winter. We aren’t going to restaurants (but we are ordering take-out, because restaurants need their customers). We are visiting family only in outdoor spaces, or with masks on.

I believe in the effectiveness of masks, and I strongly believe that air travel is a low-risk activity. But what do you do when you get to your destination?

My wife and I still have plans to take an anniversary trip back to Belize in mid-February. It is easy to hit the beach safely, even during this pandemic; and eating outdoors won’t be a problem in the country’s tropical climate. So I suppose it depends on where you travel, how cautious you are, and the case numbers at your destination. I don’t expect to be going anywhere else until then.

All Photos via Shutterstock