Coronavirus: How It Might Affect Our Travel

Coronavirus. It’s pretty much all that’s in the news at the moment and people have different views on the seriousness of it and how much we should – or shouldn’t – let it affect our lives.

I’ve been mildly concerned about it so far. Shae and I are (sort of) young and in fairly good health, so even if we contracted it we hopefully wouldn’t be as seriously affected as older people and those who are immunocompromised. At the same time though, we wouldn’t want to be carriers and infect other people inadvertently.

We were asked the other day how it was affecting us and if we were taking any precautions seeing as we travel full-time, so I figured it might be worth covering it in a blog post.

The biggest impact it’s had so far has been on my inbox – every airline, hotel chain, grocery store, restaurant, etc. has been emailing me to let me know that they’re encouraging their staff to wash their hands more. More seriously though, it hasn’t had any impact on us – yet.

That almost changed last night. I was out at the grocery store and scrolling through Twitter when I saw that the President had announced that all travel from European countries (eventually clarified as Schengen Area countries) was banned for 30 days starting Friday. My heart sunk as my parents are due to fly over here from the UK next week to join us on the road trip. It was therefore a relief to see that the UK is exempted, so at this point in time they’re still good to go.

I’m a little concerned that this could change in the next week though. The policy exempting the UK seems a little nonsensical (despite it being beneficial for my parents), so who knows if that policy will change in the meantime. The fact that Schengen Area countries are specifically banned makes it seem like this is more of a political point about free movement of people than an evidence-based decision to prevent people in the US from being infected. The UK apparently has more confirmed cases of the Coronavirus than most European countries other than Italy, so if the number of cases grows exponentially in the next few days, there’s definitely the risk that my parents’ trip will get cancelled at the last minute due to additional restrictions being placed on travel from the UK to the US.

We’ll deal with that if and when it occurs though. Assuming my parents do get to fly over here with no issues, our time with them hopefully won’t be greatly affected. Most of the accommodation we’ve booked is in Airbnbs, so our contact with potentially infected people will be reduced. My parents are in very good health for their age, but they’re not spring chickens and so are likely in the at-risk category. My dad ended up in hospital on their last vacation overseas, so it’d suck to have something similar happen while they’re over here.

A lot of our time will be spent in National Parks and doing outdoor activities. There should therefore be a much lower risk of our planned activities being affected. During the last government shutdown is was still possible to visit National Parks despite park rangers not being on duty, so I’d assume the Coronavirus won’t stop access to National Parks even if its employees are advised to stay at home.

The biggest problem I’m anticipating during their visit is access to food, supplies, etc. Shae and I are putting some of our stuff in storage and we’ve bought a rooftop carrier so that there’s room in the car for my parents and their suitcases. We’re therefore going to be limited as to how much space we have in our car for supplies.

That means we’ll likely have to buy food when we arrive at each new place. Several places we’re staying at will be somewhat remote, so our choices will probably be stores like Dollar General and, if we’re lucky, Walmart. As peoples’ concerns about the Coronavirus grow, panic-buying might become more prevalent, so who knows what’ll be left in the one or two stores available to us.

It’s not only food. In other countries, toilet paper has become one of the items that’s often been going out of stock, so there’s a good chance that’ll happen here. As I mentioned earlier, we’re mostly staying in Airbnbs, so I’ve no idea how well-stocked with toilet paper each one will be. Some hosts provide a good supply, others only supply a couple of rolls, expecting you to buy more as necessary. With four of us staying up to a week at some properties, there’s a good chance we’ll need to go out and buy toilet paper at some point. I’m therefore hoping the panic buying of toilet paper holds off for now.

Current Measures

OK, so that’s how we’re anticipating our travel being affected in the coming weeks, but is there anything we’re doing differently right now?

I’d like to say yes, but honestly – the answer is no. Shae and I both came to the realization the other day that we’re maybe not always making the wisest of decisions. For example, we’ve recently been staying in hotels with breakfast buffets. We’ve therefore been using the same serving spoons and tongs as other guests, using plates and dishes that other guests might have touched, etc. I’ve never given that kind of thing a second thought, but with how easily the Coronavirus apparently spreads, that’s more of a concern now.

That’s all it’s been though – a concern. I should wash my hands immediately after breakfast and use hand sanitizer, but I haven’t been. I should use hand sanitizer after going to the grocery store or somewhere else that I might’ve touched something that someone who’s been infected might have touched, but I haven’t been. I just hope that doesn’t come back to bite me.

Future Plans – Road Trip

We don’t currently have any hotels or Airbnbs booked beyond May 2. Our plan is to visit Colorado next on our road trip once my parents have headed home, then visit Montana after that.

We therefore want to start booking accommodation for those locations so that the best options don’t get booked up seeing as they’re both popular summer travel vacation spots. The thing is, people having been shying away from booking domestic travel in recent weeks. It’s not entirely clear how bad it’s gotten, although United has reported a 70% net drop in people booking flights. That’s huge!

With far fewer people booking domestic travel though, the likelihood that hotels and Airbnbs will get booked up as quickly is much lower. With that being the case, hotels and Airbnb hosts will likely lower their prices to encourage more reservations, so holding off on booking anything might help save us money.

A different concern about booking that far in advance is what happens if one of us did contract the Coronavirus. We’d presumably have to self-quarantine, so we wouldn’t be able to travel to the next destination. Alternatively, what happens if the government puts in place regional – or nationwide – travel restrictions, similar to what’s happened in Italy in recent days? That too could keep us stuck in one location, unable to move to the next.

That wouldn’t be much of an issue if we made reservations that could be cancelled, but refundable rates tend to be more expensive. Do we therefore lock in more expensive rates now to have more flexibility, book cheaper non-refundable rates and risk having to cancel and lose our money, or wait a while and book things at a later date which risks leaving us with fewer options?

There’s no good answer. At this point in time I’m inclined to leave things for a little while to see how things progress. I’m a planner though, so I hate not knowing and just sitting and waiting rather than actually booking something.

Future Plans – International Travel

It’s not only our road trip plans that are up in the air at the moment. Shae and I have flights booked this fall to spend a month in Europe and part of those plans originally involved visiting Italy for a couple of weeks.

That’s obviously off the table at this point in time considering their entire country is pretty much shut down, but who knows where they’ll be in seven months considering how quickly things are evolving. Maybe they’ll have managed to largely eradicate the Coronavirus and they’ll be banning US residents from visiting by the time October comes around! Our flights are actually booked into London, so at this point in time nothing is impacted. We haven’t booked any other flights or accommodation beyond that right now though.

We have plenty of time to sort things out, but it sucks that we can’t really do any planning whatsoever, especially seeing as our friends and their kids are joining us for a week while we’re over there.

Final Thoughts

Shae and I have been largely unaffected by the Coronavirus so far, but that could change quickly. We’re still planning to continue traveling full-time, but are plans are open-ended beyond the beginning of May.