It’ll drive you nuts, but aren’t you glad we can travel again?
Travel is back.
In all its glorious madness.
The overpacking. The hurrying up and waiting. The exhaustion of time changes. The sad goodbyes to pets. The panicking over how to get the rental car from the airport to the destination without ending up in a divorce.
To think we actually missed this.
But we did. We absolutely did.
During lockdown and the ensuing fits and starts of COVID-19, we built big dreams of all the traveling we were going to do once the gates were open again. After all, who retires early to sit and watch TV?
Finally, thanks to vaccines and masks, the gates did reopen.
This past winter, in anticipation of our emancipation, my husband and I planned a detailed trip to Paris, France. We had an airline credit that had to be used and some miles that were burning a hole in our carry-on cases.
It was all coming together too easily when, well, it stopped. We had our timed tickets to the Orsay and our excursions to Normandy, Versailles and a highly anticipated walking tour of Montmartre when COVID reared its ugly head again.
With numbers spiking around us and in France, we tossed and turned over the chances we were taking with that mandatory re-entry COVID test. We are vaxed and boosted but all around us could be people who were not. The lifting of the mask mandate on the airlines left us feeling vulnerable to getting sick, to testing positive, to becoming contagious to vulnerable people we love.
We know too many vaxed people who, despite taking precautions, still contracted COVID or tested positive even if they didn’t have symptoms.
“If you test positive in Paris, you must find a place to quarantine,” the woman at the French consulate told my husband. A rep from United Airlines reiterated the rule.
We have been to Paris before, many years ago, just long enough to know we wanted to go back. Our upcoming 40th wedding anniversary seemed a good reason to go now. Still, were we prepared to quarantine in a place where our language skills are limited?
Though we always opt for the travel insurance, changing or canceling a trip is a massive undertaking these days.
It means a good five to six hours on the phone waiting for vendors, first, to pick up, then, to actually make the change, which always seems to involves at least one “accidental” disconnection after which you scream like a banshee and start the whole process over.
Now that people are getting back out there, occupancy rates are reaching capacity in many hotels. What if we got sick? What if we tested positive and couldn’t find a place to quarantine? Plus, it was already costing an arm and a leg to go; how much would two to four weeks sequestered in a hotel room set us back?
And what about our dog? We had a boarding reservation at a lovely pet resort but we couldn’t expect them to keep her indefinitely.
Travel comes with some degree of uncertainty. By nature, it demands adaptability. For sure, that is part of the deal and often part of the fun. Still, what was to be a dream trip began morphing into a nightmare.
Two weeks before we were to leave, with clothes already piled in the guest bedroom ready to be packed, my husband pulled the rip cord.
“This is supposed to be fun,” he said. “It’s not.”
We made a change, a 180-degree change. We headed to Hawaii. Though it was an absolute first-world problem, it was no easy switchback.
It took days, literally, to change flights, hotels, itineraries and, then, wardrobes. We came in under deadline but we were a ball of stress.
One of my favorite things about travel is the planning. I love to research the destination, choose tours or activities and then spend weeks if not months looking forward to them.
With time so limited, we had to basically take what we could get. We were fortunate that most of it worked out.
We spent six days in Maui and five in Kauai, both absolutely beautiful islands with very different vibes.
The trip was fabulous, even though it reminded us that COVID is still calling the shots, just like it did for our daughter’s tiny outdoor wedding and later her backyard baby shower, both events that we would have preferred to take place indoors at nice venues with large crowds.
Adapting was essential then and it still seems to be today. Perhaps COVID is trying to teach us a lifelong lesson about that.
I don’t know if life will ever return completely to pre-COVID times but I am grateful for what we can get out of it despite the worry and concern. Those of us of a certain age know too well there is no time like the present.
So, even though I took hundreds of photos and bought copious souvenirs, our biggest takeaway from this trip is gratitude. Life has always been uncertain but never more so than in times of crisis.
And, just so you know, all of the pre-COVID travel hassles — shoes off at the airport, TSA confiscations of souvenir passion fruit jams, panicked people arm wrestling for overhead space, long lines to check in for your flight and your hotel and your car — are all still there waiting for you.
But so is the change of scenery, the breath of fresh air, the opportunity to explore, the chance to learn and grow, the time to be with your spouse uninterrupted by responsibility, and the break in routine.
It’s called travel. And isn’t it wonderful?