What to consider before you travel again after long stay at home

After a particularly brutal winter in isolation, summer travel dreams feel like a glimmer of hope shimmering on the distant horizon.

At least 44.5 million people in America have received one dose of the vaccine, and new coronavirus cases and deaths have begun to fall, giving the country reasons to feel optimistic.

As a result, the travel industry appears to be gearing up for a big summer season.

Kyle Potter, editor of Thrifty Travel, says signs like Delta telling employees that customers are finally booking flights one to two months out, instead of days or weeks ahead, or the Transportation Security Administration hiring more than 6,000 security officer positions before summer, show travel is on the mend.

“It says at this point there’s some certainty that people are going to be able to travel and do fun things again at some point in 2021,” Potter said. “It also shows that airlines and the travel industry as a whole has kind of given up on the idea that travel is going to come back before vaccinations have become widespread.”

Ina normal year, winter is a good time to start making those far-off plans, or at least book flights for cheaper rates. This year obviously isn’t normal, but you may want to get a head start on future trips as more people clamor to book revenge travel and ticket prices creep back to normal.

Here are other considerations to keep in mind as you begin your (flexible) trip planning.

Domestic travel will continue to dominate trip plans

Elizabeth Blount McCormick, president at international travel management company Uniglobe Travel Designers, says a silver lining of the pandemic is that after a year at home, we have a new respect for travel within the United States.

“There are so many off-the-beatenpath places and experiences that you can have,” she says. “And I think that people are more appreciative, and really love the dynamic country that we live in and how different it is from the South to the Pacific Northwest.”

It’s not just that Americans fell back in love with U.S. travel; it’s also a logistics issue. Much of the world remains closed to Americans, and the new executive order requiring travelers show a negative coronavirus test result before reentry into the United States may be giving Americans pause about flying internationally.

“We’re certainly hearing from travelers, and seeing it in the data, that people aren’t quite ready to make the leap to going to Europe yet in general in terms of booking their travel,” says Brian Znotins, vice president of network planning for American Airlines. “But they are certainly more confident about booking a domestic itinerary.”

Social-distance-friendly destinations will remain popular

American Airlines has been adding new flights to accommodate customers’ interest in destinations that became much more popular during the pandemic.

“We do see more demand for domestic flying to mountains and beaches — Gulf Coast, Montana, Wyoming —and we’ve been adding flights accordingly,” Znotins says, as interest in Hawaii, U.S. territories (which are exempt from the new inbound testing requirement) and Alaska is also on the rise.

Summer travel search data from the travel booking app Hopper shows similar results. While perennially popular places such as Miami, Honolulu and Las Vegas were the top booked domestic trips, Anchorage was the fourth,

Ambitious overland trips, or ones close to home, also appear on track to remain popular in 2021.