COVID-19 and the Future of Travel

Today, I feel fortunate and grateful. Last year, when we submitted our applications to renew our Global Entry, we had to list all the countries we had visited in the last five years. We knew our total count, but hadn't really looked at our adventures from that perspective. We were pretty surprised at the total -- and a bit impressed with ourselves. Since then, I've kept the list updated. Starting from March of 2014, we have been to 59 countries (including a fair number of repeats).

Especially since Jim's retirement in mid 2014, we've eagerly sought out new adventures, perhaps a bit too eagerly at times. As Jim emerged from cancer treatment, he said "I'd like to visit the German Christmas markets." It wasn't in our plans or our travel budget for that year, but we made it happen. Similarly, when our travel buddies said "would you like to join us in Tanzania next December?", how could we say no? It wasn't in the plans or in the budget, but...

When friends and family raised their eyebrows, we'd shrug and say "You never know what might happen. We're doing this while we are able." Or "You can't see the world on just one trip a year." We assumed that at some point, one of us would get ill or incapacitated in some way and we'd have to cut back on our travels. We never anticipated that the whole world would get sick and that travel would come to a standstill indefinitely. We are so glad that we were overly ambitious and often blew the budget, because, as we said, "you never know..."

This morning, I watched a panel discussion featuring four seasoned travelers / travel writers discussing what they think travel will look like for the next several years.  The women in the upper left, Barbara Weibel, writes a travel blog called Hole in the Donut Cultural Travel, which I read regularly. She's much more adventuresome (meaning unplanned) than we are, but has a similar interest in going beyond the iconic tourist spots and really learning about people, culture, and history.

All four panelists make their living primarily from their travel writing and photography. They all seem fairly intrepid, so I expected them to be upbeat and eager to be on the road again. But the discussion was very different -- sobering and realistic. Their assessment left me feeling grateful and fortunate (as described above) and really wondering if this is it. Will it ever be viable to travel internationally in a time horizon when we are still "young enough" to enjoy it?

Following are a couple key take-aways from the discussion:

• International air travel, particularly for tourism, is unlikely for the rest of 2020
• The cruise industry (especially massive ships) is probably toast for the foreseeable future
• Trip insurance, particularly for travelers over 60, may become harder to get, more expensive, and may include a COVID-19 exclusion.
• Right now, many countries have closed their borders. In the future, it is likely we will see something like the yellow medical card people carry for yellow fever shots. In order to travel, we will need to demonstrate that we have COVID-19 immunity or have been vaccinated (which puts many of us at fall 2021, optimistically).
• Travel will become smaller scale and deeper -- small groups staying longer in a single country, focused more on learning than getting that Instagram shot. Travel the way OAT and similar companies do it... if they can survive through 2020 until we are able to travel again. I think this might be a bit of wishful thinking on the part of the panelists because this is the style most seasoned travelers prefer. But if they are correct, it probably also means that international travel will become once again limited to the affluent or the people who are willing to go it alone -- no giant cruise ships, no big buses.

The future of travel -- and everything else -- is so uncertain right now. But I think we will need to supplement our world map adorned with pushpins with a companion map of the US national parks. I see at least one road trip in our future.