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Readers, how have your vacation strategies changed over the past few years? Are there places you won't go now (or times you won't go there) that you might have gone in years prior? How much are extreme weather/climate change, politics, pandemic response and restrictions, transportation problems, and other issues affecting your decisions? Are you trying to plan as many vacations as possible right now because you've maybe missed, skipped, or limited vacations since 2020?
For my $.02, I am trying to be more aggressive about planning vacations for the family, but a lot of the above factors are affecting our decisions. My husband strongly prefers direct flights, and with the airline woes that seems wise. The pandemic restrictions have limited our hopes of international travel until recently (I've had too many friends stuck in Switzerland or places because they tested positive before they returned), and I think it'll be years before we feel comfortable taking a cruise (but then it's not like we were cruise people to begin with — we've never taken one). Even now for kiddie vacations we strongly prefer outdoor waterparks to indoor-only ones.
Do tell, readers – how are all of these things affecting your vacation decisions?
Stock photo via Stencil.
Cat
since you don’t have to test to return home now, we’re trying to “stress-proof” our travels by (1) flying only major carriers we regularly use, so if *we* have to cancel a flight it will be easy to reuse the flight credit, (2) only booking lodging with flexible cancellation policies, and (3) choosing international destinations that don’t have a test requirement for vaxxed travelers.
So far so good. We are MAKING UP for lost time.
Anon
We’re definitely making up for lost time from not traveling much the last two years, and also trying to seize the moment before our preschooler starts public school and we’re tied to the public school calendar.
In 2022, we did weeklong family vacations to Italy, Spain, Cancun and our family’s New England vacation home, I did a week with my mom sailing in the US Virgin Islands, and I’m taking my kid to a resort in the Caribbean with my parents in December. Plus assorted long weekends in the US to visit friends and family. So far, it’s all been incredibly smooth. We did not think the international return testing requirement was a big deal (we just brought our computers and figured we would work abroad if we got stuck) but it’s nice to have one less thing to worry about.
In 2023, we’re tentatively planning family trips to Portugal, Italy, and a Greece/Croatia cruise, in addition to our usual New England week in summer and a week in the Caribbean in December. DH is going to Zurich for work and I”m hoping to go with him sans kid.
Anonymous
Definitely no cruises. If I were pregnant I’d be limiting which states I visited now
Anon
I would even go one further and say that if I were a sexually active woman of reproductive age who didn’t have permanent birth control in place, I probably wouldn’t go to certain states. You never know when you’re going to have a surprise pregnancy that miscarries and needs a D&C. It’s probably harder to avoid certain places if you have a work obligation there, but for vacation it’s not that hard to avoid these places.
Anonymous
Yup I’m TTC and I won’t go to states that restrict abortion rights. We wanted to visit family this fall and were planning a trip to the Keys this winter. No longer. I’m not going to plan and pay for an entire trip that I might have to cancel at the last minute because I find out I’m PG.
Wheels
Local vacations within driving distance. Flights were difficult enough in a wheelchair before the pandemic but I am definitely not putting myself through that now.
More vacations though!
Molara
First semi-major vacation since COVID is coming up soon (our kids hate socially-distanced house at the beach type vacations, so we stuck to visiting relatives last year). After trying hard to talk ourselves into overseas travel or coast-to-coast flights, we have settled on revisiting Montreal, which is about a six-hour drive for us. We just don’t want to deal with getting stuck in a destination for an extra week or more as COVID moves through the family (our first round of COVID, earlier this year, took close to three weeks until no one was positive by rapid test), nor to we want to mask up, pretend we are healthy, and fly sick, as some people we know have done when they got sick in inconvenient times and places. But a long car trip gives us the option of getting home without exposing others, as long as one of us is healthy to drive. So we will go back to Montreal, which we last visited when our teens were in elementary school, and do a different set of attractions and events than we did when they were young.
Anonymouse
Commenting just to say how many people I know — including people who claim to be very cautious and “rule following” when it comes to their own safety — who have flown while sick and positive. It’s so discouraging.
Anonymous
I just unwittingly did this. I had what I thought was allergies (very typical for me) or at most a head cold – sniffles, a bit of a sinus headache that went away when I took a decongestant. No fever, sore throat, aches, loss of taste/smell. Got on a plane, masked the whole time. Took a home test before I went back to the office – just in case – and yup positive. Idk if I even would have tested positive before I got on the plane since I had just started to feel sniffly the day before, but I feel bad and I’m super glad that I was wearing a mask the whole time.
Anwar
My vacation planning has certainly changed. I try to do direct flights where I can. I try not to have too many flights to different locations/countries (especially trying to navigate tricky Covid restrictions), and I try to be more cost conscious in flights/hotels and sometimes stay longer in locations (since I can work remote).
Peach
We feel like flying less these days. It is such a hassle. Getting in and out of the NYC area airports is such a pain. These days, more of our trips are to familiar places within driving distance (could be 13 hrs!) and often include vacationing with family. I’d say it is more about the company and less about the place these days. Visiting Europe does not feel that novel anymore.