It’s not practical to travel right now. Even if you could survive a plane ride with an airline that’s filling middle seats and ignoring social distancing protocols there’s still the issue of not having anything to do or anywhere to go once you get to your destination.
Not to mention the fact that you may not even be let in once you get there with most places restricting or outright banning travel from certain places or imposing mandatory 14 day quarantines. For instance, United States passports are essentially worthless right now. In fact, there are less than 30 countries that Americans can go to. Trump got his wall alright. Except it’s a virtual wall that’s keeping Americans in, not keeping others out.
And this is just the beginning. At this rate restrictions are likely to get even tighter with mandatory quarantines on both ends of your trip regardless of where you go. So you can forget about three day weekends or last minute getaways. Traveling anywhere is now a minimum five week commitment. Two weeks of quarantine when you get there, one week of vacation, and another two weeks of quarantine on the back end.
That’s why we should re-think what it means to take a vacation. Instead of quick hits we should take deeper dives. Instead of a few days here and there we should go away for weeks or months at a time. Companies should give us significantly more time off and we should plan accordingly, spending significantly more time at our destinations, taking quarantine time into account.
Barbados gets it. That’s why they are now offering tourists the opportunity to live there for up to a year!
According to Travel and Leisure:
“Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley last week said the country is considering the idea of a 12-month ‘Barbados Welcome Stamp’ that would allow tourists to spend extended time in paradise, working remotely.”
For tourist hot spots that have been ravaged by a prolonged pandemic the idea of long-term vacations could save their local economy. After all, new remote worker residents (once they’ve properly quarantined) could move about freely and support local businesses and restaurants. Something that wouldn’t be feasible with a steady flow of random travelers coming in from all corners of the globe.
And Barbados isn’t alone in trying to attract tourists either. According to the New York Post:
“Cyprus promised to cover the cost of any travelers who test positive for the virus while in the country, including a place to stay, food, medication and anything the person or their family might need, the Associated Press reported.”
Obviously, this isn’t an ideal situation. Being stuck in a hotel room for two weeks when you first arrive in an exciting new locale isn’t ideal. Especially if you don’t speak the local language and have a limited diet. But what choice do we have? If we want to be able to travel again we may have to accept a “new normal” in which we take our lives with us when we go on vacation instead of trying to escape them.
But at the same time this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Doing deeper dives would allow us to truly immerse ourselves in a new culture and force us to appreciate our surroundings more. Instead of a whirlwind tour where we try to cram as much as possible into overstuffed itineraries we can instead take it slow and steady and find out what it would really feel like to live somewhere else.
The impact on society could be monumental considering that traveling opens up our minds to new ways of thinking, new creative possibilities. Having seen that there’s more than one way to do something we are now more likely to be receptive of new ideas, more likely to figure out creative solutions to perplexing problems. Something that anyone who has ever studied aboard or taken off a gap year to backpack through Europe can attest to. Barbados here I come!
From now on we should travel for months at a time.
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