I hope you had a fun-filled 4th of July! Our family enjoyed spending the day on the lake, participating in the largest boat parade on Lake Norman (over 4,000 boats), grilling out and watching the neighbors set off fireworks from their driveway. My grandson and I also visited “Field of Flags” and were in awe of the beauty of 600 American flags blowing in the wind that were dedicated to and honored our local community Veterans, Active Military and First Responder Heroes – past or present. It was a fun-filled Independence Day.
This week I wanted to share about the many travel and destination rules, regulations, protocols and restrictions that are ever changing – day by day, hour by hour or even minute by minute. Special thanks to my travel colleague, John Rees, for letting me share some of the information he gathered for my blog.
Staying on top of these changes is a lot of what I do these days. Whatever your personal time-frame may be for future travel, I would bet you will have some questions regarding the current process and guidelines and I will have answers for you. Hopefully you will find this information helpful for when you are ready to travel both domestically or internationally.
So, this week I will feature 5 of the most useful online resources to provide you with as much detail as possible to assist in making informed decisions.
Here are the top resources that may answer your Where? When? How? Should We?
Caribbean Travel Advisories (click on the picture above)
The Caribbean is the first area to be reopening that is happy to receive visitors from the USA, but even that is not true for every island and just because a location is “reopened” there still may be strong enough restrictions in place, that you may prefer not to travel. Aruba, for example, currently in a Phase 1 reopening, requires residents of more than 20 states that are considered to be of higher risk of Covid-19, must upload proof of a negative test taken between 12 and 72 hours of inbound travel. Island guests must also purchase mandatory Aruba Visitors Insurance to cover up to $75,000 in expenses should they test positive for Covid-19 during their stay. The Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association are doing an excellent job of keeping this Google doc (click pic above) updated and they expect many restrictions to be lifted in time for the holiday season at the end of 2020.
Europe (click on the picture above)
The European Union is debating daily whether to extend the ban on incoming US residents, along with many other countries that have high numbers of Covid-19 cases. Croatia, for example, is opening their borders to members of the EU, but American tourists may visit only with proof of paid accommodations. Meanwhile, they have put together a decent app (click pic above) that covers the entire EU and answers questions on entry, transit, trains and air.
Global Timeline (click on the picture above)
Skift has put together a powerful resource that collects travel news events and catalogs them by date and geographical area. You have to be careful to read the articles in their entirety as it can sometimes be misleading to go by the headline alone, but nonetheless this has been a great resource for me when searching for a particular country I have received little prior information on. They also have a domestic USA section which is important to be aware of if you are planning to travel between States this summer.
Covid-19 Checker (click on the picture above)
If you are concerned about how Covid has developed in other countries you may potentially be traveling to, this app will give you the true number of cases around the world, combined with the latest restrictions regarding the same country. A great tool to help understand any risk and keep track of global travel restrictions. Please keep in mind that some countries are definitely under-reporting Covid due to lack of testing. It is important that we talk this through should one of these countries be of interest. If you want to see who navigated this best, click on New Zealand.
Flights (click on the picture above)
The International Civil Aviation Organization has been top notch with providing data during these uncertain times. Their website goes all out on everything flight related and lists the number of flights from each country daily, and places them into sub-categories of cargo/passenger/repatriation. They also indicate the percentage week over week change for each airport. This is a very useful site if you need airport specific information.
So, hang on to these valuable links and let’s refer back to them when you feel the time is right to travel to your favorite destination. I’m here to partner with you to make it happen.
