Ah, traveling during Covid-19. It’s such a controversial thing to do or even talk about it seems. For people who don’t travel, I’m sure they’re looking at the people who can’t stay at home with much disgust and I get, I do. My parents were in the Army, but I didn’t travel all around the world like many “Army brats”. I didn’t go to many places at all actually. My mother was stationed in Germany when I was 5 but due to my heart murmur, my Cardiologist at the time advised my mother I should not travel and I lived with my maternal grandparents for a year. With the heart murmur, and cost of travel, in mind, I went much of my life going nowhere and, to this day, I still do not have a passport.
My first trip over a large body of water came in 2017 when my travel addicted mother wanted to take the kids on a cruise. It’s funny how that happens with grandparents. When they’re your parent, they don’t do half the things with you they later do with their grand kids, but I digress … the trip was the first real “vacation” I’d ever taken. It sparked many travel adventures and a love of travel that didn’t disappear during the pandemic.
Naturally, I wasn’t traveling during Covid-19 … at first. Having a daughter with an autoimmune disease and a heart murmur myself, I did all the things you’re supposed to do and really only went out to walk to the grocery store when they’d first open hoping to score Charmin to avoid people. As our mental health was starting to take a few hits, and my daughter’s surgery was quickly approaching, we decided traveling during Covid-19 might not be that bad if we socially distance ourselves. We decided to take a road trip.
In the beginning of June, we headed out on our first “traveling during Covid-19” adventure, driving from Charlotte to Savannah to Miami to Key West to Naples to Orlando back to Savannah before going home. Keep in mind, this was prior to all the coronavirus that seems to be running rampant through the Carolinas and Florida. Mask weren’t required but we were wearing them everywhere and, being the disposable kind, we were switching them out often. Hand washing was taking place like it was my job and always have hand sanitizer in my purse and in the car.
I was definitely nervous prior to heading off on this excursion and unsure of what to expect. Here are a few things I realized during this trip:
All Hotel Cleaning Practices Are Not Created Equal
Even prior to the pandemic, I took cleaning products to the hotel. It’s something I grew up with my mother doing and actually took up after I started working at a hotel. This trip was no different.
With the pandemic, many hotels have discussed upping their game as it relates to cleaning and it’s hard to say if that’s true or not without actually watching them clean. I think many places are just saying they’re doing more and slapping a few stickers and bags on items to make you feel more assured. One thing most hotels are doing is eliminating house keeping altogether during your stay but some aren’t. When we were in Naples, we had to option to get house keeping everyday, we just had to call the front desk in the morning to let them know – we opted out.
You Should Probably Take a Cooler … and Ice
We took a cooler because we were on an almost 2 week road trip but something we weren’t expecting – some of the hotels had their ice machines turned off. I guess I can, maybe, see how that makes sense. Some hotels altered their machines to include a foot pedal to use in place of the hand button. Of course, I preferred this method because it meant not having to track down ice at gas stations and grocery stores where there were many more people coming in contact with me and the ice freezer.
Plan to Bring Food … Maybe
Yes, you’d need food for lunch and dinner but you may thinking breakfast is taken care of. All of the hotels we stayed at advertised a complimentary, hot, breakfast but it’s usually buffet style and we all know how those are doing right now. Out of the 6 hotels we stayed in, only the one in Miami didn’t offer anything at all. We were told they’d just opened back up the day we checked in and didn’t have enough guests to justify having breakfast at the moment. Definitely bummed at not being offered an alternative but even more excited that there were only 2 other guests in the entire hotel with us.
Both our Key West hotel and the second Savannah hotel we stayed in blocked off the food area with tables but still had the hot items. You selected what you wanted from afar and they boxed it up for you to enjoy socially distanced in the sitting area or back in your room. The first Savannah hotel gave grab and go bags that included a bottle of water, a banana or apple, a muffin, yogurt, and a granola bar. Both Naples and Orlando had sit down restaurants and they were open with the seating socially distanced.
Hope For the Best … Prepare For the Worst
As mentioned earlier, all but one of our hotels were opting out of house keeping during the stay. They were cleaning empty rooms but even then, they were only there for a very limited amount of time and there were only one or two, so they weren’t going to every floor.
When we checked into our Key West hotel, the air was actually broken and we couldn’t move into a new room until the next day when house keeping returned to clean a room. They were only there during the day to clean the exact amount of rooms needed for the next day and maintenance couldn’t come to assist us because we’d already checked into the room and the hotel didn’t want to expose us to one another. It was in the 90s outside and, quite possibly, hotter in the room. It was brutal.
To make it worse, they’d taken all extras out of the room, so no water and snacks (which was extremely disappointing because I selected a “premium” room that was supposed to come with both and no one told me they wouldn’t be there due to Covid-19 prior to my trip), no hair dryer, no toiletries, NO TOILET TISSUE. It was like they were trying to take all these extra precautions but weren’t doing commonsense things like making sure all maintenance issues were resolved prior to guests checking into rooms with nowhere to go should something come up.
Since that trip in June, my partner and I have actually taken a road trip to Hilton Head for a few days and my daughter and I have traveled via plane to Boston for her previously scheduled surgery. We’re always sure to wear mask, practice social distancing or, as my mother always says, practice the 3 W’s – Wear our mask, Wash our hands, Wait 6 feet or more from any neighboring people. The latter can be a bit difficult in certain situations, like the hospital, but we do it as best we can.
If you’re planning on traveling during Covid-19 how long did you wait before you decided to take a trip? Are you planning for more road trips this year than previous years?
