This week TSA saw consecutive days of more than 1 million passengers traveling through the airports to be with loved ones for the Thanksgiving holiday. It’s a been a long time since they’ve seen numbers such as these and it remains to be seen if these numbers will be sustained throughout the holiday season ending on January 1 2021.

Whether we choose to travel this holiday or stay put there are few things that 2020 taught us about traveling during a pandemic. Here’s our list of 5 things we learned about travel during the pandemic:

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1) Travel became more complicated. The year 2020 meant that you had to really check specific country rules before venturing off to a destination. It was no longer do I need a visa? Instead, it became more of do I need a Covid test and how many days before arrival did I need to provide the negative results of the test? Was it the right Covid test for that particular country? Did I have the right travel insurance? Is travel insurance required? While things got complicated we were here to help you wade through it all as we updated you on the rules on Weekly Winedown through our Facebook Community.

2) There are places that we can travel to. At the beginning of the pandemic, it looked dire for us travel lovers as everything started to shut down. As the year progressed and people started understanding the virus a bit, nations started opening up. We rode this wave in stride and started exploring our backyard. Daytrips to the countryside or the National Parks fulfilled our sense of wonder, while we waited for the world to open up. While Europe never fully opened up for US travelers, there were some options for us that didn’t require Covid testing- namely Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Colombia and Mexico. (You can read all about our trip to Mexico during the pandemic.) Still, there were other countries that required covid testing such as Jamaica and Croatia before US travelers were allowed.

3) Travel can be done safely. Nations like Jamaica allowed for travel in its resilient corridor and reported no new Covid cases in their tourism industry. Airlines, hotels, car rental companies and everyone else in the hospitality industry created new systems or upgraded their cleanliness programs. Airlines enacted and enforced rules on face coverings to keep everyone safe. In the midst of this airlines started offering Covid testing options before boarding, in particular Hawaiian airlines as Hawaii has the strictest rules of Covid testing. This year the resounding theme was your safety matters to us as well as ours.

4) We still have a long way to go. By the end of the year, the cruise industry realized that cruises were not going to happen for the US market until 2021, some even pushed their starting date to February 2021. While the CDC no sail order expired in October it was too late for cruises to get going. Instead, they are working on finding innovative ways to bring testing onboard to keep employees and passengers safe in the new year.

5) Travel touches everyone! Lastly, if you’ve never stopped to think about it before you sure learned this year that travel touches the lives of everyone. It’s not only the airlines and accommodations that you book. It’s also the Uber driver that picks up riders from the airport. It’s the server at your favorite restaurant in the airport or at your destination. The worker at that souvenir shop you’ll go to. The farmer that supplies food to the restaurant, hotel and so on. Basically, travel touches everyone.

As we move closer towards the end of 2020 we hope that 2021 brings on joy, cheer and a return to normalcy.

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