Coronavirus Travel Restrictions- Planning a Vacation During Coronavirus

With a current pandemic going on, planning a vacation with Coronavirus Travel Restrictions can be very difficult. However, it’s not impossible. While the CDC doesn’t usually issue travel restrictions within the United States, the uptick in cases around the country has caused concern for many travelers this summer.  Right now there are also some states that are requiring quarantining for fourteen days after traveling to a state with high case counts. Here are some of our best tips to keep the green light running on your vacation this summer.  If you’re headed to the beach, check out my Top 10 Beach Hacks before you go.

Travel Tips

1. Check your state’s mandated guidelines. For example, we live in Pennsylvania, and right now there are several states that require a fourteen day quarantine when we return. However, since my son is playing football, we didn’t want him to miss practice, so we chose a state where there is no mandatory quarantine upon our return. Virginia Beach, Virginia was our best choice, because this is one of the few states that has beaches we can visit and isn’t on the quarantine list.
2. Travel only to hotels where you can receive a refund up to 24-hours prior to your arrival.  We booked a Marriott where we knew we could cancel up to 24 hours before we arrived. We did this on purpose so that if the beach ended up being closed, we had enough time to cancel our reservation and not lose any money on our trip.  This isn’t always possible if you book a beach-front condo, or book with a company months in advance. Make sure to look into the booking and refund policy of the place where you plan to stay.
3. Be flexible with dates as much as possible. Read #2.
4. Check with the local authorities of your destination for restrictions. Call ahead to the local county visitor’s bureau to see what types of places will or will not be open during your stay. For our beach trip, this was crucial, so I was checking the local websites daily up until the day we left for our trip. Find out whether masks are required at the local places you are visiting, or if there are any other restrictions you need to know about before traveling. Check out our tips for How to Social Distance at the Beach.
5. Decide on a place where you will be least exposed. This is a personal decision that will need to be made by every family.  We decided to book a trip to a beach within five hours, so that we did not need to stop at any rest stops or use any public restroom facilities.  Making stops along the way for gas, food, or bathroom breaks could potentially put you and your family in close contact with other people and surfaces where you could potentially contract the virus.  Booking a trip to a cabin within an hour or two could give you a great vacation experience in the mountains, yet not go so far you have to risk stopping at rest stops.  If you are traveling by plane or train, you are going to be taking on extra travel risks as airports and train stations are crowded as well as the plane or train itself. Because you are not able to social distance as well, this may put you at more risk for being exposed to the virus.  These are all things you need to think about before planning your trip. Check out our tips for Traveling on a Budget While Camping.
6. Plan ahead for as many details as possible.  Anticipate as many of your needs ahead of travel as possible. For example, we packed meals and drinks in a cooler that we could eat in the car to hold us over until we arrived at our suite (which has its own kitchen), so that we didn’t have to stop at any restaurants on the way to the beach.  We also purchased a box of masks so that we had extra masks for the trip in case someone lost their mask.  We also filled a small hand sanitizer for each member of the family with our Thieves Waterless Hand Purifier so we had plenty for the trip.  We even packed a thermometer just in case anyone didn’t feel well on the trip so we could check their temperature. We also had our hand sanitizer and Thieves Wipes available in the console area of the car, so that if we had to stop and get gas or pay for anything for any reason, we had adequate supplies handy. If traveling by plane or train, having individually packaged wipes might be handy as well.
7. See if you can have contactless check-in. We already asked at the Marriott where we were staying to ensure that we could check in from the app and check out as well.  My personal philosophy is less contact with people, the less our chances of exposure. We also requested no cleaning during our stay so that there were no other people in our room except our own family members.
8. Clean your room when you arrive. Marriott offers a full cleaning service on all of their Air BnB style locations. However, I checked with the hotel staff before arriving to ensure what type of cleaning would be done on our suite before we arrived. I also brought a bottle of homemade Thieves Spray and cleaner to spray the air and pretty much everything in our room once we arrived. This included door knobs, remote controls, the bathroom, and pretty much every surface.
9. Have fun. Remember, the whole point of traveling is to enjoy yourself. If you feel you can’t do that in the age of the Coronavirus, it may be better just to stay home.

These are just a few tips to help you get started planning, and sometimes we just need to think things through to make the best possible decisions for our families.  It is our hope that you can plan a fun trip this summer while staying safe.  Also, make sure to check out all of the CDC’s Travel Guidelines before you leave. Comment and let us know how you fared on your vacation. Please include any tips you want to share.