In just a few weeks the decision on whether or not to take a trip right now has grown more complicated. Six weeks ago, many people had never heard of the term coronavirus and the term COVID-19 didn’t exist. Now in one of the world’s biggest pandemics, people are being turned away at emergency rooms after becoming ill here in the US due to lack of proper tools/training as we watched the exponential growth of this virus in various parts of the world. With so many contradicting reports and miscommunicated viewpoints, my first instinct is to limit my social media and TV time (choosing instead to monitor the direct sites for JAMA, CDC, WHO, NIAID and Homeland Security). As a publicist, I’m familiar with creating & pitching new stories of my own to major TV news outlet. But with 2 trips coming up in the spring & summer, I felt an obligation to stay more plugged in than usual.
With things rapidly changing from one day to the next, one thing that has remained constant is my gratitude for being able to travel the world with a phenomenal group of amazing women. I understand that certainty is natural to humans with most of us wanting to know when something is happening immediately. It’s not unusual to become fixated on things that appear to be threatening as feelings of uncertainty ignites feelings of being unsafe and feeling unsafe can trigger stress. I’m choosing to focus on gratitude, wellness, meditation and my task list. Just like our healthcare system, I watched as overnight the travel industry fell to its knees as it drowned in the aftermath of booked trip status inquiries, suspended flights and travel restrictions. My inbox was overflowing and is still overflowing with COVID-19 form letters outlining policies/procedures from every restaurant, hotel and airline that I have ever done business with. I have spent hours surfing chat forums, researching policies, attempting to exchange emails and holding on phone calls…all while trying to keep my stress levels down. I knew that the last thing that I needed at this time was unnecessary stress to lower my immune system's ability to fight off disease.
Up until this recent pandemic, I had no clue what it was like to sit on hold on the phone for 5 hours to speak with an airline or hospitality industry representative. Believe me when I tell you are up against a different type of challenge when you are trying to make group travel changes for 16 different people during a time when travel insurance companies are denying policies and claims. Social distancing has a whole other meaning when you are on the phone at 2am making calls overseas or spending your days glued to your computer screen. Focusing on balance and the task at hand, you have little of anything left to spend time rehashing the walls that you are up against, when you need to save the energy that you have left for next steps needed to work around the roadblocks. On 3/13/20, our airline officially suspended our May roundtrip flight to Singapore/Bali with the Singapore government banning all new visitors who have travelled to France, Germany, Italy and Spain from entering or transit through Singapore on 3/15/20 – 5/31/20. Since the ban prevents our flight from flying to Singapore to get to Bali (due to our layover in Germany), the airline is waiving restrictions and permitting us to move our non-refundable flight to August. See you in August Bali! Now back to sifting through all of this red tape.
“Hope is the only thing stronger than fear.” - Robert Ludlum
Fun in the desert in Dubai
Tea time in Cape Town