How We Travelled During a Pandemic

Here are the lessons my partner and I learned from our recent trip to the beach. First, we used travel guidance provided by infectious disease specialists outlined The Washington Post. The short answer is that car travel, hotel stays, camping, and outdoor activities like the beach are considered safe as long as appropriate precautions are taken – hand washing, mask wearing, and social distancing.

Before planning a trip, we chose a drivable beach destination that we believed would have relatively less people than some of the popular beach destinations. We chose to travel during the week to avoid the possibility of large weekend crowds.

The Stay

The next step was to evaluate the coronavirus policies of the local hotels. Our comfort with a hotel’s coronavirus policy was first and foremost, and we evaluated the coronavirus policies of several hotels in the area. Some policies were non-existent, some were questionable, and one outshined every other hotel. This hotel happened to be one where we had stayed several years ago – The Refuge Inn on Chincoteague Island. They offered contactless check-in and check-out, complied with CDC cleaning regulations, required masks in all indoor spaces, did not enter the room during our stay, contactless continental breakfast, and provided contactless resupplies of towels, soaps, etc. This made for a pleasant experience, and we plan to revisit them in the future.

The People

We were shocked at the high hotel capacity and the amount of people we saw on the island upon our Saturday afternoon arrival. We elected to social distance by going for a bike ride around the island and then order take out for dinner. We had underestimated the amount of people who would be visiting Chincoteague/Assateague, so we shifted our plans to insure we would avoid crowds of people.

We went paddleboarding one afternoon and one morning which was easy to avoid crowds of people. We would spend the hottest time of the day in our hotel, and we would bike to restaurants to pick up take out. We would head to the beach in the evenings after 5:00 pm as the day crowds were beginning to clear out, and we would walk down the beach until we could safely social distance from other people – for us that was about 15-20 feet between groups. One night we even had dinner at the beach and watched the sunset.

Most people were wearing masks while waiting in line or inside stores. People would put their masks on if approaching others. While we heard stories of people refusing to wear masks, this was not our experience. We did notice that sometimes people would fail to social distance while standing in line, and most were amenable to being asked to step back. The key to success for this trip was the wiliness to change our plans or activity in the event of a large crowd at our destination, and this provided for much more spontaneity.

The Food

We had planned to bring some food on the trip to minimize our reliance on restaurants. However, this is not what happened. Instead, we chose to purchase take out and only ate at restaurants that offered socially distanced outdoor seating. We did purchase some essential snacks and lunch items at the local store. Our choices significantly minimized our contact with other people outside of our family unit. Our hotel room had a balcony, so it was always enjoyable to sit outside and eat our meals.

Conclusion

It is important to recognize that life during a pandemic is difficult, and now more than ever, it is important that we all take care of our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Self-care can be a short respite from the stress of our daily lives.

My partner and I found a way to take a short vacation that allowed us to enjoy some relaxing time outdoors.We were able to incorporate all the tools we use at home in Washington DC to prevent the spread of coronavirus – hand washing, wearing masks, avoiding crowds, social distancing, etc.