You're Travelling During Covid?!?

It's a question we're frequently asked by people, and I'm sure there are others wondering as well- Why would we choose now for a year long trip around the world, given the complications and travel restrictions, and the possibility of Covid?

The biggest deciding factoring when it came to taking this trip now was the fact that our deferred salary leave plan doesn't give us the flexibility to put this year off any longer. This leave plan is how we are able to do this from both a financial perspective and a job security perspective. For 4 years, a quarter of our salary was withheld before even making it to our account and on year 5, we are granted a year-long leave from the board and can access the salary that was set aside for the last 4 years. Our year 5 should have been the 2020-2021 school year but fortunately, we were able to put our leave off for an extra year due to the beginning of Covid. CRA regulations mean we weren't able to prolong the year any longer, so it was now or never.

All spring we were watching the information on vaccine roll outs. Both of us were able to get our full set of vaccines before leaving Canada. One of us got the mixed doses and the other got straight Pfizer. Obviously Dominic can't be vaccinated yet, which is a bit of a concern, but it would be no matter where in the world we were. Watching the 4th wave hit Alberta is evidence that Covid is everywhere. To mitigate the risk for Dominic and for ourselves, we have been wearing our masks, sanitizing like crazy and keeping our distance wherever possible. We got FFP2

masks for longer exposure on public transport, such as bus, train and plane rides. It's been interesting to see how the Covid rules differ by country: in Vienna, Austria FFP2 masks are required on all public transport and children 6 and up need a negative Covid test to eat at any restaurant, while in Santorini and Croatia, we often felt like we were the only people wearing masks apart from on transit where they were required. Even so, about half of the people on the plane to Santorini had their masks below their chins for the entire flight.

Another complication brought about by Covid has been the logistics of planning international boarding crossing with ever-changing regulations. There is an abundance of information online, but I've found the best source of information has always been going directly to that country's government website. There's an EU site that has general information but it's not updated as frequently as the government sites so sometimes there's a discrepancy between the information that we have found there and what the most recent information is. And having the most recent information is essential as it can and frequently does change. For example, we found out we'll have to leave Slovenia a day earlier in order to enter Germany without quarantining because travellers need to have NOT been in Slovenia within the last 10 days. We were set to spend 9 days making our way across Italy to Germany from Slovenia so we had to adjust that trip once the new regulation came into place. There's also differences in how far back countries look when figuring out if you're coming from a the list of that country's "green zone" countries- some countries need to know where you've been in the last 14 days, while others only ask about the previous 10 days. We've been pretty fortunate so far as many of the EU countries allow entry from other EU countries, provided that you are fully vaccinated. We've been fortunate so far, but as we've now used up our current allotment of 90 days in Europe, we're in the process of figuring out where we can go from January to April of 2022. While Covid complicates some aspects of travel, there are some benefits as well, but that will be for another post!