Global Entry only lets you skip the lines while coming back to the US. TSA reserves the rights to paw through your food items…
Best wishes to @Momof3 and her daughter.
@Marilyn, agreed. Time to hibernate indoors or better yet outdoors if you can.
We have canceled a few dinners where we had invited. Two NYE parties have been cancelled but we would have skipped them anyway.
Maybe drive someplace where you can be outside. We are going to drive to Florida to stay in MIL’s house. Work. Bicycle every day. Walk on the beach. Swim in the ocean (ShawWife not me). Last year, we bought our food mostly at an outdoor farmer’s market. A year ago, the town had a mask mandate. Not sure that is legal in Florida anymore. The people were not particularly good at social distancing. KN-95 masks to the rescue.
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Oh, so sorry about your daughter, @Mom0f3. Hope all goes well!!
We just returned from a trip to SFO and then with the family out to Tahoe. Yes, we were out there in those massive snowstorms, but DS#1 played amateur meteorologist and looked at the weather window where there was supposed to be a lightening of the snow, and we left Friday afternoon (xmas eve) instead of Sat morning. The roads were still a jammed up mess, it was sleeting and snowing, and there were required chain controls (I had insisted on buying them when we arrived at SFO and found out what rental we’d be driving, and that turned out to be a very good decision). Also bought a bag of rock salt, which we ultimately left at the rental house. What should have been a 3.5 hr drive home was a 7.5-hour drive, but we (both cars) made it. I can’t tell you how many people commented about our being at Donner pass and referencing the old awful 1800’s story (and I 80 at Donner pass was closed for days after we were there due to the huge storms, high winds and whiteout conditions). We managed to make it back for DS#2’s wife’s baby shower, which of course was our goal. And we were very lucky that our flight home was not cancelled. I was not comfortable with DS#2’s wife’s family’s lax attitude towards masks in their apartment. He had big HEPA air purifiers going, windows open and fans blowing, but still… DS#2 had come out to the slopes for 2 days but left before the worst of the storms. However, an icicle fell on his windshield and cracked it! He said he just got that replaced today.
To be safe, DH and I too rapid tests yesterday and both were negative.
We had this trip planned since August, and with the baby shower (and DH’s birthday during this time) and older S and wife needing help with the 2 kids (and their wanting to get some skiing in) and my wanting to have the opportunity to take the 4 yo on skis since thats the age our s’s were when they first started skiing and this was a longtime dream of mine, we made the trip. Aside from some heating issues at the rental house, all went very well. Am glad we went, but not looking to travel again anytime soon. DH wants to go to some conference in Orlando in a few weeks, but I am trying to talk him out of it. The old coots who run it think they are invincible and also are cheap and won’t want to get hit with a cancellation fee, so they probably won’t cancel the conference. They held the last one in NOLA this summer in the middle of the big Covid surge there!
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Oh wow.
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I’ve been traveling to NYC from Boston for a week per month since the summer, for work (got a promotion that necessitates my being in the main office more often; DW’s job is also now NYC-based, and we’re moving there in July after our S22 graduates). A few days ago I canceled my January trip, which was supposed to be Sunday through Friday. I understand the NYC office has largely emptied out again anyway (15 positive tests in a recent week), so I wouldn’t be getting the in-person interactions that are the point of going. And it’s the wrong time for train trips, hotel stays and restaurant dining (or being cooped up having room service all week). Hoping the omicron wave has crested when it’s time for my February trip.
Otherwise, no immediate travel plans. DW has rebooked a trip to the Golden Door spa, delayed from 2020, for May. And we’ll do our usual two weeks on Martha’s Vineyard in the summer. A colleague of mine talked with an epidemiologist recently who said he expects dramatic improvement in the Covid situation within six months, given all the natural immunity from omicron, along with vaccinations. Let’s hope!
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We bring snacks to eat…during layovers. Hard to do that with checked bags!
@Vineyarder, I wouldn’t go to NYC now on business either.
If I were going, I would be tempted to drive. We often do for pleasure trips to NY (the drive from Boston is not that long if you are going after rush hour). I have driven for a couple of business trips. Parking is expensive but probably less in aggregate than the cost of airfare or Acela Express (depending upon the trip length of course).
I almost always stay at hotels in NY for business trips (sometimes ShawWife and I stay at the apartment of friends who spends a lot of time at their house in the Berkshires) but would consider an AirBnB in a heavy Covid period. Have you thought about that as an option?
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H and I still have no trips planned where we have to fly. The first one we will probably do is to Bermuda next summer to visit H’s family since it will be 5 years since our last visit. We are fortunate that both of our D’s live near us so we get to see them frequently.
We are planning our big winter ski trip for mid February, but it will be a road trip. We are hoping to ski Taos, Arapahoe Basin, Winter Park, Steamboat and Big Sky on this trip. We also plan to go into Yellowstone.
It will be another trip where we eat breakfast and dinner in our hotel rooms or Airbnb’s and take our own food to eat while on the slopes. We are just happy that the west is getting a lot of snow and we plan to enjoy it. We are going to ski next week at Mammoth in the Eastern Sierras which has been getting feet and feet of snow!
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We have a trip to Phoenix planned for March and I’m going to cry if we can’t make that trip…for any reason.
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Momof3 I hope everything has worked out well for your daughter.
This brings me to what my 2022 travel plans are. With the risk of getting sick higher than in normal years, I have decided to travel only in the US or possibly in other English speaking countries with first world type hospitals. The nightmare would be getting sick in a country with a language barrier and not being able to communicate.
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Wow, that is a big road trip - that’s a lot of hours on the road even when the roads are dry and clear. I don’t know where you’re coming from, but make sure to drive a 4WD/AWD and bring chains or have snow tires. We used to make the 4 hour drive from Boulder to Steamboat Springs for a week of skiing and have since stopped because H hates the drive (and to be fair I’m not a great skier). You must have the Ikon Pass? I assume based on the places you’re heading.
The Sierras and CO mountain areas are finally getting some much needed snow which I’m happy and relieved to see.
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I had a friend that got pulled over and detained for twenty minutes at a small airport for having a dove candy bar in her bag. They told her it was the density that was throwing off the machine. She kept offering to eat it or give it to them.
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@AgeofAquarius we are coming from San Diego and this will be our third year doing a big ski road trip in the west. We have a 4WD Tundra, new tires and chains and love to road trip. H is our driver in the snow and we have driven over the high passes in Colorado when it was snowing. We do have the Ikon Pass and have skied at all the places I mentioned before except for Taos and Arapahoe Basin. D2 will fly to Denver and join us for the second half of our trip and the drive back home.
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Thanks all. We talked to our daughter at about 3 am and again this morning. The surgery went well, although she complained they wouldn’t give her anything for sleep or pain. She isn’t sure how long she will be in the hospital, but they told her she shouldn’t fly for 5 to 7 days. Her boyfriend is flying down from LA to be with her this morning, and friends who were down for the wedding are coming to visit, so that’s reassuring. I’m thinking I’ll cancel they flight I had booked to Cabo and maybe I’ll go to LA when she gets home to help out as she recovers.
BTW, a lesson is to stress to your kids that they should purchase travel medical insurance when they go out of the country. Not only would it cover any health care you might need, but they could also coordinate medical evacuation if needed and could lay for extra days you may need to stay in the country to recover. Some, like GeoBlue, also help you find an English speaking doctor. My daughter didn’t have this coverage, which would have made things a lot less stressful.
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I’m glad it’s going well where it counts - with the surgery and people being able to be with her both in Cabo and when she gets back to LA.
Making sure one’s medical plan includes foreign travel is a good PSA.
I hope all continues to go well.
You’re doing what you have to do. There is no way around it. It’s the right thing to do. My visit was just “social” and not in a caregiving capacity, but we have to balance wants vs. needs in this environment, and in your case, it’s a need.
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Get boosted (if eligible), N95-up on the plane (if air travel is afforded to you), make the trip, and enjoy. Stay away from larger / closer gatherings, even amongst max vaxxed attendees. Default to surgical mask, but have N95 readily available.
Those are my thoughts on travel. I thank Florida for reminding my family how to live life.
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We’ve driven to NYC several times as well, but I think I’ll just hold off on my trip until I can do my normal Acela-and-hotel routine. I hope things will have improved enough four or six weeks from now that I can rely on my vaxxed-and-boosted status as usual. In the unlikely event that transmission is just as bad then, I’ll just wait longer. Fortunately my NYC trips are a should/good situation but not strictly indispensable.
New CDC advisory regarding cruise travel:
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices/covid-4/coronavirus-cruise-ship
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With as fast as Omicron is replicating, coupled with all the holiday/vacation gatherings, I’m hopeful this will be a short duration wave compared to the other variants.
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