do you recommend travelling under this pandemic situation?

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do you recommend travelling under this pandemic situation?

Postby jimmy » Sat Jul 25, 2020 1:40 pm

if yes, which country would/do you recommend?
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Re: do you recommend travelling under this pandemic situation?

Postby Decidida » Sun Jul 26, 2020 3:13 pm

I do not recommend leisure traveling or tourism of any kind to anywhere. Borders can close too quickly. New quarantine rules can be implemented too quickly. PEOPLE are what scares me far more than the virus itself. People do stupid things when they get scared or see an opportunity to gain money and/or power.

My advice to anyone is to get where you prefer to ride out this virus and STAY there. Moving across the country has been a real hardship, but I am NOT going to spend this winter where I was. I seriously hope my predictions for that city are wrong, but I am not willing to take the chance. A relative of mine has been hosting me the last three months and it looks like I will finally be housed this coming weekend.

I am not looking forward to this winter. This is the time to be the ant, not the grasshopper.

Travel to your bunker: yes. Travel to a vacation spot: NO!

I hope I am wrong. I hope I look like an idiot and an alarmist. I will be so happy if someone can quote me in the spring and we can all laugh at me. I will laugh the hardest and in joy and relief.
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Re: do you recommend travelling under this pandemic situation?

Postby Cavesa » Sun Jul 26, 2020 5:33 pm

It all depends on supplemental questions like "where to" and "how". Use your brain and gather all the relevant info. Stick to the local safety rules anywhere you are.

To another region of your country: this choice might be a bit more practical than going abroad. Unless you don't really trust your country, then getting stuck abroad might also be a nice survival strategy (I've heard some americans don't really hurry to come back from Europe). Also, let's stop pretending Covid cares about the state borders that much, unless they are totally closed. It's about better and worse regions within the countries just as much or more than about differences between the countries.

Going somewhere in the middle of the nature? Great, fewer people around! In a big city known to have quite a lot of cases? No, don't go. To a city that is ok but only thanks to restrictions removing everything fun? Consider this well, it might not be worth spending the money you could save for next year. Plane? Flights can be frozen too easily, trains are a bit more reliable, your car is always the best choice (and no, you don't need to worry that much about not getting to your home country, it has a sort of an obligation to let you in. Even if it also has every right to turn the return process into hell and require quarantine). A car is one of the best ways to be truly free to move (so while I am all for ecology and new sources of energy, I am actually happy the shortsighted "messiahs" againts the individual transport are finally getting their buts kicked with the best arguments possible. A car=freedom and more safety).

I still plan to travel a few times from the country I live in to the one I am from and back. I am more and more happy I moved out (the Czech Republic is really trash, that has been bought by an oligarch and covid is just one of the many things making it show. People have been dying because of that criminal and he is just worsening everything to get even easier opportunities to buy the rest of the country), but of course I missed my family for more than half a year. So, I keep travelling. I also cross the border to Germany sometimes just because I need to go to the nearest city sometimes. It is annoying in many ways, I always carry a proof that I work in France in my luggage (my worst nightmare is getting stuck in the Czech Republic).

As far as typical holiday kind of travelling goes , I plan to visit smaller places in this region during summer. I cannot take a holiday in July and August anyways, and we'll know much more in September. I'd like to go to the sea, and a smaller town shouldn't be a problem, unless the big second wave hits us.

I know Covid is scary and for good reasons (Only an idiot can doubt that). But losing our minds is just as scary, everybody losing jobs is scary (dying of suicide is not that different from dying of covid in the end). And travelling is an important part of both the economy and our society. We need to find ways to travel reasonably, as Covid will stay in some form and more viruses are sure to appear in the decades to come. But just giving up is a way to hell.
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Re: do you recommend travelling under this pandemic situation?

Postby Cèid Donn » Sun Jul 26, 2020 8:54 pm

Just stay home if you don't need to go anywhere. Why is this so hard? If you think it's your personal right to travel, just keep in mind that there are millions of people on this planet who will never be able to live the place they were born during their lives and be grateful that once this pandemic is over, you will likely again have an opportunity that millions will never have.

If you must travel, take all precautions. If you don't need to, please just do your part in containing the spread for the sake of everyone you might come into contact with. Please don't rationalize your personal desires as being good for the "economy" or some other abstract nonsense. And for the sake of basic conscientiousness and respect of others, please stay away from smaller towns and more remote places, especially where indigenous people live. These are not areas that get a lot of resources to fight COVID in most countries.

You may be stir-crazy right now, but that doesn't mean you should go risk giving other people a virus that could kill them or leave them with a disability. The "economy" does not justify that. Whatever abstract and idealistic notions you cling to about what was "normal" for our society before the pandemic does not justify that. If you went around driving a car recklessly with no concern for the safety of other people, no one would argue that you failed in your social and moral obligations as a member of society. Why is this any different? Because it's a virus that no one can see unaided and we are struggling to track and so if you did happen to be the person to passed it on to someone who ended up very sick or dead, you could rationalize it away easier than if you ran someone over with a car? Please don't be that person. We have enough to those types here in the US alone and look where it's gotten us. Talk about ways to hell. My lord.
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Re: do you recommend travelling under this pandemic situation?

Postby Cavesa » Mon Jul 27, 2020 11:03 am

?! Sorry, but this paranoia is not called for either. Yes, the US may still be in the worst phase (because the country really messed up much more than most others), but many other countries are not. Do you really plan to not go anywhere you don't have to go till the end of your life? Because that's basically what you're proposing. Covid and other viruses will stay, come, go, change. And we have to adapt and live with that. Letting the economy collapse is not a solution and it is already a worse source of trouble than the virus itself in some regions. And economy crumbling down costs lives too.

So what that other people don't have the right or means to do the same thing we can? That is a good reason to empower them too, not to restrict ourselves beyond reasonable. Would you say the same things to women complaining about discrimination? Some people do, like "but remember that there are millions of women that don't have your rights, be grateful and stop whining". The principle is the same, now you are trying to use this to shame people for something absolutely normal.

Yes, at the peak of an epidemy, it would be foolish and selfish to travel just because you want to (so yes, I was not selfish and spent more than half a year away from my family, while still grieving one of its members. I was also in risky contact with covid patients, I was there for a dying covid patient, I've been helpless concerning other dying because of the safety mesures, I've had covid ill colleagues. Don't you ever dare to suggest a single word of mine might be irresponsible or selfish). But outside of the crisis phase (like right now in majority of Europe), travelling is much more than just a whim that you can easily get rid of. Travelling is the main difference between the open minded, intelligent, and civilised people on one end, the the xenophobe morons easy to scare on the other one (those would agree with you without hesitation, not that I'd imply you were like them). The Czech Republic is the typical example, travelling really changes minds for the better. If more people travelled, fewer would believe lies and vote so badly. Travelling is one of the main advantages of our civilisation and one of the main sources of first hand information, emotional connection to others, and motivation to support (and pay for) any international cooperation. The people without the habit of travelling believe our criminal prime minister that we are the best on the planet in handling the covid and agree with taking half their constitution rights away (most recently it was an attempt to take away the right to vote from everybody suspected of covid). The people used to travelling (and therefore much more knowledgeable) do not fall for such crap and push the government to behave more responsibly. Do you still think travelling is unimportant?

This is not some dumb rationalisation, this is common sense. I already have patients, who are just as scared as your post. There are people so afraid to leave their homes, that it calls for hospitalisation in psychiatry. There are people dead because they were too afraid of the virus to go to hospital even with an infarctus or brain stroke. There are people falling into depression or alcoolism or killing themselves because they lose a job and cannot find another one.

Yes, comply with all the safety measures, and chose well where or if you want to go. Prefer less crowded places, and in many cases just don't go. But if you feel this scared and that anybody on this planet wishing to travel is basically trying to kill you, please consult a specialist. This is not any attempt to offend you, this is honest advice that many people should take.
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Re: do you recommend travelling under this pandemic situation?

Postby jimmy » Mon Jul 27, 2020 1:42 pm

I read all the comments and decided to postpone the trip
thanks for your comments.
But I request someone to share their experiences , whoever have had a trip to abroad under this pandemic situation.
(i.e. I request you to share what you came across during the trip and what you did and the difficulties were (based on experiences only))
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Re: do you recommend travelling under this pandemic situation?

Postby jmar257 » Mon Jul 27, 2020 2:31 pm

Cèid Donn wrote: Please don't rationalize your personal desires as being good for the "economy" or some other abstract nonsense.

I've been supportive of locking down since March and think people should be wearing masks and distancing when out and about--but you talk about the economy being affected as if it's some abstract thing. It's not. I'm working for 3/4 pay and know people who are furloughed, unsure if they'll even have a job to come back to. It's not a binary choice between everyone staying home and everyone going out without protection--there's trade-offs that need to be discussed as far as intensity and duration of lockdowns, and the appropriate balance will vary depending on one's region in the US.

To go back to the OP's question, I don't recommend international travel and won't be doing it for the rest of the year. I've been traveling (driving) between states to visit family, but I've also not been going in public much and when I do I wear a mask and try to distance. But the places I travel to also haven't been hit that hard, I definitely wouldn't be traveling to NYC, for example. I may try flying in a few months within the US, I know some airlines are being very responsible with distancing and cleanliness, but I just like driving and it's easy to minimize contact with others that way. Low downside to it, so it's my default as of now.
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Re: do you recommend travelling under this pandemic situation?

Postby Cavesa » Mon Jul 27, 2020 4:27 pm

Well, the US is also 1.rather big, so it is a bit different to not travel internationally for you than for us 2.not welcome in many countries, as you are still not as much in control of the situation as for example Europe.

Yes, jmar257 is right, the economy damage is not an abstract thing, it is not just some imagined numbers. It affects whether people can afford a living. It affects whether countries can afford healthcare, whether they have the means to fight against covid. It would be nice to just shout childishly naive ideas like "lives before money", but it is not that simple. If you let whole countries collapse (which is what would happen for example to Croatia without tourism, or to some south Italian regions), you are not protecting the people. Don't forget that poor people have a harder time protecting themselves and facing such challenges. Poor countries have a harder time protecting their citizens and taking care of the ill ones.
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Re: do you recommend travelling under this pandemic situation?

Postby tarvos » Mon Jul 27, 2020 4:44 pm

I'm travelling to see my girlfriend at the beginning of September because I was supposed to see her months ago. I'm sorry, does that fall under "essential travel?" I think it does, even though we're not married. Fortunately we're in the Netherlands (which has spiking rates) and Finland (easy peasy lemon squeezy, social distancing is in their genes) so I hope we'll be ok.

Beyond that, I don't plan to travel anywhere, and when I'm in Finland, I'm staying in Kerava, outside of Helsinki. We'll probably disappear into a forest and be a bunch of cottagecore lesbians for a week.
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Re: do you recommend travelling under this pandemic situation?

Postby Xenops » Sat Aug 22, 2020 5:50 pm

I will probably not leave my home state of Massachusetts for a while--the relatives I would visit are in hot-spot areas. If I leave and come back to MA, and if I tell my job I went somewhere, then I have to get tested. Though now that I have a MA driver's license, and going out of state would be fairly easy--but I'm not sure where I could go that would be open? I've thought of driving to a beach, or maybe just driving through parts of New England I haven't seen.

So yeah, I'm hoping for next year. :geek:
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