How My Family Is Planning A “Safe” Getaway This Summer (2020)
By Mrs. Dadly
My absolute favorite hobby is travel, which during the current pandemic is probably not the most fitting. But let me backtrack a minute. When I say travel is my favorite hobby, some people may have visions of my family jet-setting off to an ultra-luxurious villa in the south of France, or somewhere else equally exotic. But in reality, although we have enjoyed some fantastic trips, we always have an eye on the budget.
Let me digress a minute and share a memory from a million years ago, when Living Dadly and I were first married, and our budget was even smaller than it is now. We planned a getaway to a beautiful historic hotel, the Don Cesar, down in St. Pete Beach, Florida. (These old “grand dame” hotels are another passion of mine). The hotel was everything we imagined it would be, and our room was beautiful, although once we turned in for the evening, we realized why our room was so cheap. The room overlooked the main driveway and each time a car drove in, the headlights would illuminate our room. I can’t remember if there were any blackout curtains in the room, but one of my other quirks is that I enjoy waking up to natural light, so even if there were blackout curtains, I would have convinced darling hubby to not use them. It was that trip where I was dubbed the queen of finding the cheapest room in really nice hotels. And over the years the queen hasn’t lost her touch.
Now fast forward to 2020 and of course, like so many others also experienced, our vacation was cancelled and everything planned went out the window. (Good-bye to Quebec’s Chateau Frontenac, hope to see you next summer!) However, I still have that itch to plan a getaway for my family. Family travel is so important to me because I see it as a time when my family really comes together and shares an experience, and just lives in the present moment, without the many distractions of work, school, or even home.
Here are 5 things my family considered when planning our summer getaway
1) What feels safe?
One thing that we did was look at what parts of the country are showing improvements in the current COVID numbers. Coming from NYC, where the COVID numbers are finally showing improvements from where we were in March, we wanted to find another area with similar results. We decided at this time, for our family, it makes sense to remain in the Northeast.
2) How should we travel?
I have read that to help make a decision between air or car travel, one should see whether they would need to stay in hotels along the way or not. If the trip is so lengthy that multiple overnight stops are needed, then it might make sense to fly. For my family, since we decided that we will remain in the Northeast, we decided on a road trip.
3) Where are we comfortable staying?
We also talked about whether we would be comfortable staying in a hotel. Many hotels are following increased cleaning protocols, which is very comforting to travelers. However, what we find ourselves concerned about is eating in restaurants. Here in NYC, restaurants have just recently reopened to dining with the caveat being only outside seating is allowed. Still, the idea of being in a hotel and having no options but restaurant dining for the length of our getaway is concerning to us. Therefore, we decided that a vacation house rental may be the way to go for us, and help us feel a little more in control. Of course, vacation house rentals run from inexpensive to high end, with everything in between, but there seem to be options for every budget.
4) What are we comfortable doing?
As much as we enjoy theme parks and other crowded places, we are more comfortable this year having a more laid back, outdoorsy vacation, with beaches and hiking nearby. And hopefully an escape from crowds.
5) What safety measures will we take?
We plan to pack food and drinks for the road trip, to minimize our need to stop. We plan to bring Clorox wipes with us to wipe down high touch areas in the rental house, even though the rental agency also has adopted enhanced cleaning procedures. Can’t be too safe! Additionally, we plan to do most of our own cooking – which is why we decided on a rental house in the first place. And of course, we will bring our masks along in case there are times when social distancing is difficult.
I’ll post again when we return from our trip to let everyone know how it goes! Until then….