At Summit Wealth Group, we are passionate about seeing our clients reach their financial goals. Life often calls for a break from the norm. A reset or refresh if you will. This is why we love to see our clients getting out and traveling to various corners of the earth.
Because of the pandemic, we’ve seen travel restricted quite substantially over the past year. With vaccines and herd immunity now in sight, we are starting to see travel pick back up again. In fact, March was the busiest month for air travel since the pandemic began.
As you begin to plot out your summer vacations, here are some things to consider with air travel these days, and how COVID continues to impact the travel industry.
Keep in mind, there’s a “new normal”
Proof of Vaccine
A lot of controversy surrounds the idea of having a vaccine passport. In other words, will you have to show proof that you got the vaccine in order to travel? At this point, for domestic travel that remains unlikely. For international travel it is a real possibility.
Since most countries remain closed for tourism, it remains to be seen how countries will handle a vaccine passport, if at all. For now, domestic travel within the United States remains open and easy.
The Mask
It seems to change by the day, but as of May 17, 2021, despite the CDC lifting the mask mandate across the country for vaccinated individuals, they left the mask mandate in place for airports and airplanes. It really isn’t even questioned, and if you look at Twitter, it is really easy to find a video of a family or individual unwilling to comply with the mask rule getting thrown off the plane. If you plan on flying to your destination, it is best to expect a mask will be required to fly.
Is flying going to give me COVID?
This is a fair question. You think about being in a closed in space with hundreds of strangers for hours on end and it isn’t any wonder why you see people with beekeeper costumes on airplanes.
While we are not going to go so far as to say air travel is perfectly safe, it is in fact one of the safer activities you can do at this time. Airplanes recycle 100% of its air about every 3 minutes. You might as well be at an outdoor restaurant with strangers. Air travel is rated as one of the safest public activities out there right now. So that should put your mind at ease!
In addition, most airlines are preventing the middle seat from being taken and spacing to occur between passengers. It is really an ideal time to travel if you wish to do so in comfort.
Where should I go?
The choice of where to go is a personal one, but many countries outside the US remain closed for tourism. This might be the year to drive out west, to hike a national park, to camp, to enjoy the great outdoors. Perhaps you haven’t toured your own state, maybe this is the year to learn more about your state than you ever have. Let us know what you decide and please send us photos!