Travel in the era of COVID — a personal experience
Today I will be travelling. In the previous decades, this would have been an unremarkable statement, but this is 2020.
I’ve been watching and waiting from Singapore for the past 6 months, waiting for improvements in travel and the pandemic that simply have not materialized. The world is approaching almost a year of this, and while Singapore is down to almost zero cases, many other places are getting worse rather than better, my destination is one of the latter.
My reason to travel is not for any urgency, simply personal, my life outside of the Red Dot. But I’ve come to the conclusion that we cannot wait it out indefinitely, it is something we’ll need to learn to live with for a while.
The flight to France will be straightforward, I booked it one-way and used my AF miles. The long-haul seems to be empty, I might be able to look forward to spreading out and sleeping. On arrival, I need to provide an “attestation”, have the option of taking a free test, then presumably can enter where an AIrBnB awaits. But these days France is locking down again, hopefully things won’t get too complicated. I’ll be doubling down on precautions.
To get back to Singapore, I needed to first apply to immigration for permission to enter. Being let back in itself is not guaranteed, many people are being refused, their lives in limbo. I was accepted yesterday which was a bittersweet relief. I still need to book return tickets, likely with BA miles. On arrival I’ll be shuttled off to do a fortnight quarantine in a government designated facility (actually a local hotel where I can’t leave the room) and at least one if not two tests, all which I’ll be billed for ($2000 + $200). I’m calling it my “forced staycation supporting local tourism”. Besides being confined to the room, it also comes with 2 pages of quarantine instructions & rules including a tracking app and taking my temp 3x a day. The price for a country to be COVID-free.
Needless to say this will be likely the only trip for the rest of the year, if not for another long stretch.
