What will travel look like now?

Travel has been a big part of my life for a long time. I have always travelled around 4 - 10 times per year for work and as much as I can for pleasure, usually fitting in a few long weekends around Europe in alongside trips back to the UK to see family. I realise now how much I took the ease of travel for granted and I’m kind of nervous to see what travel looks like in the post-Covid age.

Amsterdam - 2019

What the pandemic has taught me about travel

Exactly how unsustainable for the environment our addition to travel is

We all know that cars, coaches, trains and planes are bad for the environment. No matter what strides we take to ‘offset’ those emissions (a ridiculous concept, by the way) or what new technologies come out, our environment is deteriorating with every trip. But knowing it and really seeing it are two different things. The incredible improvements of the canals in Venice, dolphins suddenly appearing where they haven’t been seen for years, air quality around the world cleaning up so much we can actually see it. Each day I see a new story like this I am so uplifted, I begin to feel positive about the future of the Earth in a way I rarely feel. But then I suddenly remember that this, surely, is temporary. Once we are all able to travel again the way we used to, the canals will darken, the dolphins will leave, the air will fog up and my cough will be back.

Porto - 2019

How this addiction to travel helped this virus spread so fast

I get sick pretty much every time I fly. I begin to feel the tickle in my throat whilst on the plane and, without a doubt, 1-2 days after touching down I’m sneezing and snivelling and running to the nearest pharmacy for cold medicine. I know I’m not the only one and I find myself baffled that we were all just OK with this. Sitting in tin cans, packed together as closely as humanly possible, no time to clean between loads of passengers, all of us coming away sick. It’s grotesque. Health doesn’t matter so long as we get where we need to be, and someone along the way is getting rich.

Then there are people who are sick when they get on the plane. No one cancels a flight because of a headache, or a small cold, or a little rash. But this has made me realise how irresponsible it is. You might not feel too bad but knowing you are unwell and likely to pass it on is something I can’t believe we all just did, with no guilt or concern.

That none of us are as clean as we think we are

The fact that a good, thorough hand-wash is the best first line of defence against this virus, yet it has managed to spread across the globe, killing thousands, should make us all pretty ashamed.

Sweden - 2019

What will change about travel in 2020?

This is a question I’m super interested in. Most people are asking when airports will open and when borders will open and when things can go back to normal, but I’m wondering if they will ever go back to ‘normal’.

Personal precautions

I hope, at the very least, that hygiene steps up. That’s personal hygiene of us travellers- more frequent and more thorough hand washing, or use of hand sanitizer where washing isn’t possible. Then also, more personal precautions like wearing a mask from now on during any travel. I know a mask isn’t guaranteed protection against someone sneezing, literally on your face. But it’s a reminder not to touch your face, it is a small barrier between germs and you and, more than anything, it sends a signal and encourages other people to give you space.

Corporate changes

I wonder if social distancing will affect industries like travel, potentially forcing them to move away from packing people in as tightly as possible. Maybe we’ll see the end of cheap travel and coaches, trains and planes removing seats to allow for more space between passengers. Great for the future spread of germs, great for comfort. Could increased pricing, to make up for lost customers, keep the industry where it was before? Or would it just alienate a whole demographic to no longer be able to travel? Is travel a luxury, or is it a right? It’s a tough one.

Will companies step up their own cleaning practices? How often have you sat on a train seat and a cloud of dust billowed up out of the cushions? How many times have you got on a plane 5 minutes after seeing the previous passengers leaving, with only superficial tidying up in-between? Our need for speed and companies need to make as much money as possible lead to this, but is there a way to step back?

Create - 2019

Closed borders

It seems like right now countries are opening up their borders to selected other places. Other countries they feel are ‘safe’. We assume this is a means to an end and that eventually borders will open like before where you can travel pretty much anywhere (visa permitting) but is that less likely than we think? Might some countries use this as an excuse to indefinitely ‘ban’ certain other countries from entering, based on prejudice? Will some countries, rightly, remain high risk for many years to come?

Right now, I don’t know. I don’t even have a best guess. Despite being desperate to travel to the UK to see my Mum, or to Sweden to see my colleagues, or to Mexico, to finally visit some mezcal distilleries, I don’t think I will rush into travel. I will see how it goes, see what changes or restrictions or regulations are put in place.

In all this uncertainty, one thing is for sure- I will never take travel for granted again and will forever appreciate how privileged I am in so many different ways.

Crete - 2019