Like most people, we cancelled all of our planned vacations for this year or moved them back.  We haven’t been on a plane since we went to Italy in November 2019.  We are planning to visit the U.S. Virgin Islands this coming week and got our first COVID tests the other day to comply with the island’s entry requirements.  Steve and I both work at home now and we don’t go out with others and we avoid bars, crowds, etc… We occasionally go out to dinner (maybe once every other week) and only if we can sit outside and be socially distanced. 

This USVI trip was originally scheduled in April over my husband’s birthday and we randomly moved it to October, not knowing what would happen. We passed our Covid tests and submitted them to the USVI travel portal and have been preapproved for entry, so we are good to go.  We will be renting a private villa and keeping to ourselves but we look forward to a change of scenery.  Mpstly we plan to relax at the beach, have a few dinners at open-air establishments and will be wearing our masks as required.

As for the rest of 2020, well, there’s not too much to say. We originally had a 9 day trip to Chile planned for Thanksgiving but given how bad coronavirus is in South America and here, we decided to push that trip to late April 2021 for now and just see. We are planning to do a 4 day trip to Washington DC and the Blue Ridge Mountains over Thanksgiving but that’s all we plan to do so far.

As for 2021, we hope to travel a little bit more but we know our options are limited. Wewould consider Mexico, which currently allows visitors to fly in with only a temperature check and we would stay at the Viceroy Hotel in the Riviera Maya, which has stand-alone bungalow rooms, is a small resort with very limited guests (and no kids) and we would just stay on property the whole time and relax and drink margaritas that I don’t have to make.  Other options would be to take a short flight to Charlotte (about 1 hour) and rent a cabin near Asheville or visit California wine country (Santa Barbara or Napa Valley) and rent a private house again.

A few pics below from California last year with our friend, Karen and then Puerto Vallarta. Both sound great right now.

It also looks like we will be spending Xmas without any family or friends this year as well.  Of course, I am still grateful that we have our jobs and our health and that our families are staying safe.  I keep telling myself that when things truly open back up again, we will do some big trips.  We will definitely do that Chile trip at some point and after that I really want to visit Greece, the Maldives, Provence and South Africa or Tanzania.  For now, I keep wistfully looking at travel websites, blogs and youtube videos and hoping that we get a vaccine or solid treatment soon so everyone can be safe and get back to normal life.

I’ll definitely post some pics of our U.S. Virgin Islands trip when we return. It feels weird knowing that we are going to fly tomorrow but we plan to take every precaution possible and I booked us in business class so we have a row all to ourselves (and it was shockingly affordable).