My Travel 2022 Resolutions: Flying More on My New Normal

My first resolution for 2022 is that I am now telling clients that I am available for travel this year.

I was unavailable in 2021 and much of 2020.

This a.m. I even changed the airline designated with Amex Plat for the $200 fee credit (to Delta for those keeping score). I had not collected a penny of the credit in 2021 but I am optimistic I will in 2022 so I spent the few minutes calling Amex.

And, yes, another resolution is to travel healthy and smart. I am not joining the ranks of the maskless fools or the inflight mask rebels, indeed I will probably doubledown on sanitation and mask wearing. Yes, I plan to travel but I also plan to do what I can to stay well.

Part of that is accepting that Covid is not going away, not soon. Nonetheless I plan to travel. But not stupidly.

So I am switching from cloth masks to high tech Korean masks (KF95 and KF94), to seek to stay healthy in Maricopa County where Covid cases are rocketing higher and yet the maskless multiply. I can’t change their behavior but I can toughen up my own borders. Of course I will wear similar inflight.

Another resolution – maybe just an acknowledgement – is that the value of tracking online Covid case counters has plummeted as more of us test at home and if you test positive do you really call it in and to whom and is it recorded? Experts warn that the present counts are desperately deflated and so I am no longer basing decisions regarding safety of destinations on these numbers.

But I am checking hospital ICU capacity. Obviously, not all ICU beds are occupied by Covid patients but a reasonable guess is that cities where ICU capacity is at bursting are experiencing Covid outbreaks.

Also useful are counters for percentage of a state that is vaccinated. Pick a number you are comfortable with and don’t go to states with lower counts (Idaho brings up the rear).

Here’s an international vaccination rate tracker.

A last chart to eyeball ranks states by the percentage that is boosted and, yeah, the numbers are inexplicably, sadly low but the stats provide some guidance about where to go and where to avoid (New Hampshire and Hawaii, looking at you).

Even so, I plan to rely on my own instincts about a room when judging whether to go in or not and to stay or not. The macro numbers are useful but decisions about safety are, in my mind, very local.

Here’s the money question: Will I do long-haul travel? That’s maybe the question of the year because, from what I am seeing, it appears that many – indeed most – of us are ready for short-haul travel, often via car, and that makes sense because that is an environment we can control.

Put us in a large public conveyance (aka airplane) and we have much less – bordering on no – control and there also are the anti mask crazies, the violent nutters, and the rest we want to avoid.

But I will tell you I am deep into planning a trip to Europe in Q3 and that will involve many hours of flying. But I did a similar itinerary in Q3 2021, used commonsense and social distancing to the extent possible, and left after three weeks with a negative Covid test at Madrid Airport. I never felt real risk on the trip, except on the last day when waiting for a final flight to Phoenix at an overcrowded LAX. The European portion of my travels was delightful.

Spain does require arriving Americans to be vaccinated – and very likely soon will also require proof of a booster. Portugal does not require a vaccination but does require a recent negative test. I am planning to go to both.

What I am saying is that I am creating my own new normal. I believe we now are entering a period of learning to live with and around Covid. As more of us get vaccinated and boosted and probably boosted again, infection rates will continue to drop as will hospitalizations.

If we take our own health seriously I believe we can safely navigate the travel terrain that lies in front of us and, frankly, I am ready to go.