New Vacation Options

Now is the time transportation companies should begin to concoct new ways to travel.

Just like everyone in the current circumstances, until there is a vaccine I would only consider traveling domestically by car. I’d be poking along in little-four hour jumps, inching my way to national parks, or Machu Picchu, or the Yukon. It would take time, but I’d get there.

Were I to travel overseas, well, first they’d have to have me. But let’s say they allow the dirty Americans in again. I couldn’t fly there unless we were shuffled in to a gutted plane one by one, told to stand on a x, and they we would have a vacuum tube lowered around us that sealed us in (with our own personal house air in a slow-release canister). 

I could only get on one type of cruise. 1) One that runs at turbo speeds and gets up to Europe in two days. 2) We would sleep in those Japanese hotel drawers, again, with our own imported air, run through tubes up our noses. And we would have to be catheterized as well, I suppose. Price you pay. 3) During the day we would be required to be up on deck in the sunshine. I suppose we could be on deck chairs with our heads in space helmets. 

Well, come to think of it, why don’t we just use space helmets for everything now? Can’t touch your face, can’t contaminate other people. It could have an air conditioning system so you won’t get hot or fog your glasses. So, maybe it’s time for me to invest in Tesla stock: I’m guessing they’ll be making the personal space helmets.

Of course, there will be someone saying, “The government can’t make me wear a space helmet!”  Or the President refuses to wear his space helmet in photos.

Comments

[KC]

Even domestic travel by car has the Bathroom And Food problem, unless you have a bathroom along with you (trailer or RV) and good pack-along food solutions. But I would not want to be going into rest stop bathrooms at this time, nor would I want a burger/salad/just-about-anything where some underpaid no-sick-leave worker assembled it possibly without a face mask...

[Arlene]

It's definitely the year to stay home. Getting tiresome, isn't it?

[TheQueen]

KC - peanut butter and apples and bread would resolve the food issues in the car. Half of the bathroom issue could be resolved with my she-we and some secure container. The other half only happens once a week, so not really an issue.
Arlene - I am astonished at how much my travel itch has died down. I think Gary’s might have died off entirely. I surprise myself that I am so content to stay at home.

[Lisa]

Seriously. My husband snd I were about to plan a trip to Scotland for our 20th when this hit. And being from Texas (official state of the YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO state) I feel sure there’s not a continent/country that will allow any of us to visit, which I understand. These uneducated/unmasked potatoes are why we can’t have nice things.

[TheQueen]

Lisa - I’m telling myself that every month in quarantine is another month I can save up for a truly spectacular vacation. And I was born in Texas, literally in Houston’s Harris Hospital, which is evidently overrun now. I am familiar with Texan defiance. And yes, the anti-maskers are potatoes. I wonder if Scotland would institute a state-by-state rule for who they let in. Of course, that does you no good, as you are from Texas.

[KC]

I am intrigued by the she-we, but given my lower GI tract tends towards the opposite of yours, it would not solve my travel problems.

That said, given various things that can happen along the way on a road trip to make the best-laid plans go agley, it's probably good that your travel itch is reduced at present and redirected into vacation savings. :-) (When it's possible again, you should totally go to NZ; it's such a fabulous place!)(I mean, that was my standard travel advice before pandemic; they're even more appealing now! And you can stop by Australia for the coral reefs and the tropical fruit and the amazing animals!) (South Asia is also really amazing, but a lot more problematic with a dodgy immune system - even Europe is a fair bit more germy than NZ and Australia normally are.)

Unless we set up walls between states, other countries will probably not allow people on a state-by-state basis, since there's no real way at the moment to prevent someone from driving from one state to another and then flying from there (and some people reside in different states from their passport address, since you only need to renew it once every 10 years). I suppose if you gave proof of residence somehow, like you do with libraries?...

[TheQueen]

KC - I have indeed heard that NZ is marvelous! Big Dot lives there (http://www.travelskite.com/ ) and she’s been giving travel recommendations closer to her home. I did suggest NZ once to Gary, and he said that was way too far afield for him. We’d have to break it into a California vacation followed by a Hawaiian vacation followed by a NZ vacation, and then the same on the way back, so that’s a month of vacation. I need to retire first.

[KC]

What's Gary's "too far afield" range? Is it number-of-hours-on-a-flight, or conceptual, or how far away it is on a globe, or something else? (I know people in the US who think Europe is close but Morocco is "too far away" and I'm like... uh... conceptually and logistically, yes, Morocco is more challenging than many places in Europe, especially of the tourism-heavy variety, and also it usually takes a spare flight hop, but have you looked at a map recently?)

Anyway, California (redwoods! HANG OUT WITH THE REDWOODS!), Hawaii, NZ (possibly also Australia), then back, sounds like a pretty good and likely fairly-relaxing travel itinerary! Some companies will allow Leave of Absence such that you can just take a month or two without pay, which might be worth investigating post-pandemic but pre-retirement. (I mean, unless you'll be retiring within the next two years or so, in which case, eh, just wait for that. But Gary seems reasonably prone to trending more conservative/adventure-limited, and thus hitting that vacation sooner rather than in a decade or two might be useful for ease of getting over any travel speed-bumps.)

[TheQueen]

KC - if I had to guess I would say it is length of time spent in an airplane. He gets very achy. On car trips we need to stop every few hours. I think a three hour plane trip is his max. All I can picture is a grand tour where we hop our way across the globe and get in a nights sleep between cities.

[KC]

That makes sense; while you can get up and walk around a bit in airplanes, and you can do in-seat exercises, it's challenging and also embarrassing (and, at least to the degree I've been able to do both - but I'm not an expert at the in-seat exercises and may have been doing them wrong - doesn't honestly work as well as just being able to move around freely). So! Airplane hops and visiting different cities all the way along! :-)

As a crowd-disliking introvert I generally loathe the very concept of a cruise, but post-pandemic do you think that might be an option instead?

[TheQueen]

KC - I went on a pre-norovirus cruise and a post-norovirus cruise and there was a lot of hand sanitizer. I didn’t get norovirus but I got a wicked cold anyway. I can’t see going on a cruise for ... five years.

[KC]

I sort of figure that *if* we get a vaccine with very high rates of success, and if I can get vaccinated, that's the point at which I'd be chill with being out and about with people. I am sort of hoping that is sooner than five years. :-) Mileage may vary, though, and if you can't get vaccinated and enough people in the US *won't* get vaccinated, then that would not work as well. (although maybe cruises could require proof of vaccination *or* medical exemption from vaccination, and only allow one person with a medical exemption and thus no vaccination to be on the boat at a time or something?)

[TheQueen]

KC - well, leaving the house is going to be real soon enough for me - work just sent out an email saying our leaders were going to start asking who wants to start coming back to the office. I don’t think I will need to get a doctor’s note but I could if I needed.

[KC]

Yeaaaah no. I'm pretty sure being on immunosuppressive meds means you want to stay out of that office and stay in your bubble! Unless you get a space suit thing, I guess... I wonder if there's anyone who's using scuba gear to stay COVID-free?

[TheQueen]

KC - I wonder if one of those portable oxygen systems plus a plastic face mask like you get when you are anesthetized would work on a plane.

[KC]

Portable oxygen systems may assume some external air input (I mean, you don't breathe *straight* oxygen); I think with scuba gear you're partly rebreathing your own exhalation, but think that the portable oxygen systems depend on part of your breath being ambient air?

(but otherwise, yes, that plus goggles, maybe, if you could get clearance for flying with the tanks? :-) )

[TheQueen]

KC - dang it, you are right. How about those compressed air things you use to clean out your keyboard and dust Knick-knacks? Only it would need to be larger. Or more compressed.

[KC]

I mean, it seems plausible that however scuba works, that could work, because you're not breathing water, right? (but maybe they split some of the water? I have no clue...)

The compressed air things would get very cold. Also I am not sure what type of air, exactly, is compressed in them...

[TheQueen]

KC - easier to just stay home. Sad.