With summer fast approaching and the decrease in COVID-19 travel restrictions, people across the world are itching to get back to travel. In April 2022, US travel spending beat previously-set highs from 2019 - the first time since COVID-19! As summer comes into full swing, Americans are primed to get out and travel.
With that in mind, the Aerogami Team has put together a check-list to prepare you for travel. This check-list was built with COVID in mind, as it still informs our travel behavior. Being prepared for anything is key, and taking on risk with appropriate mitigation strategies is more necessary than ever.
Here are our big 4 tips on preparing for you upcoming domestic or international travel.
1. Review COVID-19 data, trends, and requirements for your travel destination
Familiarize yourself with COVID infection rates for your location of travel, whether it's domestic or international. Knowing how prevalent COVID is in your destination will allow you to plan how you'll mitigate the risk of infection (eg, should you wear a mask in indoor settings?), depending on your risk tolerance.
For U.S. COVID infection rates, check out the CDC's COVID data tracker. You can search for infection rates for specific States or Counties, as well as the amount of local hospital beds filled with COVID patients.
For international COVID infection rates, check out the WHO's COVID-19 Dashboard. From there, you can search COVID data for specific countries, including change in infection rate over the past 7 days.
Remember: this information is important for informing your risk mitigation strategy during travel. Only you can determine your COVID-19 risk tolerance, so decide for yourself based on your research.
Also important is reviewing vaccination and other COVID-related requirements for travel. Check out travel requirements on the CDC's travel page.
2. Book your travel early - including flights and hotels
Once your educated on COVID-19 data and travel requirements for your destination, it's time to book travel!
For booking airline travel: the Aerogami Team loves using Google Flights for comparing prices on flights; it makes it easy to understand flight options and cost trends for your ideal flights.
For booking hotel stays: through our friends at Gallagher Student Health, the Aerogami Team has special access to travel discounts for hotels, flights, and car rentals. Send us a message to learn more and get access to those discounts.
3. Book travel insurance - just in case!
After COVID-19, travel insurance utilization has increased drastically in the States, and for good reason. Travel insurance allows you to protect and reimburse the value of your trip should you need to cancel (dependent on your coverage's terms). Some policies even allow you to cancel for any reason, including fear of COVID-19 infection.
The Aerogami Team recommends using WorldTrips for your travel insurance needs; they provide straight-forward, comprehensive coverage. Battleface also offers a great policy comparison tool for travel insurance.
4. Get your documents organized with DigiDoc
As you plan activities and excursions for your vacation, make sure you keep tickets and itineraries in one place. DigiDoc allows you to design the perfect itinerary app to share with everyone on your trip. Include museum tickets, directions to dinner, a phrase guide for the local language - whatever you need for your travels. Check out the France trip sample below:
Have fun and safe travels, folks! If this guide helped you at all, feel free to send pictures our way; we'd love to travel vicariously through you :)