Airplane Mode: Traveling During COVID

In summary, it pretty much sucks.

I think we can all agree that the masks suck and they’re uncomfortable and nobody wants to wear them. I’ve been breaking out a lot on my chin and cheeks (wtf?) from wearing a mask I think. However, it’s a small price to pay to stay safe/reduce chances of getting and spreading infection.

After being so strict with my initial quarantine, I wanted to make sure to still be very careful and cautious now that I’m traveling because I didn’t put myself through strict quarantine for nothing. Also, I could never forgive myself if I got anyone else sick or if they died because I was selfish.

So what’s it really like to travel during this time? To start, I try to only fly Delta in general because I really just have the worst experiences when I don’t. Interjet made me check my carry on bag and then lost it when I went to Mexico and then reimbursed me $50 for my troubles over a month later when I spent over $500 getting the things that I needed. Jet Blue has lots of seat space but I always experience delays. My advice, pick an airline and stick to it. Get the credit card that they offer and rack up those points to get higher status for free seat upgrades or cash them in for free flights. The real reason Delta is superior? Their in-flight snacks are delicious Biscoff cookies. If you haven’t had them, you’re missing out.

The first flight I took was from Cincinnati, Ohio to Salt Lake City, Utah. My mom lives in Louisville, Kentucky but there weren’t any direct flights so I wanted to limit the amount of airports that I went through. I figured it’s be easier to return the rental car that I had rented from New York in Cincinnati to avoid a layover somewhere else. We had a very early flight and when we got to the check in counter, there was a lonnnnnnng ass line. Ugh! This is the main reason I never check luggage but since we were leaving NY for some time, we had brought tons of clothes and hiking gear as well as a monitor and other work from home equipment. No one was practicing social distancing in the line which stressed me out and there were only 3 agents and a fourth one roaming around doing God-knows-what. He was also really rude but the others were very nice. The line ended up moving pretty quickly and I think it was just long to begin with because the counter had probably just opened.

Going through the TSA checkpoint was much smoother and we had TSA pre-check so we didn’t even have to take our shoes off or take our laptops out of the bags. Everyone here was keeping their distance which made it a seamless experience. Once in the terminal, we didn’t have an issue with social distancing because the place was pretty much deserted. We timed it just right so that we didn’t even have to wait long at the gate before we started boarding. Steph and I had seats in the same row with the middle seat being blocked off by Delta so we just passed out for the majority of the flight.

Landing in SLC was a bit of a shock. Not everyone was wearing a mask and we landed at one of those gates that shares the waiting area with like 4 other gates. It was packed. We just tried to navigate through the sea of people quickly to reduce the time under possible exposure. I was and still am pretty pissed that some people weren’t wearing masks in the terminal. SLC has a lot of cases and it’s not surprising after witnessing behavior like this. Luckily, Olga’s house was in Park City so we didn’t spend much time in SLC at all.

We rented a beautiful Jeep Wrangler for our trip which in retrospect was kind of stupid but we were living our best lives. We rented through Enterprise and had a really great experience picking up, extending the reservation and returning it.

I flew back by myself because Steph was off somewhere doing crazy hikes in Southern Utah. The SLC airport was crowded again and I had about an hour and a half of time at the gate before taking off. This sucked because again I was at one of those group gates. They had every other seat marked to promote social distancing but I was still pretty uncomfortable. Once on the plane, everything was fine. I lucked out with a whole row to myself so I laid across the row and did what I do best — took a nap. It was like a four and a half hour flight so when I woke up I spent some time writing some of the blog posts that will be published this week.

We landed pretty late, like around 11PM so the airport was pretty empty. If you want to travel when there are less people, definitely take flights at off peak hours in general, not just during COVID. Flights at night are my fave because I just go to sleep. Let’s be serious, I sleep on all flights regardless of time but it’s def easier on later flights.

Overall, the experiences weren’t terrible and people were pretty respectful for the most part in terms of wearing a mask. I would prefer to drive a lot of hours instead of going through an airport but for some distances it’s just not really feasible or very appealing. If I had to do anything differently, I would definitely not check a bag to avoid the line at the ticket counter because it was pretty much a cluster fuck. It’a such a hassle to travel with large luggage anyway and I never end up wearing all of the unnecessary clothes that I packed. Stay safe and wear the damn mask. Nobody likes it but it will slow the spread significantly and it can save lives.

Have you traveled during COVID times?