Pre-travel stress is real! Recognise, plan and mitigate to make it easier.
I've always worried when travelling ever since I began flying alone.
Passport - check ✅
Wallet - check ✅
Laptop - check ✅
Five minutes later…check again. And so on the process goes. I hate that I am not laissez-faire about it, but I can't help it. But before travelling Thailand, I really went into overdrive - some warranted, some not so.
First was the constant document checks, similar to the above but just in the week or so leading up to it to just check again that I had everything we needed to get into the country. I really didn't want this trip to go wrong since it was the first I'd had sponsored by a third party so I wanted to prove that I could do a great job - nothing was going to stop this trip going ahead!
Well that was until Omicron unleashed itself on the world. Despite testing negative on my pre-departure PCR test and many lateral flows, I still thought there may be a possibility I may catch covid and then end up in isolation on arrival. After all, countries in Asia generally have far stricter I was seriously considering cancelling the flights because of this fear or reality that only realised itself close to departure. This culminated in headaches and a sleepless night in the 48 hours leading to the flight and only really ended when I was at the Test & Go quarantine hotel when I knew I couldn't change anything. Honestly, this 'symptom' made me think I had Covid and the fears would come true…thankfully that wasn't the case.
Why am I writing this? I want all my readers and those who stumble on this blog to recognise early on or whilst booking what the risks of travelling are right now.
We've seen border closures, added testing requirements, hotel quarantine on arrival and more. Recognise that even if a country is open or opening up to tourism that things may change and that it will not be the same. Recognise what may happen if things go wrong where you travel to such as having to quarantine in a hospital - think about what you might need. Have a back up plan if the country you're visiting is suddenly red listed by your home government.
This may seem like overkill but I wish that I had considered this earlier on in the process of planning. Had I accepted this risk earlier on, I wouldn't have worried about it so much. Am I glad I took this trip to Thailand? One million percent. Would I do it again? Two million percent yes - whether that's hoping Japan and The Philippines open up soon or elsewhere in South East Asia. There are many risks to travelling right now which we must recognise but taking as many precautions and planning as much as possible, just like anything in life, can help mitigate issues from occurring. After all, going to your local supermarket in the UK you are likely to have a far greater risk of catching Covid than I did whilst travelling around Thailand masked and vaccinated up.
