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By Corina Quinn, Condé Nast Traveller
Navigating summer travel during a pandemic isn’t easy. In How I Did It, we break down our first attempts at getting back out there—and all the considerations we made along the way.
My immediate family takes a vacation together every summer. But with borders closed and U.S. residents advised not to travel internationally, we canceled our week in the Canadian Rockies back in April, and figured this would be the year we did nothing at all.
A last-minute trip to Emerald Isle, N.C., a beach town on the state's Crystal Coast, presented itself when my brother-in-law was browsing rentals on a whim. Our respective home bases of Brooklyn (me), and Northern Virginia (everyone else) had just announced plans for reopening—and the idea of doing a trip closer to home didn’t sound too crazy anymore.
Miraculously, he found a house large enough to hold us with rare last-minute availability—June is usually peak time in the area—and as such, was being offered for a steep discount. The group text debating the idea lasted less than a day before we booked.
Three weeks and several COVID-19 tests later, we were on the beach vacation of our dreams, relaxed to the hilt. The best part? There were no planes involved, no international boundaries crossed—and it was at a fraction of the cost of any other year. Even better, we managed to do the trip safely within everyone's various comfort zones. Here's how we pulled it off.
Trip details
Destination: Emerald Isle, N.C.Homebase: Brooklyn, NY
How we got there: Personal cars
Accommodation: Home rental through Bluewater NC
How many nights: Seven
Who went: Eight adults (including my mother, my siblings, and their spouses) and six kids (four nephews and two nieces, ages 6 to 15)
Other things we considered: Our collective PTO was still on the calendar from our original trip, so taking time off work wasn't hard. Personal cars also made it easy to safely reach our destination.
Getting there
Once we booked the house, we all agreed to speak with our physicians about COVID-19 risks, and, based on their suggestions and our current circumstances, opted for live tests or other measures as needed. I was coming from New York City, a prior hot spot, and my sister-in-law works for a Level 1 trauma center and hospital. She opted for a live COVID-19 test the week before we left since she was exhibiting symptoms; she tested negative. Though I had taken and tested negative for an antibody test, my physician ultimately cleared me for travel because I had been in a strict quarantine since March. She also said that continuing to wear a mask, social distance from non-family members, and stringently sanitize in public places would make the trip low-risk for me either catching or passing the disease.All of our doctors agreed that by driving to the beach house, which had touchless check-in, and aiming to stay there for the week with minimal trips into town, we were taking a fairly safe, low-risk trip. Because my family is all clustered in Northern Virginia and own their cars, they were only crossing one state border.
The biggest logistical question was how I could get there from New York. A friend who had just tested negative for a live COVID-19 test and was in my quarantine bubble ended up driving me to my mother's house, and from there I rode to the beach with my mom. The drive from New York to Virginia goes through four states, including New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland—and we did not plan a single stop, rather pulling over as we needed to eat or use the restroom, and sussing it out from there. It's hard to emphasize how consistently safe the rest stops felt across all states, from New York to North Carolina. Masks were required, social distancing was being practiced, and sanitation appeared high.
Lastly, we plotted out all of our meals for the duration of the trip in a shared spreadsheet, well in advance, with different adults assigned to various meals. This allowed us to do as much advanced shopping as possible, and bring in a majority of our groceries. In the end, only a few stray stops into town for fresh ingredients, like seafood, were needed.
Daily considerations
We brought all of our own beach chairs, umbrellas, and boogie boards, mainly because we already had the gear we needed for a week of beach days. Our days were loosely structured around meals, with a group breakfast starting at 8 a.m. (though some slept in), hitting the beach around 10:30 a.m., and lunch on the sand, preferably with a Modelo in hand. In the evenings, cocktail hour and a group dinner were always on the agenda.On the beach, we collected seashells, swam, read, and someone was always napping in the sun. After coming from such a densely populated city like New York, where there's no choice but to wear masks wherever you go, it was such a relief to be on a wide, open beach where the next stranger was at least 50 yards away. We had read up on bubbling for a trip like this, and all our prep work made it possible to hang up our masks while at our homebase, and hug constantly. We pretty much kept to the house, but when we did venture into town, it was masks on, six feet away from other people, and hand sanitizer at the ready. But another thing that came as a surprise, after my months in a crowded city? At the local Food Lion, the parking lot was so large you couldn't get near anyone else. Ditto inside the actual store, which was so massive, I only got within feet of another person at check-out.
