What is it like to Travel in Corona Times?
Now I have flown twice during the COVID-19 pandemic that is going on around the world. Is it right or wrong is up to everyone I think. What I can say is that the flight has been full up to every single seat both to and from Faro when I went there in late July and home again in early August. I think that says a lot about how much people want to travel right now and nothing I’m ashamed of at all.
I have received many questions about what it is like to travel in Corona times, if you dare, are there any tourists, do you need a mouth guard, etc yes you have asked me a lot of questions that I thought I would answer in this blog post 🙂
Arlanda Airport and my flight
At Arlanda Airport, you don’t need to wear a mouth guard, however, when you board the flight, you need to put on the mouth guard already in the gate and wear it until you land and arrive outside that airport. Yes, you can remove it during the flight if you are going to drink or eat something, but then you have to put it on again. Serving doesn’t take place at all during the entire flight, so make sure you have eaten food before you fly. There were only a few restaurants open at Arlanda Airport, the rest were closed. There is a water bottle on each seat on board the flight so that’s all you get. (I flew with SAS July & August 2020)
I have to say that I thought it was really hard to wear the mouth guard during the whole flight which took a little more than 4 hours to Faro but of course, it’s unusual but I actually don’t know if I will ever get used to it either. I mostly think it was annoying and itchy on my face.
Health declaration
Before landing to Faro, everyone on board needed to fill in a form with which seat they have, flight number and their home address and telephone number. This was then collected in case someone on the flight later turned out to be corona infected, so you can track everyone who has been near of that person. Fortunately, I still haven’t heard anything from the airline and I am still completely healthy.
Mouthguards in Portugal
How was it then in Portugal? People walked on the street and walked on the beach just as usual I think, without mouth guards. However, you always need to have mouth guards with you in your bag or pocket because you need it if you step into a grocery store, a clothing store, yes all sorts of stores and even restaurants. You only need to wear the mouth guard when you step into restaurants and have to leave, while you are sitting down at the table, you don’t need to wear it.
Likewise, if you are going to travel by bus or train, then you also need it on you during the entire trip. On the beach I didn’t have to wear it but if I had to order something to drink or eat in a beach bar then I needed to wear it, even when I had to go to the toilet, so don’t miss to have a mouth guard with you all the time if you going to Portugal right now.
Disinfectant alcohol, mouth guards and menus
Everywhere you will find hand alcohol standing here and there in restaurants, shops and other places. The menus in the restaurants were something new to me because in a lot of places they have instead of physical menus to touch, converted the menus to QR codes so you have to have your phone with you, but you usually have that anyway. You take a photo of the QR code and then the restaurant’s menu opens up on the screen. Smart in one way but the text becomes incredibly small and you have to keep zooming in and out all the time which was a bit annoying I think.
In other restaurants, the physical menus remained as you got them, but you also had to keep them at the table because they were “our menus” so no one else could take them because they needed to be cleaned and sprayed off before a new party could have them, which I thought was smartly done!
Empty beaches
Yes it was actually empty beaches and the people who were on the beach actually kept a good distance between each other. It was really noticeable that there were hardly any tourists here at all, which I actually have to say was really nice but sad for Portugal’s tourism industry of course.
Have you been flying during the Corona Pandemic, how was it for you?
Happy Travels!
// Charlotte
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8 Comments
Japp, har flugit både inrikes och till Rom och delar uppfattningen om att det är lätt irriterande med munskydd på flyget (eller rent allmänt). Men det är nog bara att vänja sig. Sedan tycker jag det är märkligt att vissa flygbolag har kvar matservice ombord och andra inte. Jag börjar nästan ana att man tagit bort serveringen av andra skäl än pandemin.
Ja visst är det bara att vänja sig, så är det! 😉 Håller med dig angående serveringen ombord, borde vara lika för alla flygbolag!
Hej!
Jo jag flög till Malaga 5-10 aug. Landvetrer var ganska öde o inget var öppet , kanske för att det var så tidigt? Flyget till AMS gick 6.10.. jorå munskydd på, men KLM serverade förpackad macka o kaka, o vagnen med kaffe o juice e.d kom..
Tycker man borde ändra boardingen, längst bak först o.s.v.. o när man var vid gate bad piloten att man skulle sitta kvar tills raden före börjat gå ,(gör jag alltid, brukar sätta ut en fot lr väska så de bakom inte ska tränga sig..).. men det lyssnade folk inte på..
Lite jobbigt med munskydd på överallt i +30 i Malaga, men superhärlig resa.
Hotellet hade infört att man bokade tid till poolen på taket, väldigt bra, var aldrig trångt.
I september bär det av igen :-).
Intressant att höra om din upplevelse! 🙂
Jasså man behövde gå omkring med munskyddet på överallt i Malaga, vad jobbigt eller? Det behövde man inte i Portugal vilket var skönt.
Kul med ny resa i september, vart blir det då? 🙂 Jag åker iväg igen nu till helgen, ska bli så skönt med sol och värme!
Usch fasar för munskyddet på flyget och om man måste ha det på land. Kommer aldrig vänja mig vid det.
Jo vi kommer behöva det överallt, bussen, promenader, på gatan, restauranger etc. Får se till att typ hänga vid poolen hela tiden 😉
Har du vart på Algarvekusten i oktober någongång. Funderar på att åka dit, men undrar om det är kallt och helt dött då?
Hje Mimmi,
Jag är på Algarvekusten nu och det är kanonväder här! Det går att bada, ligga på stranden och det är mindre turister, vilket jag tycker är jätteskönt! Det är inte helt dött, men som sagt inte lika mycket turister som exempelvis augusti.
Med vänlig hälsning, Charlotte