When we first started our journey as travelers, we didn’t really have a plan. Just travel and work, just go with the flow, but Covid-19 changed everything. Traveling during Covid-19 has brought all sorts of challenges we never thought of. Here is my top 3 of the challenges we faced:

Challenge number 1: Traveling itself

Crossing borders became a whole new challenge. Who knew it was going to be this difficult? All the different rules per country. In some countries you need to be vaccinated, go into quarantine, self isolate, etc. And it also mattered where you were traveling from.

Traveling in Europe has been the greatest challenge. Paul is British and I am Dutch, so we can’t stay anywhere longer than 90 days if we want to stay together. Besides that, the endless testing, stress because of testing, and cost that comes with it. Especially in the beginning of the pandemic PCR tests were very expensive. And don’t even get me started about the stress beforehand. Do I have Covid? What can we do if we are positive? But so far, we have been very lucky.

Tips:

• Do your research. We found this amazing website: www.covidcontrols.co with entry information per country and it is always up to date.
• Local laboratories offer (cheap) PCR and Rapid tests. Most of the time you can just walk in.

Challenge number 2: Getting vaccinated

As you could read in one of my previous posts, getting vaccinated was also a lot more challenging than we thought it would be. We managed to get our first vaccination (Johnson&Johnson) in Croatia, and 2 more (Pfizer) later on in North-Macedonia.

Tips:

• Ask around. The locals are more than willing to help you out.
• If you are renting from an Airbnb host, they are also most willing to help.
• Look on government / medical websites and send them an email or call. You are most likely to find some sort of information

Challenge number 3: Boredom

We can’t wait for the world to open up again, and travel to destinations unknown! This being said, we are also very grateful that while this was going on, we still had: a job, a roof above our heads, food in the fridge and each other. 

Tips:

• Give each other space. It is so important to have a bit of alone time.
• Listen to each other. 
• Try to make things cozy at home. Buy some nice tapas, a few beers (or wine), a bit of music in the background and sit at the table playing cards. And after a few beers, give your best friend(s) a call! Believe me, these are the moments to remember!

Now you’ve got a bit of insight into our challenges during this pandemic. What were/are your challenges during Covid-19? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.