As the pandemic (hopefully and thankfully) starts to draw to an end, we’ve started traveling again. While some things have stayed the same but other things have changed. Last month we traveled to the midwest to visit Andrew’s family, which was the first time Ive flown since January 2020 and I got a handful of questions about how it went.
First things first, you have to wear a mask basically door to door. In Seattle, people are very diligent about mask-wearing and that includes in the airport and airplane. On our flight to Chicago, the flight attendants kept coming on the speaker system and reminding people that you have to wear a mask over your nose and chin. This included while you’re eating. They would specify that you need to “take a bite, then pull your mask back up while you chew and swallow.” Like I said, very diligent. This rule was the same on our flight home on a different airline.
But what about Ted?
So my two-year-old will wear a mask but not for long periods of time. For this reason, I didn’t put a mask on him until we were about to board the airplane and I only ended up doing that because an airline representative specifically asked how old he was and then said “two years olds need to be wearing masks as well.” He ended up wearing his mask for about 1.5 of our three-hour flight to Chicago. Not bad in my opinion.
I’d heard horror stories of families being kicked off flights because young children wouldn’t comply with mask mandates so I was more than a little stressed when the flight attendants were quite militant about everyone wearing masks including little kids. During the times when Ted wouldn’t wear a mask, I made sure he had a steady stream of snacks and drinks just to ensure that nobody would give us a hard time but I was pretty stressed about it.
The flight home out of Indiana was a totally different story. Nobody asked about his mask or even seemed to care that he and other little kids weren’t wearing masks. This wasn’t the case for older school-aged kids but little kids got off easy.
In Chicago, people seemed to be mask-wearing just as much as in Seattle. You had to wear masks anytime you went indoors. Lots of the tourist attractions were closed or fenced off to avoid crowding. Then we drove over the border into Indiana and the story totally changed. Indiana doesn’t currently have a state-wide mask mandate so it’s up to the individual stores, restaurants, shops, and individuals to decide if they are going to wear a mask or enforce a mask-wearing policy. Needless to say, there was minimal mask-wearing overall.
We spent our final day in the midwest at the Indianapolis Zoo and they had a mask mandate but it was barely being enforced. You had to wear a mask to go into the zoo and in any of the buildings but nobody was enforcing mask-wearing while outdoors, a very different experience than our recent trips to the zoo here in Seattle.
In conclusion, traveling in the age of Covid is both the same and a little different. Flights are long and tedious, you still have to wait in line at the airport, etc. However, it’s good to know the protocols and restrictions at your final destination. I know that some places are still requiring proof of a negative covid test prior to boarding. I imagine we’ll soon be showing proof of vaccination as countries start to open up travel for Americans again. Just get ready to wear a mask the entire time you’re flying.
Best of luck and safe travels.
xo – Ana Luiza
