How Coronavirus Ended My Travels

How Coronavirus Ended My Travels

In 2019 I was happily following the banana-pancake trail as I backpacked across Southeast Asia. Then the Coronavirus broke out, wreaking havoc on the travel industry. This blog post covers the story of how Coronavirus ended my travels.

Leaving Asia

I had been on the road for almost five months and I still had several destinations remaining on my list. However, with Coronavirus spreading quickly and the situation beginning to escalate in Southeast Asia, it soon became clear that the only way to deal with the pandemic without a vaccine would be to lock down, restrict movement and avoid social contact. 

A lockdown would mean no markets, no bars, no restaurants, no meeting new people, no transport and nowhere to stay. Lockdown would remove everything that makes travelling both easy and fun. Lockdown would be the so-called “antichrist” of travel! 

Limited governmental action across Southeast Asia allowed me to continue travelling during the pandemic. But by day 140 of my trip, it had gotten to the point where I needed to leave the continent. I faced a decision: go to Australia or go home! 

Australia vs Home

In Australia, I had a yearlong Working Holiday VISA waiting for me which would expire in September if I didn’t use it! Plus, statistics showed that Australia wasn’t suffering as badly as many other countries, and the likely border closures would only further assist in dealing with the virus! 

On the other hand, the UK was going into meltdown. Friends and family back in England tried to deter me from coming home, saying that the UK was spiraling into chaos. The only positives seemed to be a roof over my head and spending time with my family. However, I didn’t want to catch the virus in transit and give it to my parents. 

Knowing that I was only eligible for the Working Holiday VISA once in my lifetime, and with the backing of my family, I decided to go to Australia! 

Flight companies continued to advertise ghost flights routed through airports that restrictions wouldn’t allow, such as Singapore or Kuala Lumpur. This made booking flights a lot more confusing!

I bought a flight from Bangkok to Melbourne. Little did I know when booking that it would land just 3 hours before Australia’s international borders were closed (phew!). Some days after booking, the Australian Prime Minister announced that Australia’s international borders were going to close. This left many scrambling to enter the country on last-minute flights before it was too late. It also meant that my flight was absolutely rammed! 

Isolation: Lots Can Happen In 2 Weeks!

Relieved to make it in time, my friend and I made our way to his sister’s place. She and her boyfriend very kindly allowed us to stay and isolate in their house. This also meant that neither of them could leave either!

The plan was to isolate in Melbourne for 2 weeks. After that, we would find jobs doing regional farm work to qualify for the second Working Holiday VISA. With fewer people entering the country and more people heading home, that would be easy right?

Wrong.

During the two weeks spent in self-isolation; in addition to the closure of international borders, state borders also closed. This meant that I was restricted to finding a job, a vehicle, and accommodation in just Victoria! With peak farming season in Victoria occurring between October and March, I had arrived just as the season was ending and winter was beginning…

The few farms that were hiring often sought Australian citizens as unemployment rates rose. Other farms wanted backpackers with particular farming experience. Others wanted people who had already been isolated on farms for a long time with minimal human contact. I was none of those things.

Coupling this with the increasing anti-backpacker sentiment of some Australian nationals who blamed the virus on travellers, many backpackers were panicking and heading home! 

As if the lack of jobs wasn’t enough, the UK government advised all overseas citizens to return home as soon as possible and the Australian Prime Minister similarly recommended overseas travellers to leave Australia. And to top it off: if I didn’t follow governmental travel advice, my travel insurance would be voided.

Fantastic!

Unlike France and several other European countries, the UK provided minimal support in the repatriation of their citizens. Emails to MPs, Tweets to the Foreign Commonwealth Office, and Facebook messages requesting further information were all useless. All I received were automated responses containing material irrelevant to my situation.

Flight companies, who had been losing out on money due to reduced flights, preyed on the vulnerability of travellers by raising prices or cancelling flights without providing refunds. But at this point, given the closure of state borders, hostels and much of the hospitality industry alongside governmental advice voiding my insurance, I had to just suck it up and leave. Bye-bye savings. 

By the time I was able to open up the front door again after self-isolation, it was already time to go home!

My only experiences of Aussie culture were having a BBQ, trying Tim Tams and seeing two dead wombats!

The Journey Home

As I made my way back to Melbourne Airport having not left the house in just over 2 weeks, I was curious to see any changes from the last time we drove the route (particularly since these were the only sights of Australia I would be getting). The only differences that I noticed were the quieter roads, and the removal of the two dead wombats that had been at the side of the road 2 weeks prior.

I arrived at the airport an hour earlier than initially planned having been told that airports would be chaotic and slow. However, because I had arrived so early, nobody had opened the check-in desk meaning that I had time to just wait around and take in this surreal atmosphere. 

The airport was quiet, none of the check-in desks were open and even the majority of the lights were off! Everyone looked scared and confused behind their masks. Plenty of other passengers clearly had the same idea as me, meaning that a long queue for a check-in desk (that wasn’t even open) gradually started to form. 

With fewer members of staff working at the airport, those that remained were under significant pressure trying to keep everyone informed and safe. Passengers stood at 1.5m intervals positioned by staff and waited. Finally, a few lights flickered on and three check-in desks opened!

At security, there was just one scanner open. Yet strangely, despite the enormous queue behind me at check-in, it was just me and one other lady in the whole area. I whizzed straight through and entered the empty lounge! All shops were closed; vending machines were switched off and the seats had been covered in tape to ensure socially distanced seating.

Despite the lack of staff in the whole airport, a lady still came up to me to advertise the lounge at a “reduced price”. I declined due to my lack of Aussie dollars… Honestly, how on earth did I manage to spend two weeks in a country without even seeing the cash they use?! 

Eventually, it was time to board and everyone suddenly appeared! Social distancing went out of the window.

Staff told us to queue up for the next waiting area. As people were let into this smaller waiting area, it soon filled up and became more and more cramped. It wasn’t until another staff member reminded the person letting us through of social distancing measures, that they stopped. At this point it was too late, we were packed in. The whole process was like herding cattle, the only issue was that these cattle herders had not been trained!

We were let on the plane one by one, keeping our distance from one another. It seemed strange, given the proximity that people had been waiting in, and then the next 24 hours we were about to be stuck in a plane together. 

15 hours later, we exited the plane at Doha Airport, the only airport that I could fly via on the way home given Singapore and Malaysia had closed their borders even for stopovers and I couldn’t cross state borders to get a direct flight home from Darwin.

All shops were closed except for one cafe in which the water was over £5! All of the water fillup stations had been switched off too! Strange given that people would need a drink between long-haul flights!

With a few hours to kill waiting for my next flight, I persuaded a lady at the information desk to give me a free water bottle. Unfortunately for her, several other people saw me do this and followed the trend forming a queue for free water.

Arriving back in the UK: The new normal

When I first envisaged coming home after my travels, I thought I would come back a tanned man needing a haircut. I thought I would have plenty of plans to meet up with friends that I hadn’t seen in over a year, job applications on the go, and maybe even a reason to wear jeans again!

As it turned out, I was indeed a tanned man in desperate need of a haircut when I got home! However, instead of all these wonderful plans, arriving back in the UK unexpectedly early left me with a lot of time on my hands and not a whole lot to do! I had no job to return to, no car, and wasn’t allowed to see non-household members. Sadly, the UK lockdown meant that the tan faded before anyone saw and barbers were all closed.

After unpacking my worldly belongings back into my rather empty room, saying hello to my family and cat, testing out the shower and my bed, and appreciating the cleanliness of being back home, I was now in the world of isolation. A world where seeing a plane in the sky would be the excitement of my day!

I went from being outside daily, having the freedom to do whatever I wanted and being away from family, to the polar opposite! My days were spent completing insurance claim forms and searching for jobs (not easy when everything is closing down). I wasn’t even eligible for job-seekers allowance because I hadn’t paid sufficient National Insurance contributions since I had been travelling rather than working over the last year.

This complete lifestyle change was tough to adjust to at first, and I’m sure post-travel blues had their part to play in my mood. But two and a half months later, I think I have almost adjusted back to the new normal. Though sadly, I am still no closer to getting a haircut!

Before you go

Thank you for reading my post on how Coronavirus ended my travels. If guides, itineraries and travel content like this interest you, head over to my blog page to find out more.

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Happy travelling!