Will you travel? [Mod Note in Post #1 - Travel Discussion Only! Megathread]

uli84

Avoid non-essential travel, Easy to say, i’d avoid with pleasure if I had the option of refund or cancellation

BringBackMick

Seems like Catherine Martin, the Minister for Tourism does not seem to realise the the foreign affairs advice to citizens on Green list is 'normal precautions'

Maybe somebody ought to let her know before she talks mis-truths to the media.

She said that although Italy was on Ireland's "green list" of countries from which returning travellers do not have to restrict their movements, many other citizens had followed the guidance to avoid non-essential travel "at some personal and financial cost to themselves"

skywalker_208

skywalker_208 wrote: »

As I expected and as discussed a few pages back - schools have sent out return to school policy and have specified do not send your child to school if they have been out of the country in the 14 days prior to school opening date - not to attend school and must isolate....

facehugger99 wrote: »

Yeah, I'll be ignoring that

That's a shame.

Can I ask why you feel you can decide what aspects of your child/childrens' school's rules you will observe and which you will ignore? Does it come to down to whatever is more convenient for yourself, or is simply that you are the one who gets to decide what rules apply to you?

Pretzill

mikekerry wrote: »

Why will next year be better?

I'm hoping Covid -19 will be under control by then, why? What else do you think I meant? And I don't have a problem with judgment, I don't know anyone who would judge me for taking a short break - I have a problem with putting my husband (who is in the at-risk category) further at risk and with isolating on my return.

If you're looking for something else, I'm not biting.

Mr rebel

facehugger99 wrote: »

It's a great time to visit cities, much quieter than normal and not thronged with tourists. Bars and clubs are still open even in Barcelona.

Hugely compromised though with social distancing and early closing hours.

otnomart

I am genuinely intestered in seeing the statistics of how many people in each Country went abroad on holiday this Summer.

So far, I only found the Italian data: 10000 went on holiday abroad (mainly to Spain and Greece, followed by Croatia and Malta). It is next to nothing for a Country with 60 million people, more so when compared to last Summer's data which was 8,6 million who went on holiday abroad.

Has anyone seen the data for Ireland, UK, other EU Countries ?

Jim_Hodge

BringBackMick wrote: »

Seems like Catherine Martin, the Minister for Tourism does not seem to realise the the foreign affairs advice to citizens on Green list is 'normal precautions'

Maybe somebody ought to let her know before she talks mis-truths to the media.

Normal precautions, as in from a health/safety perspective - the clue is in the word 'precautions'. This refer to essential travel. Non-essential travel, however, is still to be avoided. A holiday is non-essential travel.

BringBackMick

Jim_Hodge wrote: »

Normal precautions, as in from a health/safety perspective - the clue is in the word 'precautions'. This refer to essential travel. Non-essential travel, however, is still to be avoided. A holiday is non-essential travel.

Sorry you are totally wrong, just go check out the DFA website for yourself.

Here is the important quote.

In accordance with Government policy, which is based on official public health advice, the Department of Foreign Affairs continues to advise against non-essential travel overseas. This includes Great Britain but does not apply to Northern Ireland. It also includes all travel by cruise ship.

Travel to a very limited set of locations is exempted from this advice. Individuals arriving into Ireland from these locations will not be required to restrict their movements upon entry. These locations currently have a ‘normal precautions’ (“green”) security status rating. As of 4 August 2020, these locations are:

Greenlist countries are exempted from the non-essential travel advice.

Plain and simple.

RoryMac

Jim_Hodge wrote: »

Normal precautions, as in from a health/safety perspective - the clue is in the word 'precautions'. This refer to essential travel. Non-essential travel, however, is still to be avoided. A holiday is non-essential travel.

As above you are completely wrong, normal precautions is the lowest level of advice available to the Dept of Foreign Affairs and they specifically say the non essential advice does not apply to countries on the green list

SimonTemplar

The place we had planned to go to in France next week has had two cases of the virus this week. Those are the first cases in the town. It is a fairly small and self-contained place but gets very densely populated during the summer with tourists, many of whom stay for weeks or months in holiday apartments or on a camp site.

The two cases are from an employee in a supermarket and another in a hotel, both of whom would have interacted with a lot of people. It is tough decision but we decided not to go. It doesn't seem wise to travel to such a place where the impact of those two cases is not yet known. They could have potentially infected many more people.

gmisk

normanoffside wrote: »

He has resigned it's the top story on RTE

https://www.rte.ie/news/2020/0815/1159351-michael-cawley-failte-ireland/

He didn't have much of a choice....it was clearly non essential travel.

mikekerry

Pretzill wrote: »

I'm hoping Covid -19 will be under control by then, why? What else do you think I meant? And I don't have a problem with judgment, I don't know anyone who would judge me for taking a short break - I have a problem with putting my husband (who is in the at-risk category) further at risk and with isolating on my return.

If you're looking for something else, I'm not biting.

All I'm saying is that just because the year in the calendar is different this wont mean anything thing will change with travel without a vaccine. I hope I'm wrong

facehugger99

Mr rebel wrote: »

Hugely compromised though with social distancing and early closing hours.

Lol. Compared to Ireland, it's heaven.

mikekerry

mikekerry wrote: »

All I'm saying is that just because the year in the calendar is different this wont mean anything thing will change with travel without a vaccine. I hope I'm wrong

I wouldn't judge you for anything. What's your business is your business.

John O.Groats

ecoli3136 wrote: »

That's a shame.

Can I ask why you feel you can decide what aspects of your child/childrens' school's rules you will observe and which you will ignore? Does it come to down to whatever is more convenient for yourself, or is simply that you are the one who gets to decide what rules apply to you?

Nail on head.

MickeyLeari

gmisk wrote: »

He didn't have much of a choice....it was clearly non essential travel.

Green list country so according to DFA Advice that did not hold.

Someone who is tasked with promoting staycations and holidaying abroad is a different issue.

facehugger99

ecoli3136 wrote: »

That's a shame.

Can I ask why you feel you can decide what aspects of your child/childrens' school's rules you will observe and which you will ignore? Does it come to down to whatever is more convenient for yourself, or is simply that you are the one who gets to decide what rules apply to you?

I'm the best person to make that call, not some Mandarin in the DOE.

Outsource your critical thinking to the bureaucrats if you wish. I'll be thinking for myself.

JP Liz V1

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

I always find hypocrisy amusing particularly when it comes from people who want the populace to follow a particular policy.
Italy is beautiful though good choice of destination.


https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/tourism-chief-on-holidays-in-italy-amid-massive-campaign-to-promote-staycations-39451408.html

Cawley has resigned

facehugger99

facehugger99 wrote: »

I'm the best person to make that call, not some Mandarin in the DOE.

Outsource your critical thinking to the bureaucrats if you wish. I'll be thinking for myself.

facehugger99 wrote: »

I'm the best person to make that call, not some Mandarin in the DOE.

Outsource your critical thinking to the bureaucrats if you wish. I'll be thinking of myself.

I think I understand what you're trying to say.

Wallander

I took a look today at Germany's new slightly tighter travel system - as expected it's light years ahead of Ireland.

You can travel wherever you want within the EU, with restrictions replying on return from designated risk areas (with infection rates over 50 per 100,000 last two weeks). These are:

Belgium: Province of Antwerp (since 5/8/20)
Bulgaria: Districts ("oblasts") of Blagoevgrad, Dobritch, Varna(since 7/8/20)
Luxembourg (since 14/7/20)
Romania: Districts of Argeș, Bihor, Buzău, Neamt, Ialomita, Mehedinti, Timis (since 7/8/20) - Districts of Bacu, Brsila, Brasov, D'mbovica, Galai, Gorj, Ilfov, Prahova, Vaslui, Vrancea and the metropolitan region of the capital Bucharest (since 12/8/20)
Spain:Autonomous communities of Aragón, Catalonia, Navarre (since 31/7/20) - Basque Country and Madrid (since 11/8/20) - I think the whole of Spain was categorised high risk in the last couple of days

Restrictions are that you take a Covid test on returning from these areas and self isolate until you get a negative result. If you don't want a test you self isolate for two weeks.

Note Germany dropped all travel restrictions to the rest of the EU two months ago and its two week infection rate (16) is now much smaller than Ireland (22) with our 'toughest travel restrictions in Europe'

MickeyLeari

Wallander wrote: »

I took a look today at Germany's new slightly tighter travel system - as expected it's light years ahead of Ireland.

You can travel wherever you want within the EU, with restrictions replying on return from designated risk areas (with infection rates over 50 per 100,000 last two weeks). These are:

Belgium: Province of Antwerp (since 5/8/20)
Bulgaria: Districts ("oblasts") of Blagoevgrad, Dobritch, Varna(since 7/8/20)
Luxembourg (since 14/7/20)
Romania: Districts of Argeș, Bihor, Buzău, Neamt, Ialomita, Mehedinti, Timis (since 7/8/20) - Districts of Bacu, Brsila, Brasov, D'mbovica, Galai, Gorj, Ilfov, Prahova, Vaslui, Vrancea and the metropolitan region of the capital Bucharest (since 12/8/20)
Spain:Autonomous communities of Aragón, Catalonia, Navarre (since 31/7/20) - Basque Country and Madrid (since 11/8/20) - I think the whole of Spain was categorised high risk in the last couple of days

Restrictions are that you take a Covid test on returning from these areas and self isolate until you get a negative result. If you don't want a test you self isolate for two weeks.

Note Germany dropped all travel restrictions to the rest of the EU two months ago and its two week infection rate (16) is now much smaller than Ireland (22) with our 'toughest travel restrictions in Europe'

Far more sensible approach.

sy_flembeck

ecoli3136 wrote: »

Cancelled our holiday in France weeks ago.

Anyone travelling for a holiday who doesn't quarantine themselves for 14 days on the way back in has a particularily nasty self-centred streak in them (you shouldn't have gone in the first place in fact).

There's no doubt but that travel abroad will import cases, and you don't know and can't say if you are one

For someone who, by their own admission, only cancelled their planned trip to France a matter of 'weeks ago', that's a fairly high horse you've climbed up on since

Del Griffith

Wallander wrote: »

Restrictions are that you take a Covid test on returning from these areas and self isolate until you get a negative result. If you don't want a test you self isolate for two weeks.

Seriously why are we not doing this? There isn't still a shortage of tests is there?

Why are we asking healthy people self isolate for 2 weeks, it's ridiculous.

Van.Bosch

Del Griffith wrote: »

Seriously why are we not doing this? There isn't still a shortage of tests is there?

Why are we asking healthy people self isolate for 2 weeks, it's ridiculous.

While I agree I think there is a risk you bring Covid in but the test could still show negative due to incubation? Maybe I’m wrong?

sy_flembeck

sy_flembeck wrote: »

For someone who, by their own admission, only cancelled their planned trip to France a matter of 'weeks ago', that's a fairly high horse you've climbed up on since

Are you really saying that because I cancelled my holiday weeks before making that post I therefore "nearly" travelled abroad on a holiday, and that's as near as actually taking a holiday abroad as doesn't matter? That's some pretty strange mental gymnastics.

You reckon I nearly did the wrong thing. So you clearly know it is in fact the wrong thing to do or have done bit you want me to back off because I "nearly" did it. Very odd thought process.

If you're asking by the way, I cancelled in tine for a refund. Think it was 42 days from travel. That's 6 weeks chief, so, yeah, not really a close call as such.

Imagine if I'd gone and had to cook up a story with the kids for the school and stuff. That alone would be unpleasant.

facehugger99

ecoli3136 wrote: »

Imagine if I'd gone and had to cook up a story with the kids for the school and stuff. That alone would be unpleasant.

Not as unpleasant as missing out on a holiday.

Delighted I got my kid's away from the misery and hysteria in Ireland. It's eye-opening how much better things are handled on the continent.

facehugger99

facehugger99 wrote: »

Not as unpleasant as missing out on a holiday.

Delighted I got my kid's away from the misery and hysteria in Ireland. It's eye-opening how much better things are handled on the continent.

I'm certainly glad we didn't miss out on a holiday. The misery and hysteria is in your own head.

Wallander

Van.Bosch wrote: »

While I agree I think there is a risk you bring Covid in but the test could still show negative due to incubation? Maybe I’m wrong?

You're certainly right this is a risk, I think even Varadkar cited this as a reason not to test at airports. It's a matter of whether we think borders are there to stop 100% of cases, or to manage the risk of importing cases while facilitating those who need or want to travel (which is already a much lower number than usual).


Given the large share of asymptomatic cases, I would argue it's much more useful to test people. Our system certainly has its own weaknesses in that many people may not be bothered to strictly restrict their movements.



I believe a couple of weeks ago Germany also started offering free tests at airports for anyone to take if they want, which I think is a very smart move for those who may have been in lower risk destinations but feel they ended up in a riskier situation there for whatever reason. Remember the WHO said right at the start that you need to test, test, test to manage Covid.

Gael23

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

Cawley has resigned

How stupid can you be?

Beanybabog

We’re due to travel Friday. Can only move Irish ferries to 2021 up to the 18th but also have to give 72 hours notice- so if they change it on the 18th given France won’t make the green list I’ve no time to change anyway. I feel rubbish about the whole thing. I don’t want to stay and lose €€ but also, I’m nervous about going, not due to the virus but more lockdowns, travel disruption etc. Top it all off with the social pressure and judgment it’s a horrible start to a holiday. (And before anyone asks we’re going to restrict movements 14 days after and have been fully upfront with work etc)