Often what seems easy, in fact, isn’t. When the International border began reopening in November 2021, we were sold the idea of “easy” travel bubbles to “safe” countries. This was meant to push travellers to insular, controlled packages in specific resorts/hotels. This raised more than a few eyebrows in the industry. Travellers packed together from all around the world in the same facility. What could go wrong!

What do you know, go wrong it did. Within weeks there were horror stories of people being dragged off to forced isolation in hotel rooms across Thailand and Fiji. Of greater concern, the volume of “false positives” coming out of a certain Fijian Government owned resort reached a level of impossibility considering the accuracy of PCR testing. A positive test resulted in 14 days of isolation and over ten thousand dollars of revenue for said resort. It was becoming about as fishy as the kokoda these travel deprived tourists were having for lunch. It took a lot of fighting for tourists to be “retested” and receive their (correct) negative result. I shudder to think how many spent 2 weeks locked up because they didn’t have the confidence to put their foot down.

So lets look outside of the bubble. I travelled to the UK when the border opened. There was no preflight testing, no isolation and no need to be forced into specific “tourist” accommodation. Before departure to Australia from London, I organised my own PCR test (that was negative) and received the results myself via email (without a resort/hotel acting as the middleman). Critically, this meant that had I received a positive result, I was free to isolate in accordance with local regulations at my own chosen facility. This is quite different to being frogmarched off to a resorts “isolation” wing for $550 per night.

For my upcoming trip to South Africa, this will be even easier. A test is still required by the Australian government to return home, however should I be unfortunate enough to test positive (which seems unlikely, given the low prevalence of Covid in ZA), the South African government no longer requires any isolation for asymptomatic cases. I’ll simply extend my hotel by a few nights and settle in for another round (well… several) of Savanna Dry and push my flight home. The Australian’s are happy to let us back into our own country 7 days after our positive result, so the worst case is a 4 day extension (given you test 3 days before departure). Inconvenient, yes, but not the end of the world.

The travel bubbles were a wonderful… well, thought bubble. But in practice, they’ve been quite the flop. Oh how the travel bubbles burst! When choosing between an open-air safari with a handful of guests or a packed island resort full of foreign tourists (complete with open buffets!), only one seems like an obvious Covid-Safe bet!

It’s time to start travelling again, so have a look at our Packages for inspiration. Don’t forget to keep an eye on Smart Traveller for the latest travel advice, or ask your Travel Agent